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STEAM education enables the cross-curricular study of subjects based on their naturally occurring relationships through holistic and integrated methods. Narratives are enablers of STEAM learning environments, something that is evident in the exploration of narrative learning from pre-recorded history until present. Narrative Digital Game-Based Learning (DGBL) use narratives to drive the game. The extended Ludo Narrative Variable Model (the Variable Model) is a narratological model for categorization of narrative DGBL. Empirical evidence from categorizing narrative DGBL on the Variable Model shows that there is a particular set of categories that incur positive effects on engagement, motivation, and learning. This article introduces the eLuna co-design framework that builds on these categories and empowers educators to participate alongside game developers in multidisciplinary design and development of narrative DGBL. eLuna comprises 1) a four-phase co-design method, and 2) a visual language to support the co-design and co-specification of the game to a blueprint that can be implement by game developers. Idun’s Apples, a narrative DGBL co-designed, co-specified, and implemented into a prototype using eLuna, is presented to illustrate the use of the method and visual language. Arguing that narrative DGBL are vessels for STEAM learning, seven eLuna co-designed games are examined to illustrate that they support STEAM. The article concludes that narrative DGBL co-designed using the eLuna framework provide high opportunity and potential for supporting STEAM, providing educators and game developers with a STEAM co-design framework that enforces positive effects on engagement, motivation, and learning.
Teaching and learning in STEAM allows for cross-curricular study of subjects based on their naturally occurring relationships through holistic and integrated methods. STEAM integrates Arts with STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics). • Science: • Technology: • Engineering: • Arts: • Mathematics:
Research has shown that games and narrative learning environments have the potential to address Arts and embed it within study of STEM subjects. An example is illustrated by
The research presented in this article enforces this position by first exploring narrative learning traditions in a historic perspective, before placing an emphasis on narratives in digital game-based learning (DGBL) and showing how DGBL, too, are narratives that enable cross-curricular learning environments for STEAM subjects. Having established that narrative (digital) gamed-based learning supports STEAM, the eLuna framework, a multidisciplinary co-design framework for developing narrative DGBL, is presented and its use illustrated through a description of the co-design of a narrative DGBL named Idun’s Apples. Then, seven narrative DGBL that were co-designed using the eLuna framework (including Idun’s Apples) are investigated for their support of STEAM education. The findings and discussion argue that eLuna is usable as a multidisciplinary co-design and specification framework for creating effective narrative DGBL that supports STEAM education.
This section explores narratives and their application for STEAM from a historical perspective, before presenting narrative digital game-based learning (DGBL) and showing how these can be considered STEAM learning environments. Then, perspectives on, and requirements for, co-design frameworks for both STEAM and DGBL are presented.
Narratives use to support learning dates to prehistoric times. People started formulating narratives alongside developing speech, and these emergent narratives soon included units of information enabling humans to learn about themselves and the worlds in which they lived (
In current research, Digital Game-Based Learning (DGBL) (
The trend of narrative DGBL that support cross-curricular learning of naturally occurring relationships in STEAM subjects continues in modern times. An example is found in the Crystal Island DGBL (
Narrative DGBL is a media with high potential to enrich STEAM environments in education. STEAM environments allow for holistic and integrated cross-curricular study of subjects based on their naturally occurring relationship with one another requiring multidiscipline educators involved in the development of learning materials. As Hunter-Doniger et al. (2017) have pointed out, STEM educators need methods to integrate culturally relevant arts in education to properly deliver STEAM structures in education. Observing difficulties to transdisciplinary teaching, arts integration, and collaborative learning,
Similarly, the design and development of narrative DGBL requires a multidisciplinary team and an approach that enables and empowers educators and game designers in their co-design of narrative DGBL. As pointed out by
Narrative DGBL is most effective in reaching learning goals when the narratives are designed as non-linear (
The eLuna framework (see
The eLuna framework.
