What is the course about?
Course Summary
The course addresses the design and development of Serious Games. Serious Games are games that do not have entertainment as the main purpose but rather an educational, awareness raising, training, advertisement or other “serious” purpose that benefits from the engaging context that games provide to motivate the users. Serious Games have been typically used in education, training, health, defense and other sectors.
MOOC students will go through all the steps of the development of a Serious Educational Game from selecting the idea and binding it with learning goals to the development and testing of the game prototype in an environment that does not require programming skills. The programme of study will allow students to understand the process of idealizing, designing, developing, testing and delivering a game. At the same time, students will benefit from a hands-on experience, working in intercultural and interdisciplinary teams, exploiting the expertise of an international team of participating teachers and industry experts.
What do I learn?
The course objective is to allow students understand the process of idealizing, designing, developing, testing and delivering a serious game.
In the end, students will be able to...
- Understand and comment the main concepts of game culture and digital game theory
- Analyze game taxonomies and identify the specific characteristics of each game type
- Carry out analyses and user tests to understand users’ demands and needs and convert them into serious game requisites (including learning objectives for game-based learning)
- Understand and apply serious game methodologies
- Understand the concepts related to game play, game flow, interactive narratives, storytelling and apply them in practice to develop an addictive game
- List the main tools (game editors) available to develop games and to identify the best one for a specific purpose
- Use a specific game editor to develop a serious game
- Idealize, design, develop, test and deliver a serious game
What do I need to know?
Basic computer and internet skills
Workload
Approximately 5 hours per week for watching video lectures, taking quizzes and completing homework assignments.
Course instructors
Prof. Carlos Vaz de Carvalho
I'm currently Professor at the Computer Eng. Dep. of the Engineering School of the Porto Polytechnic (ISEP). I'm also Director of Virtual Campus Lda, an SME dedicated to Technology Enhanced Learning and Serious Games.
I have a PhD (2001) in Technologies and Information Systems from the University of Minho, focusing on the use of e-learning in Higher Education.
As professor, I've lectured more than 20 different courses on Algorithms, Programming, Data Structures, E-Learning and Multimedia. Currently I'm lecturing Serious Games Design and Multimedia Application Development. I was responsible for planning and developing the syllabuses and materials for most of these courses.
I started my research career in 1988 at INESC in the Computer Graphics Group. In 1996, I focused in Technology Enhanced Learning while doing my PhD at the University of Minho. From 2005 to 2014, I was Scientific Coordinator of GILT R&D (Games, Interaction and Learning Technologies). I've directed eight PhD and 40 MSc theses and authored over 200 publications and communications, including more than ten books (as author and editor). I coordinated 16 national and European projects and participated in more than 20 other projects. I worked as an expert for the European Commission and associated agencies in the scope of the Socrates-ODL, Minerva, E-Learning, E-Contents Plus, Lifelong Learning and Erasmus+ programmes.
On the management side, I directed the Distance Education Unit of the Porto Polytechnic from 1997 until 2000. From 2001 until 2005 I was E-Learning Director of ISEP and served as Dean of the Computer Eng. Dep. between 2003 and 2005. Between 2011 and 2013 I was President of the Portuguese Chapter of the IEEE Education Society.
Martin Sillaots
Lets play!
Joze Rugelj
I am Associate Professor of Computer Science in Education at the University of Ljubljana and a head of the Chair for compuer science didcatics at the Faculty of Education. My main research areas include use of ICT in education, cognitive aspects of multimedia support for learning, serious games in education, and innovative approaches to teaching computer science. I have been supervisor to 6 Ph.D. students.
I have actively participated in 7 European and 4 national projects on e-learning and serious games. The results of my research have been published 11 papers published in international scientific journals, 58 papers in conference proceedings and 13 chapters in scientific monographies.
I am looking forward to spend some time with you!
Olivier Heidmann
I'm a lead developer and designer in serious games projects, responsible for designing and creating virtual experiment demonstrators. I have a Master Degree in Parallel Computing from the Louis Pasteur University of Strasbourg, France. I taught computer science, mathematics and management to students ranging from 14 years old to adults for 7 years. Since 2004, I participated in more than a dozen different EC-funded projects, using ICT and web-based solutions to enhance the teaching and learning methodologies and tools. I have published several papers at international conferences over the past 10 years.
Paula Escudeiro
I am a Professor in the master class of the Multimedia and Learning Technologies at the Engineering Institute of Porto. I am the Director of the research group GILT (Games Interaction and Learning Technology) and the responsible for Quality at the European network for Serious Games.
