Comments on: Individualized?! That’s what they all say! http://www.dreambox.com/blog/individualized-that%e2%80%99s-what-they-all-say Math Learning, Fun & Education Blog : Dreambox Learning Fri, 23 Oct 2009 16:58:17 -0700 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.5 hourly 1 By: axcho http://www.dreambox.com/blog/individualized-that%e2%80%99s-what-they-all-say/comment-page-1#comment-434 axcho Fri, 13 Feb 2009 20:46:02 +0000 http://www.dreambox.com/blog/?p=1205#comment-434 "Our expert educators have created a deep, standards-based math curriculum with hundreds of interactive lessons. Our designers have wrapped those lessons in fun game-based adventures." It looks like you've already revealed a few hints, on your Vision page. ;) So, you started with the curriculum, the lesson plan, and then created games around those? Makes sense. Though I'd imagine there would probably be some back-and-forth between the games and the curriculum rather than a simple one-way flow. “Our expert educators have created a deep, standards-based math curriculum with hundreds of interactive lessons. Our designers have wrapped those lessons in fun game-based adventures.”

It looks like you’ve already revealed a few hints, on your Vision page. ;) So, you started with the curriculum, the lesson plan, and then created games around those? Makes sense. Though I’d imagine there would probably be some back-and-forth between the games and the curriculum rather than a simple one-way flow.

]]> By: Lou Gray http://www.dreambox.com/blog/individualized-that%e2%80%99s-what-they-all-say/comment-page-1#comment-411 Lou Gray Tue, 10 Feb 2009 00:07:56 +0000 http://www.dreambox.com/blog/?p=1205#comment-411 Axcho, Again, thank you for your post and questions. As you might imagine, the details of "how" we handle our adaptions are proprietary. So I apologize for the lack of advice. Best, Lou Axcho,

Again, thank you for your post and questions.

As you might imagine, the details of “how” we handle our adaptions are proprietary. So I apologize for the lack of advice.

Best,

Lou

]]> By: axcho http://www.dreambox.com/blog/individualized-that%e2%80%99s-what-they-all-say/comment-page-1#comment-396 axcho Thu, 05 Feb 2009 20:30:42 +0000 http://www.dreambox.com/blog/?p=1205#comment-396 Interesting. Given that you have so many lessons, how did you determine how they all are organized and how they flow into each other? I'm curious whether you came up with a bunch of lessons/games and then organized them, or whether you had a list of skills and criteria and figured out how they'd need to build on each other and then designed the games to fill in that framework. For games dealing with domains that are not predefined, like a typical physics-based game, <a href="http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-211904372977336908" rel="nofollow">it has been suggested</a> that the developer should just come up with a ton of different levels, and only arrange them afterward in order of difficulty (the example refers to linear level progression, but I imagine it could work fairly well for a nonlinear structure as well). This is simply because it is almost impossible to predict the difficulty of a challenge in an unknown domain until you test it out. But for a game where you are trying to teach a certain set of skills and concepts, it seems like it might make more sense to come up with a skill chain progression and then design the games or levels around that. Are you familiar with Daniel Cook's <a href="http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/1524/the_chemistry_of_game_design.php" rel="nofollow">skill chain</a> model of game design? He has some good advice on <a href="http://lostgarden.com/2008/06/what-actitivies-that-can-be-turned-into.html" rel="nofollow">systematically turning non-game activities into games</a>. His advice is not so much about game design process so much as guidelines and criteria, so I'm curious how you actually approached the process, how you balanced between games-first versus skills-first. This is something I am directly struggling with in my own work on <a href="http://fold.it/" rel="nofollow">Foldit</a>, the protein-folding game. I've been trying to revamp the intro puzzles to more adequately equip players with the skills and knowledge necessary to fold proteins effectively and accurately. At the same time I have to make it more fun, so players will want to keep playing. Fortunately, those two goals coincide more often than not. :) At this point I have come up with what I think may be a more appropriate skill chain progression, but have not yet been able to begin redesigning the levels to match it. There are still a number of infrastructure changes to make to support a more expressive puzzle presentation and feedback. Any suggestions for me? Interesting. Given that you have so many lessons, how did you determine how they all are organized and how they flow into each other? I’m curious whether you came up with a bunch of lessons/games and then organized them, or whether you had a list of skills and criteria and figured out how they’d need to build on each other and then designed the games to fill in that framework.

For games dealing with domains that are not predefined, like a typical physics-based game, it has been suggested that the developer should just come up with a ton of different levels, and only arrange them afterward in order of difficulty (the example refers to linear level progression, but I imagine it could work fairly well for a nonlinear structure as well). This is simply because it is almost impossible to predict the difficulty of a challenge in an unknown domain until you test it out.

But for a game where you are trying to teach a certain set of skills and concepts, it seems like it might make more sense to come up with a skill chain progression and then design the games or levels around that. Are you familiar with Daniel Cook’s skill chain model of game design? He has some good advice on systematically turning non-game activities into games. His advice is not so much about game design process so much as guidelines and criteria, so I’m curious how you actually approached the process, how you balanced between games-first versus skills-first.

This is something I am directly struggling with in my own work on Foldit, the protein-folding game. I’ve been trying to revamp the intro puzzles to more adequately equip players with the skills and knowledge necessary to fold proteins effectively and accurately. At the same time I have to make it more fun, so players will want to keep playing. Fortunately, those two goals coincide more often than not. :)

At this point I have come up with what I think may be a more appropriate skill chain progression, but have not yet been able to begin redesigning the levels to match it. There are still a number of infrastructure changes to make to support a more expressive puzzle presentation and feedback. Any suggestions for me?

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