Objective

There is much research interest resulting in important questions about computer games and how they might be used to foster education (see Prensky 2001); (Gee 2003; Kirriemuir and MacFarlane 2004). This study is prompted based on the need for advice and guidance for including appropriate disaster education content in the design of educational or serious games. The work is carried out through an evidence-based approach by considering strengths and shortcomings of existing and newly developed disaster education games. This study catalyzes a collaborative effort between disaster education game designers at the UN-ISDR and a multidisciplinary group of risk reduction and disaster management experts who develop and implement educational materials. The aim of this work is to make a contribution towards developing effective disaster education games that go beyond just raising "awareness".

Outcomes

The study will look at the anatomy of a number of online disaster education computer games, including UN-ISDR's Stop Disasters! and Riskland, and develop a set of guidelines and recommendations for creating better and more effective games for disaster management education. In particular, the study will address the following issues:

1. Considerations needed to support the effective design and use of computer games for disaster education and training
2. Understanding the barriers to engaging children in using computer games for disaster education for sustained periods of time
3. Developing a set of specific computer game disaster education content standards for earthquake, flood, and fire risk reduction
4. Designing surveys and collection of data that examine the efficacy of these learning games in terms of education content standards developed in (3)
5. Exploring options for revamping old pedagogy changes in schools that might be needed to take advantage of games for disaster education of children

Benefits and barriers to engaging children or students in using computer games for disaster education

Principles of Well-designed Game for Children in Disaster Risk Reduction Education

(Initial template based on comments by Ilan Kelman and Kirriemuir (2004) and Wright (2007))--Khazai 03:23, 20 July 2007 (PDT)

• Goal-directed vs. Sandbox Model?

There is a debate about what games are more effective educational tools, goal-oriented games or "Sand-box" games. A sandbox-style video game is a video game with an open-ended and non-linear style of gameplay. This free-form experimentation is either an end unto itself - in contrast to competing models of gaming - or is a variant modality that has no effect on more traditional or usual play of the same game, such as scores, game level advancement milestones, player rankings etc. Just as a real-world sandbox can be smoothed out and resculpted again and again, so the sandbox game or game mode can be played and explored repeatedly without a linear "plot" or a particular set of expectations, nor any lasting game-play consequences. Some traditional goal-oriented games, sometimes offer a sandbox mode, usually an option that allows the player more freedom by lifting some of the normal rules of gameplay. The best selling PC game of all time, The Sims, is a sandbox-style creation.

If the game is goal-directed, then some criteria to gauge its effectiveness may include:

• Ability to concentrate on task

• Task provides immediate feedback

• Failure-based or Evidence-based learning

Will Wright, original designer of popular computer games such as SimCity and The Sims, emphasizes a “failure-based” aspect to game learning as a method which allows the user to experiment with his/her failures, leading to the exploration and discovery of their own principles (Wright, 2007). This is particularly relevant in disaster education games, where a large amount of failure space, for example in failed mitigation methods, allows the user to develop insight into principles that might work better and thus seeing these principles from an personalized, evidence-based perspective rather than being overtly “taught” these principles by the game. For failure-based or evidence-based learning to be effective, the underlying structure of the game has to comply with scientific and real-world principles. For example, the should be a limited use of random elements. In games such as UN-ISDR's Stop Disasters! dice are used whereas a helpful message would be that disasters are seldom random, usually resulting from society's choices.

• Cooperation vs. Competition

That includes no element of competition with or battle against nature. Instead, disaster risk reduction games should promote cooperation with each other and with nature in order to achieve benefits for everyone. cooperative games promote a more helpful ethos. Accepting vulnerability as the root cause of disaster suggests that either everyone in a community wins or loses, that humanity (and not random events) has the choices for tackling vulnerability, and that one uncooperative individual can ruin the game for everyone.

• Ability to Create Content

Another important principle, emphasized by Will Wright (Wright, 2007), is content creation. Wright argues that when you have the ability to make things you have a tremendous empathy with your created content.

• Calibration on long-term thinking'

Powerful educational computer games can provide calibration on long-term thinking (Wright, 2007). Game simulations can take a lot of long-term dynamics and compress them into very short term experiences. It is very hard for people to see 50-100 years out, but if they can experience long-term dynamics in just a few minutes, the game simulations can remap and recalibrate their instincts across vast scales of both space and time. A good measure of success in how a computer game transfers knowledge on disaster reduction, is how effective it is in re-calibrating our intuition and ability for long-term thinking.

• Deep but effortless involvement

Losing awareness of worry and frustration of everyday activity

• Exercising a sense of control over our actions

• Concern for self disappears during "flow", but sense of self is stronger after flow activity

Rather than aiming for an experience that superficially resembles leisure-based ‘fun’ activities, or one which attempts to conceal the educational purpose, it might be argued that we should understand the deep structures of the games play experience that contribute to "flow" and build these into environments designed to support learning. The conditions likely to induce the flow state are characterised by Malone (1980) as:

• the activity should be structured so that the player can increase or decrease the level of challenges faced, in order to match exactly personal skills with the requirements for actionm.
• it should be easy to isolate the activity, at least at the perceptual level, from other stimuli, external or internal, which might interfere with involvement in it.
• there should be clear criteria for performance; a player should be able to evaluate how well or how poorly (s)he is doing at any time.
• the activity should provide concrete feedback to the player, so that (s)he can tell how well (s)he is meeting the criteria of performance.
• the activity ought to have a broad range of challenges, and possibly several qualitatively different ranges of challenge, so that the player may obtain increasingly complex information about different aspects of her/himself.
  

• Sense of duration of time is altered

Content standards, exemplars and goals for online-based disaster education games

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Publications, Literature Reviews, Web Articles, Blogs, etc. (ALPHABETICAL by AUTHOR)

Archer, Caitlin "Gaming for Young Humanitarians" - Blog on Reuters AlertNet [9]

Dhavse,Raseka (2007) "Snakes and Ladders arming children against disasters", India Together, Nov. 27. [17]

Federation of American Scientists (2006) "Summit on Educational Games 2006: Harnessing the Power of Video Games for Learning" [16]

Futurelab - Great Site with lots of resources (i.e. Literature Reviews, Discussion Papers, Web Articles on Computer Games and Learning) [2]

Gee, Paul 2003 "Good Video Games and Good Learning" [4]

Gee, Paul (2005) The Classroom of Popular Culture Image:Example.jpg[[[[Media:http://www.edletter.org/current/gee.shtml]

Hammer, Jessica "podcast: Interview with Jessica Hammer on video games as learning tools for children - for the full interview (8:23) [11]

Kirriemuir et al, 2004 "Literature Review in Games and Learning" [5] Owen, Martin 2004 "An Anatomy of Games" [6]

Kirriemuir, 2004 "Games and Learning" [8]

Lofgren and Fefferman "The untapped potential of virtual game worlds to shed light on real world epidemics" BBC News article [12] Abstract of academic paper [13]

Prensky, Marc 2001 "Digital Game-based Learning" [3]

Sandia computer scientists and USC student gamemakers create disaster-training tool [1]

Sefton-Green, Julian "Informal Learning with Technology outside School" Literature Review [10]

Summit on Educational Games Report [7]

Watson, William R. (2007) "FORMATIVE RESEARCH ON AN INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN THEORY FOR EDUCATIONAL VIDEO GAMES" [15]

Wright, Will (2007) "Technology, Entertainment and Design (TED) Talk - Toys that make Worlds" [14]