A DGBL can be categorized according to how it meets elements of a game and a narrative that is defined by ontologies that includes a world, objects, agents, and events, described more fully in
The eLuna framework targets narrative DGBL categories identified in the extended Ludo Narrative Variable Model (the Variable Model) that have been shown to incur positive effects on engagement, motivation, and learning, termed fully positive effects (
The extended Ludo Narrative Variable Model, highlighting the categories associated with positive effects on engagement, motivation, and learning (
Ontology polarity | World | Objects | Agents | Events |
---|---|---|---|---|
|
Inaccessible | Non-interactable | Deep, rich, round | Fully plotted |
High author agency | Single room | Static, usable | Grounded, consistent | N/A |
Linear corridor | Modifiable | Sensible | Linear fixed kernels, dynamic satellites | |
Multicursal labyrinth | Destructible | Flat | Interchangeable fixed kernels, dynamic or fixed satellites | |
High game agency | Hub shaped quest landscape | Creatable | Stereotypical | Dynamic kernels |
|
Open landscape | Inventible | Bots, no individual identity | No kernels (pure game) |
As can be seen in • Hubshaped Quest Landscape: • Modifiable Objects: • Grounded and Consistent Agents: • Interchangeable Fixed Kernels:
As seen from the characteristics, a narrative DGBL associated with fully positive effects is a system in which the player/learner guide describes characters using complex objects to perform tasks in select and non-deterministic sequences in an expanding world where pre-written chapters of a story are experienced in optional sequences. The eLuna framework targets the categories that are associated with fully positive effects. The next sections present the eLuna method and visual language.
The eLuna method has been iteratively developed through three co-design workshops in which 2 teams of co-designers (20 in all), all with background from education (10 teachers from high school to university college levels), educational technologies (six experts holding PhDs in Technology Enhanced Learning related areas), or DGBL development (four developers from the serious games industry) followed the method. Each workshop was facilitated and moderated by a researcher, was evaluated by the co-designers, and the method was updated before the next workshop. Thus, the three workshops resulted in six narrative DGBL co-designs.
The eLuna method.
Phase | Activity | Participants | |
---|---|---|---|
1 Preparation | 1.1 Summarize curriculum goal(s) | Educators | |
1.2 Define content area(s) and learning goals | Educators | ||
1.3 Describe learner demographic | Educators | ||
1.4 Describe learning situation | Educators | ||
Simplified and flexible visual language | 2 Co-design | 2.1 Present preparatory work | Educators and Game Developers |
2.2 Design the Agents | Educators and Game Developers | ||
2.3 Design the World | Educators and Game Developers | ||
2.4 Design the Objects | Educators and Game Developers | ||
2.5 Design the Events | Educators and Game Developers | ||
Complete and strict visual language | 3 Co-Specification | 3.1 Specifying the hubs and quests | Educators and Game Developers |
3.2 Specifying Agents and Objects in quests | Educators and Game Developers | ||
3.3 Specifying Agents dialogues | Educators and Game Developers | ||
3.4 Specifying Events narrative passages | Educators and Game Developers | ||
4 Development | 4.1 Developing the narrative DGBL | Game developers | |
4.2 Deploying the narrative DGBL | Game developers |
Educators work alone during the Preparatory phase to identify the curriculum goals, the content area and/or learning objectives, the learner demographic, and the learning situation. Educators and Game developers work together in the Co-Design phase supported by a simplified version of the visual language (see
The eLuna visual language has been developed to support the co-design and co-specification phases. By employing colour coding for different ontologies, red for Agents, green, blue, and purple for World, orange for objects, and purple for events, and additionally, graphical notation to indicate elements for all ontologies, the eLuna visual language provides a structured way to describe a narrative DGBL. In the design phase a simplified and flexible version of the visual language is employed, meaning that the participants can, if they need, resort to other descriptive techniques so as not to stop the work due to expressive difficulties or ambiguities. In the specification phase a complete and strict version of the visual language is employed, ensuring that all narrative DGBL elements are unambiguously described. The next four sub-sections present and describe the elements of the eLuna visual language ontology by ontology in the sequence that they are used in the eLuna framework design phase: Agents, World, Objects, and finally Events.
Agents constitute the characters of the narrative DGBL. Agents are drawn as persons using red notation colour, and in the design phase, eLuna co-designers create biographies for them each on a separate paper. The biographies are free form, and contain the personal details of the agents, as well as a description of their role in the narrative DGBL such as which responsibilities and authorities they have, and their skills and competencies related to the learning objectives. To enable grounded and consistent agents, they are also described in terms of personality, such as their goals in life, their worries and fears, and their social and personal lives.
The eLuna visual language.
As
Worlds are constructed as a set of hubs that are drawn as green circles and labelled and named sequences of tasks drawn as blue circles. Tasks are combined in logical sequences to identify narrative DGBL quests, which are labelled and drawn as purple lines connecting several tasks. Hubs constitute relevant areas in the world where agents can exist and work to solve quests enabling learners to complete the game by completing tasks related to learning objectives.
