Content manager for serious games: Theoretical framework and digital platform

Abstract

In education, digital or traditional, the material studied by students is the basis from which they will achieve knowledge. For this reason, schoolbooks have been meticulously designed to be scientifically correct and pedagogically sound. With the digitization and growth of education, and the shift to adaptive learning methods, educational content is no longer centrally decided and distributed; instead, many professionals are allowed to create and distribute material within their area of expertise, and educators often develop material for their classes. Still, educational games and their material are designed and developed similarly to books, where introducing new material by third parties is not an option. Even though techniques that could assist in the creation of adaptable, customizable gameplay and content are available and are often used in commercial games, their utilization requires technical knowledge that does not allow wide use by educators to create educational material. In this paper, we introduce a framework that will allow educators to create and manage educational content for serious games and create customized versions to cover the needs of their students and unlock the potential of adaptive learning. Towards this goal, we developed a pilot implementation of the framework that provides all the necessary tools to game developers to create adaptable games and retrieve game customizations from a server. Furthermore, a web platform has been developed where educators can browse for customizable games and custom sessions. These games and sessions have educators’ custom created educational content. With our framework and supportive tools and platform, we will elevate the educational value of serious games by including educators in content creation, content manipulation, game customization and thus gameplay personalization.