Processes
To understand processes of change, design, development, and learning.
Artifact
Project Description
My project in EdTec 670 was to design and create a board game. I worked with a two partners, Kim Imrie and Greg Johnson to design MathTrax, a board game designed for elementary school kids, primarily 3rd graders. The design document was submitted on the course Wiki. While I participated in the entire game design process, I was primarily responsible for the testing of the game.
Outcomes
The design of my 670 Board Game was a process of understanding change, design, development, and learning. My group had had a brief experience of reviewing two board games in EDTEC 670 while keeping in mind that we would have to design something ourselves. In the beginning, we met multiple times as a group to begin the design process with pen and paper, a dry erase board and our collective experience with playing board games.
We began a look for inspiration. Our inspiration came from the knowledge that Madera Unified third grade students had shown a slight dip in Math CST scores over the last two years. We thought that a game, when used to as a practice activity after concepts are taught, might help with skill reinforcement during the year.
Now, elaboration begins. We were able to leave or original notes and sketches on the whiteboard as we continued to meet during the last couple of weeks. This gave us a visual cue from which to start as we met each time. Through the process of iteration, we talked openly about what ideas we continued to like from our last meeting and what issues came up that we were not comfortable with. When one of the group brought up an issue, the problem was resolved. For instance: various procedures, rules, game play issues that didn’t sit well with us were reviewed and examined for improvement. The process of iteration and change through communication and constructive criticism led to a successful game development progress.
Challenges & Opportunities
While participating in the entire development process, my major contribution was in internal examination. Once the prototype game was created, it was time for me to take the game out for playtesting. I used volunteer 3rd grade teachers at three sites to test the game. My first playtest was geared to examining the functionality of the game. Once the initial play problems were resolved, I moved the game to the next step in the development process.
The second group of 3rd graders did evaluation of the game for the ‘fun’ quotient. It was necessary to look very carefully at what elements were making the game fun and what elements were distracting. Some slight modifications were necessary, and I was ready to move on to the final step in our process.
External examination was completed with the third group of students, without any interference or the influence of myself or the other members of design team. Again, some problems were discovered, so I took those concerns back to the design team to restart the modification process.
Lessons Learned
Through my work in this project I learned that I work well as a member of a group. Even though one of my group members was my boss, we were able to ignore the administrative hierarchy and work together with a mutual respect for ideas and opinions. This game design process really clarified the use of design processes. Without the ADDIE model to use as an initial guide for progress we would have been lost in the process. This design process led to a game that met the needs of the learners and the requirements of EdTec 670.