An eLuna world comprise several hubs, all with one or more quest attached to it, drawn using the elements shown in
Objects are drawn as orange boxes and labelled to indicate what they represent. In the eLuna visual language objects can serve four purposes. Two objects can be combined to form a new object (such as adding a seed to soil to get a sprout), or an object can be inserted into another object to alter the purpose (such as changing the bore or screwing bit on an electric drill). Objects can also be altered (parameterized) to fit desired functionality (such as setting the program on a washing machine for washing different garments), or objects can provide information (such as searching for something in a browser and following links to relevant content).
As
Events are drawn as purple lines from tasks to other tasks and are triggered by a player’s successful completion of quest tasks either by one task opening another, multiple tasks opening another, or by one task opening multiple tasks (see
Every time an event occurs, all elements (actors, hubs, quests, tasks, or objects) can be created, read, updated, or deleted in the narrative DGBL. Furthermore, the game state can be saved to conserve the progression and allow for breaks, and to provide data for learning analytics. At event occurrences, narrative sequence can also be defined and transmitted. Finally, the learner can be directed to complete learning objective related operations outside of the narrative DGBL, such as completing a quiz, submitting an assignment, participating in a group session, and similar.
This section illustrates the use of the eLuna framework by one educator and two game designers to develop a narrative digital game-based learning (DGBL), Idun’s Apples, from the preparatory work to the final game prototype. Idun’s Apples is related to a learning program envisioned at the Bergen Science Centre
The Responsible Production and Consumption program at VilVite focuses partially on a curriculum related to climate challenges from food produce production and logistics, and the opportunities and advantages related to local food production. The program is targeted at upper elementary and high school pupils. The learning objectives are related to the content areas: 1) climate gas emissions from food and produce production and logistics, 2) health regulations for food production and commerce, and 3) finances and economics related to sustaining local production and sales of produce. The learning situation is part of a threefold program structure where the narrative DGBL is intended to be part of a preparatory experience in which pupils explore the concept in a school’s computer lab before visiting the science center to conduct related physical experiments using interactive science exhibits. The preparatory foundation for the further work on Idun’s Apples is summarized as the following: • Curriculum goal(s): • Content area(s) and learning objective(s): • Learner demographic: • Learning situation:
During this phase the educator and the two game developers worked together using the information from
Co-designed eLuna narrative DGBL 1 through 6, elements identified by category.
# | Grounded and consistent agents | Hubshaped quest landscape | Modifiable objects | Interchangeable fixed kernels |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | • The man in the woods |
• The man’s farm |
• Physical barriers |
• The man making barriers and traps |
2 | • The wife |
• The married couples house |
• Fishing equipment |
• The husband going to and returning from fishing |
3 | • The intern |
• Reception |
• Registration tablet |
• Arrival and registration of patients |
4 | • The old man |
• The classroom |
• Any kind of equipment used in the professions that can be explored, e.g., fire hoses, medical equipment, computer programs, machines, and so on | • Visiting the old man |
5 | • The girl |
• Mountain bike tracks |
• Bikes |
• Getting public or private funding |
6 | • The juveniles with various appearances and concerns related to puberty |
• The classroom |
• Pop artifacts |
• Posting something on social media, or seeing a post |
eLuna targets grounded and consistent agents, and these are described first. In the design phase, the co-designers focus on the details of the agents, who they are, their roles, responsibilities, and authority, their backgrounds, and their goals. As such, co-designers in the design phase do not use the elements of the visual language when describing actors, these details are added during the following specification phase. In the Idun’s Apples game, the protagonist Idun was described first.
eLuna agents design phase.
The co-designers also identified 13 additional agents for the narrative DGBL: 1. Idun’s Son, Rubin: 2. Farmer’s Market representative, Steinar: 3. Bureaucrat, Lars: 4. Politician, Hildegunn: 5. Urban farmer, Lise: 6. Food and sanitation inspector, Günther: 7. Café owner, James: 8. Librarian, Rikke: 9. Park owner, Konstantin: 10. Supermarket clerk, Ivan: 11. Supermarket clerk, Igor: 12. Culture fund manager, Dina: 13. Gallery owner, Sara: C
In eLuna, the world is constructed as a set of locations (hubs) where sequences of tasks may be performed to reach objectives (quests). Co-designers are encouraged to brainstorm hubs and to define quests that logically belong at the locations. Then, in as much detail as possible, the quests are broken down into sequences of tasks that must be completed in sequence to complete the quest. In Idun’s Apples, the co-designers identified 10 hubs of relevance, shown in
eLuna hubs and quests design phase.
