Search results for "Game programming"
showing 10 items of 10 documents
Conquer the Net: An educational computer game to learn the basic configuration of networking components
2009
Advanced networking equipment is relatively expensive and student access to it is usually limited to scheduled times at computer laboratories within the university premises. Hence, it is important to make the most effective use of the time assigned and minimize the time that students spend in activities which can be performed outside the laboratory sessions. Familiarizing with the basic configuration commands is one such activity. We have developed a computer game to allow students to learn these in a motivating and pleasant environment. This game has been designed so that rules are easily learned and both cooperative and competitive learning are promoted. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Com…
Simulation as a game design tool
2009
In this paper we suggest using gameplay simulations on a logical event level as a design tool already in the early stages of the development process. The approach is centred on abstracting all unnecessary details of the gameplay to produce a highly simplified model of the game system. Compared to other kinds of intermediate design representations, such as sketches and prototypes, the simulations can reveal problems and opportunities in the longer term dynamics of possible gameplay. As an example we describe an implementation of a simulation model for the game Tower Bloxx using a simulation software package called DisCo.
Identifying Pathways to Computer Science : The Long-Term Impact of Short-Term Game Programming Outreach Interventions
2019
Short-term outreach interventions are conducted to raise young students’ awareness of the computer science (CS) field. Typically, these interventions are targeted at K–12 students, attempting to encourage them to study CS in higher education. This study is based on a series of extra-curricular outreach events that introduced students to the discipline of computing, nurturing creative computational thinking through problem solving and game programming. To assess the long-term impact of this campaign, the participants were contacted and interviewed two to five years after they had attended an outreach event. We studied how participating in the outreach program affected the students’ perceptio…
Computer Science Outreach Workshop and Interest Development: A Longitudinal Study
2018
This longitudinal study investigates the impact of an extra-curricular programming workshop in student interest development in computer science. The workshop was targeted at 12–18-year old youngsters. A survey was sent to all previous participants with a known home address; 31.5% responded the survey (n = 197). This data was then combined with pre-workshop survey data, and analyzed with mixed methods. Positive development of interest was discovered for 57% of the respondents, of which nearly all attributed their interest increase to the workshop at least partly (92%). Qualitative inspection revealed that the workshop provided three anchors that facilitated students’ reengagement with progra…
Five Years of Game Programming Outreach : Understanding Student Differences
2014
This paper presents lessons learned from five years of teaching a five-day game design and programming outreach course. The course was offered in summer time and targeted at middle and high school students. In total, 462 youngsters have taken part in 21 course instances. We describe our course concept, and discuss our successes and challenges. In particular, we focus on understanding our student populations by presenting descriptives and statistics of the events, and performing a statistical cluster analysis based on pre- and post-surveys. The cluster analysis was complemented with an analysis of the qualitative data, also originating from the surveys. Taken together, students could be clas…
Life two years after a game programming course: longitudinal viewpoints on K-12 outreach
2012
In our faculty we have run week-long K-12 game programming courses now for three summers. In this paper we investigate what programming-related activities students do after they take a course, and what factors in the students' background relate to post-course programming. We also investigate a possible change in the students' interest towards higher education science studies. We find that most students continue programming after the course and that their interest towards science studies keeps increasing. In student background we observed some indicative trends, but did not find reliable explaining factors related to post-course programming or increased interest towards science studies.
On the impact of computer science outreach events on K-12 students
2016
Many countries have begun to adopt computer science (CS) and computational thinking (CT) into national curricula of compulsory education and upper secondary education. It is argued that learning rigorous CS concepts not only secures a workforce for the future’s digital industries but also benefits all students by improving their problem-solving and logical reasoning skills. However, the popularity of CS as a university major declined in the beginning of the 21st century, resulting in the development of a range of student outreach activities to engage young students in the study of computing. This thesis originated from this need to attract and retain students in the CS field. The focus of thi…
High school students' perspective to university CS1
2013
This paper presents a qualitative study of a school-university collaborative project where a game-themed CS1 course was offered as-is to high school students. Our specific interest was to explore the students' experiences with the university level course. Our analyses indicate that immediate and regular support was highly important for student performance, as support of this kind could mitigate issues related to students' orientation towards the high workload of the course. Students who showed academic interest were likely to pass, whereas students lacking self-direction or work efficiency were likely to drop out. Both passed and drop-outs found the course to be a good learning experience. …
Understanding differences among coding club students
2014
Scholars and instructors have been carrying out a multitude of actions to increase students' interest in computer science during the past years. Still, there is a need for knowledge on how these attempts develop student interest. In this qualitative study, we construct illustrative categories out of students who have attended our K-12 coding club and game programming summer course activities. We found four categories: Inactivity, Lack of self-direction, Experimenting, and Professionalism. We also briefly project this abstraction onto a four-phase model of interest development.