In the next step, the co-designers identified 27 quests related to the 10 hubs. The quests were broken down from between one and three tasks per quest (there are no minimum or maximum number of tasks in quests, this was only the range that came out of the Idun’s Apples design phase), resulting in a total of 63 tasks in the game.
As seen from • Lise’s house: • Supermarket: • Café: • Farmer’s Market central office: • Town Hall: • Lise’s Urban Farm: • Park: • Culture foundation: • Library: • Art Center:
The individual tasks in the quests are left out of the above list, however, they are described in
eLuna places emphasis on objects that can be modified in three ways: combinable, insertable, or parameterizable. Furthermore, objects can provide information, be observed by agents, used by agents, or given by agents to other agents. During this step, co-designers are encouraged to identify as many objects as possible that are applicable for the game, define their types, and indicate in which hub these objects belong if any, as some objects, like mobile phones or credit cards, can be carried around and used many places. When designing Idun’s Apples, the co-design process resulted in 12 modifiable objects.
eLuna objects design phase.
As seen in
The final step is to design the events. eLuna events are interchangeable and fixed, meaning that they are pre-written (fixed), and that they can be observed by the players in various sequences from play through to play through (interchangeable), depending on how different players decide to proceed with the game. Revisiting the design of the world (chapter 3.2.2), the first events to be identified are all the lines that have been drawn between tasks belonging to the same quests. Further events are identified by examining the logic of the game that has been designed so far and using the visual language lines to draw events as they occur between tasks that belong to different quests in the same hub or in other hubs. At the start of events design, a special one-off event that initiates the game is defined, pointing to all tasks that will be available when a player starts a new game play session.
For the Idun’s Apples world design, it is known that Idun wants to plant tomatoes with Rubin and make a shopping list for dinner. The co-designers decided to allow both quests to be available at game start, and that both should be completed before Idun can go to the supermarket to make her purchases. At the supermarket she will discover that the supermarket only carries imported goods. As shown in
eLuna events design phase.
At the supermarket, Idun also gets the opportunity to learn about Farmer’s Markets from a fellow customer, which is a one-to-one event (Event 3) opening a task allowing her to search for information about Farmer’s Markets on the computer in her house. Similarly, the co-designers decided to allow Idun to visit the café, where she can talk to the owner and learn about Lise, a conversation leading to another one-to-one event (Event 4), opening a task at her computer where she can search out Lise on social media.
In the Idun’s Apples design, the co-designers mapped out events to the point in the game where Idun travels to meet Steinar at the Farmer’s Market, and Lise at her Urban Farm, as this was as far as the narrative DGBL prototype would be implemented.
As seen from
After identifying and connecting all events in the design, the co-designers carry on using the visual language to indicate what the individual events causes. The events are listed as connected through tasks, and details are provided. For example, when Idun has found imported produce and is ready to pay, the co-designers want to move a fellow customer to the payment counter so that Idun can have the talk about the Farmer’s Market, save the game, and play a narrative sequence about climate gas emission from logistics. Equally, when Idun has received information about Lise at the café, they want Idun’s computer at home to get a social media tab under its browser where Lise’s Urban Farm can be found and save the game. Once the Farmer’s Market organization has been found, they want to allow Idun to send them an email through her computer’s mail client, save the game, and instruct the player to leave the game to complete a reflection note about Farmer’s Markets based on what they have discovered so far.
The three examples show events can go from tasks in different quests in the same hub (Event 5), from tasks in quests in one hub to tasks in quests in other hubs (Event 6), and from one task to the next task in the same quest (Event 7).
Whereas
With regards to game structure, The full design in the supplementary materials differs from
In the co-specification phase, the co-designers employ the full eLuna visual language to create a strict and unambiguous blueprint of the narrative DGBL to a point where it can be developed and deployed for the learner demographic. The co-specification phase involves four steps. First, hubs and quests are revisited to ensure that all events can be followed in a logical manner, and that all tasks are programmable. Second, the actors and objects visual language elements are added to tasks to show clearly what is used by whom, when and where. Third, concrete dialogues are added to tasks. Fourth, narrative passages are added to events.
In this step, co-designers inspect the event flow of the eLuna design, and ensure that everything can be reached in a logical manner, and that everything that happens is clearly and unambiguously described for programmers to make a narrative DGBL from the design. In the Idun’s Apples design, consider the two quests ‘Contact Farmer’s Market’ and ‘Contact Lise’s Urban Farm’. Both end in tasks where Idun can make appointments, which trigger events where she can visit one of two new hubs where she is introduced to either Steinar or Lise. A question arose about how she gets there. eLuna narrative DGBL targets hubshaped quest landscapes and use interchangeable fixed kernel events, so Idun should not be immediately transported to these locations after appointments have been made. Rather, she should be able to get appointments set up, but then be free to explore the world (e.g., visit the café if she has not already done so after being at the supermarket), heading to the newly opened hubs at her own leisure and time. The co-designers decide that it is plausible that Idun could reach both hubs by bus, so they add a bus station as a new hub in the game, as shown in
eLuna revisit hub quests, add objects and agents to tasks.
After scrutinizing the design and adding hubs as needed the co-designers focus on the quests that have been designed and break them down into tasks that each have unambiguous meanings. The quest ‘plant tomatoes’ consists of two tasks: 1) Talk to Rubin about planting tomatoes, and 2) Plant tomatoes. A question arose about how the second task ‘plant tomatoes’ is carried out in detail, since as it stands it is not a description that can be unambiguously programmed. To resolve this, the co-designers revisit the design’s agents and objects, and use them to divide the single task into an unambiguous string of tasks.
After dividing tasks in quests as shown in
To show the remaining elements of the agents and objects visual language in use,
eLuna dialogues occur as part of quest tasks and are conducted between agents. In eLuna, dialogues are created by co-designers as trees in which a player-controlled agent engages another agent in conversation, selecting from an initial set of dialogue lines. Once dialogue lines have been communicated, they vanish from the options, and may be replaced by new dialogue lines, naturally emerging to follow up the conversation as new information is brought up. If dialogues end, they restart from the beginning the next time the agent is engaged.
eLuna specifying dialogues and adding narrative sequences.
In the dialogue, lines that are available at the start are highlighted in bold, and lines that may be made available later are in italic. A single statement has a single response, indicated with a black arrow. New lines are made available after responses are presented, indicated by purple arrows. From the example in
The events in eLuna have integrated narrative sequences as shown in
Idun's Apples blueprint.
Compared to
During this phase the blueprint for Idun’s Apples is developed by the game developers into a narrative DGBL prototype • (A) Idun in her house with her son Rubin, interacting with a cabinet, • (B) a close-up screen resulting from her combining soil and seeds in a pot to sprout a tomato • (C) Idun talking to the café owner, learning from him that he would gladly purchase local produce if more were available, that there is a woman called Lise that grows vegetables, that Lise needs help to increase production, • (D) a narrative event screen tasking Idun to talk to a store clerk about imported apples, • (E) Idun on the street, walking between Hubs with the supermarket in front, the bus station behind it, the café on the other side of the street, and her house up the road behind the café, • (F) her arrival in the city center, to where she can take the bus when she wants to visit central farmer’s market organization, town hall, and other agencies, • (G) Idun having found Lise’s Urban Farm on social media, from where she can contact Lise, • (H) Idun reading an e-mail from the farmer’s market organization, that she receives after having contacted them with her interest to incorporate a market in her area.
Iduns Apples prototype screenshots.
As mentioned earlier, during the development of the eLuna method there were six narrative digital game-based learning (DGBL) designs produced during three workshops. During the workshops there was no mention of STEM or STEAM when introducing the task of designing a digital game. Thus, an evaluation of the designs to see if they conform to STEAM has been carried out. In this section a summary of the designed narrative DGBLs is given, followed by their evaluation against the STEAM subject’s science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics.
The eLuna framework has been used to develop six narrative DGBL designs, see
Brief description of the co-designed eLuna narrative DGBLs.
# | Participants | Curriculum | Learning objectives | Demographic | Learning situation | Synopsis |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Three Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) experts | General sustainability (no particular subjects’ curriculum, since the participants are TEL experts and not practitioners) | Consequence of deforestation |
University bachelor level | Envisioned for students to play as preparation for group discussion | With goal to protect local flora and fauns, a man living in the forest resort to political processes and civil disobedience to prevent a local build-out project |
2 | Three TEL experts | General sustainability (no particular subjects’ curriculum, since the participants are TEL experts and not practitioners) | Consequences of overfishing |
University bachelor level | Envisioned for students to play as preparation for group discussion | A wife goes eco-extremist after following dark-web influencers and hires an assassin to kill her husband because he is a fisherman, and she decides that he is part of the global sustainability problem |
3 | Two high-school teachers. One game developer | Health care management and administration | • Emergency room diagnostics and prioritization |
High-school level | Played as homework before and after classes concerning related topics through the semester | A newly educated nurse interns at a hospital emergency room, aiding diagnostics, and prioritization of patients as they arrive, and assist procedures with doctors as required based on the diagnostics and prioritization |
4 | Two high-school teachers. One game developer | Career counselling | • Career path options and required education/skills |
High-school level | Played in class, while discussing career options and educational paths | Learners visit an old man living in their school’s basement who has had all jobs imaginable. The old man has a magic ability to send the learners into any workplace that he has held, where they can experience the realities of performing various jobs |
5 | Two secondary to high-school museum teachers. One TEL expert (same as in 1). One university college teacher. One game developer | Regional sustainability | • Nature conservation |
Elementary and high-school levels | Played before or during class visits to the science center, in combination with exploring the same topic using interactive exhibits | A young woman establishes a mountain biking club, before commencing to plan and build a club house and tracks at a local mountain, taking care to perform all processes as sustainable as possible, while still allowing bikers to access the tracks in an uncumbersom manner |
6 | Three secondary to high-school museum teachers. One university college teacher.One game developer (same as in 4) | Human biology | • Adolescent development |
Elementary and high-school levels | Played before or during class visits to the science center, in combination with exploring the same topic using interactive exhibits | Illustrating various challenges of adolescents going through puberty, and, through depicting social problems arising from them, explains the biological reasons for human development from child to adult |
To see if the seven narrative DGBLs meet support the integrated and holistic cross-disciplinary education targeted by STEAM, each design was evaluated for content related to science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics. As shown by
eLuna designs support STEAM.
Candidate # and topic | Science | Technology | Engineering | Arts | Mathematics |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 - Deforestation |
|
Barriers | Construction work | Language | Area measurements and calculations |
|
Traps | Road blocking | Politics | ||
|
Construction tools | Trap setting |
|
||
Vehicles | Law | ||||
Rhetoric | |||||
2 - Overfishing |
|
Fishing equipment | Making fishing equipment | Crime | Fish population measurements and calculations |
Assassination techniques | Fishing boat | Law | |||
Weapons | Social media | ||||
|
|||||
3 - Health care |
|
Medical equipment used to diagnose and treat | Parameterizing or outfitting medical equipment for different purposes |
|
Calculating dosages based on patient physical measures |
Privacy | |||||
Social economics | |||||
Organizational structures | |||||
4 - Study counselling | Any relevant process at the workplaces, e.g., in a hospital, at a lab, or in a university | Any tool that can be used at the workplaces, e.g., medical equipment, computer programs, machines, and so on | Any relevant process that can be explored at the workplaces, e.g., construction engineering, or software engineering, and so on |
|
Any mathematical principle applicable at the workplaces, e.g., in economics, physics, construction, and so on |
Work regulation | |||||
Others, as relevant to the workplaces, e.g., media science, social sciences, and so on | |||||
5 - Local sustainability |
|
Bikes | Club house construction |
|
Area measurements and calculations |
Building tools and materials | Bike modification | Marketing |
|
||
Computers and/or mobile phones | Finance and investments | ||||
Economics | |||||
Organizational structures | |||||
Politics | |||||
6 - Puberty biology |
|
Mobile phones | Social engineering | Stigma | Physical performance statistics |
Medicine | On-line platforms | Ethics | Social media performance statistics | ||
Medical equipment | Law | ||||
|
|||||
Media science | |||||
Popular culture | |||||
7 - Sustainability goal 12 (Idun’s Apples) | Agriculture | Computers | Farming | Public regulations | Financial balancing and calculations |
|
Irrigation systems | Site planning and construction | Organizational structures |
|
|
Grow houses and confinements | Finances and investments | ||||
Measuring equipment (health and sanitation related) | Business management | ||||
Marketing and PR | |||||
|
|||||
Law |
The narrative digital game-based learning (DGBL) investigated in this research did not consciously take STEAM into account when designed. In future eLuna research, creating new narrative DGBL, STEAM should be formally integrated, targeting STEM and Arts subjects from the beginning to explore how the framework functions when such targets are made; to see how such goals are obtainable, and to see if the support for STEAM strengthens in such cases. Furthermore, while both STEAM and narrative DGBL have been shown to have common interests in empowering stakeholders in co-design disciplines, solidifying the cross curricular subjects in the narrative DGBL, and making designs that can be specified, developed, and deployed, there is a difference in granularity between the two. In STEAM, there is emphasis on involving and empowering educators from different disciplinary backgrounds, whereas in narrative DGBL, eLuna included, the distinction is drawn between educators on one side, and developers with technical competencies on the other. In future work on the eLuna design phase, lessons should be learnt from STEAM, and, when making attempts to make consciously STEAM supporting narrative DGBL using it, eLuna, too, should distinguish between educators’ areas of expertise, and strive to diversify the educator group to cover the required STEM and Arts disciplines that are to be targeted.
Inspecting the synopsis of the resulting co-designs in this research as shown in
The eLuna method is built upon previous research (
Finally, the eLuna Framework targets categories associated with positive effects, but does not ensure that these effects are obtained. Games developed on eLuna designs need to be implemented in educational settings, evaluated for their effects to inspect whether they reach their intended effects, and studied for their role in classrooms. How do teachers integrate the eLuna games into their teaching and learning activities? Do the games address the learning goals that were established in the Preparation phased? What do students learn from playing the games? After discussing such questions and evaluating effects, the eLuna Framework could fortunately become part of an iterative design and development process in which games are tuned and improved based on findings.
This article has argued that narratives are a good basis for STEAM learning and shown that the eLuna framework provides a co-design method and supporting visual language that when used by multidisciplinary co-designers results in the design of narrative digital games that can support STEAM education. We do not argue that narrative digital game-based learning (DGBL), and by extension all narratives used for learning, always and inherently supports STEAM structures, however, the designs developed in eLuna workshops resulted in narrative DGBL designs that provide high opportunity and potential for supporting STEAM education.
The co-design groups included educators, sometimes technology specialists, and game developers which enables the outcome of the co-design and co-specification processes, a blueprint, to be understood by educators and to easily be implemented by game developers. Thus, the eLuna visual language acts as a boundary object (
Thus, the eLuna framework empowers educators and game developers to co-design, co-specify, develop, and deploy narrative DGBL that enforce positive effects on engagement, motivation, and learning, while providing support for STEAM education in cross-curricular, integrated, and holistic learning through naturally occurring relationships. The results have been encouraging and the authors encourage the adaptation of the eLuna framework in future narrative DGBL research and development.
The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be made available by the authors, without undue reservation.
Ethical review and approval was not required for the study on human participants in accordance with the local legislation and institutional requirements. The patients/participants provided their written informed consent to participate in this study.
FB has contributed the ideas, the eLuna framework, and had the main responsibility for writing the text. BW has contributed to the development of the eLuna framework through supervision and has contributed both the editing and writing the text.
This research is part of an industrial PhD at the University of Bergen and Bergen Science Center (VilVite), funded by the Research Council of Norway project number 277769.
The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.
The authors thank the reviewers for invaluable feedback and Nils Petter Hauan for comments and support in writing the article.
The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at:
Using the search string < Design AND (Method* OR Process OR Framework) AND (“Serious Game” OR “Serious Games” OR “Digital Game Based Learning")> with no date/year restriction.
ACM Digital Library, IEEE Explore, PsycINFO, Science Direct, and Web of Science.
As per Scimago Journal and Country Rank, end of year 2019: Internet and Higher Education, Computers and Education, Government Information Quarterly, British Journal of Educational Technology, and Journal of Computer Assisted Learning.
From 67 before a) duplicate removal (8), b) false positive removal (27), and c) excluding articles that concerned the same frameworks, as well as articles that described having used a framework but do not include details about how it worked (15).
The Bergen Science Centre (VilVite) is a partner in this research through the first author’s industrial PhD grant from the Research Council of Norway (RCN).
To demonstrate all elements of eLuna, and to accommodate for time and development costs of the project, only three of the hubs (vertical slice in game development terms) have been developed.
E.g.