Table of Contents
1.0 Introduction ................................................................................................................................................. 8
1.1 Problem Statement ............................................................................................................................... 10
1.2 Delimitations ......................................................................................................................................... 11
1.2.1 Usability .......................................................................................................................................... 11
1.2.2 Culture and Language ..................................................................................................................... 12
1.2.3 Best Practices in Language Learning............................................................................................... 12
1.2.4 Play testing ..................................................................................................................................... 12
1.3 Methodology ......................................................................................................................................... 12
1.3.1 Technical Methodology .................................................................................................................. 14
2.0 Background Theory.................................................................................................................................... 15
2.1 Learning On The Go ............................................................................................................................... 15
2.2 Types of Learning................................................................................................................................... 17
2.3 Game-Learning ...................................................................................................................................... 17
2.4 Motivation Behind Learning .................................................................................................................. 18
2.5 Fun ......................................................................................................................................................... 24
2.6 Usability ................................................................................................................................................. 24
3.0 Research Cases and Games ....................................................................................................................... 24
3.1 Dyslexia .................................................................................................................................................. 24
3.2 Research on Fun and Usability in Learning Software ............................................................................ 26
3.3 Researchers’ Opinion on Educational Games (Edutainment) ............................................................... 27
3.4 Learning Games Analysis ....................................................................................................................... 29
3.4.1 Slime Forest Adventure .................................................................................................................. 29
3.4.2 Knuckles in China Land ................................................................................................................... 30
3.4.3 Dora the Explorer – The Lost City Adventure ................................................................................. 32
3.4.4 Spread the Word ............................................................................................................................ 37
3.5 The Arabic Language.............................................................................................................................. 38
3.5.1 Foundations of Arabic..................................................................................................................... 38
3.5.2 Learning Arabic ............................................................................................................................... 40
3.5.3 Research in Learning Arabic ........................................................................................................... 41
3.6 Teaching Arabic ................................................................................................................................. 43
4.0 Data Evaluation.......................................................................................................................................... 45
5.0 The Game................................................................................................................................................... 49
5.1 Implementation ..................................................................................................................................... 49
5.1.2 Game Modes .................................................................................................................................. 50
5.2 Implementation Post Mortem ............................................................................................................... 53
5.2.1 Main Problems Encountered .......................................................................................................... 53
5.2.2 Serialization and Reflection ............................................................................................................ 55
5.2.3 Collections ...................................................................................................................................... 55
5.2.4 The Concept of the Editor............................................................................................................... 56
5.2.5 The Controls.................................................................................................................................... 57
5.2.6 Game Modes .................................................................................................................................. 57
5.2.7 Sound .............................................................................................................................................. 58
5.2.8 Graphics .......................................................................................................................................... 58
5.2.9 Dictionary ....................................................................................................................................... 58
5.3 Ideas for further development .............................................................................................................. 58
5.4 Documentation ...................................................................................................................................... 59
6.0 Evaluation of the Design ............................................................................................................................ 59
6.1 Design Decisions .................................................................................................................................... 60
6.1.2 No Menu ......................................................................................................................................... 60
6.1.3 Limited Sounds ............................................................................................................................... 61
6.1.4 Colours ............................................................................................................................................ 61
6.1.5 Icons................................................................................................................................................ 62
6.1.6 Music .............................................................................................................................................. 62
6.1.7 Voice ............................................................................................................................................... 62
6.1.8 Narrative ......................................................................................................................................... 62
6.2 Evaluation of the Mini Games ............................................................................................................... 63
6.2.1 Creature Battle Game ..................................................................................................................... 63
6.2.2 Memory Game ................................................................................................................................ 64
6.2.3 Letter Finding Shooter Game ......................................................................................................... 65
6.2.4 Final Evaluation .............................................................................................................................. 65
7.0 Reflections ................................................................................................................................................. 67
7.1 Other Areas of Research ........................................................................................................................ 70
8.0 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................. 71
2
List of References ............................................................................................................................................ 74
List of Figures and Tables ................................................................................................................................ 82
Appendix I - Game Design Document.............................................................................................................. 83
1.0 Introduction and Pitch ............................................................................................................................... 86
1.1 Working Title ......................................................................................................................................... 86
1.2 High Concept ......................................................................................................................................... 86
1.3 Genre ..................................................................................................................................................... 86
1.4 Main Character ...................................................................................................................................... 86
1.5 Time and Place....................................................................................................................................... 86
1.6 Story....................................................................................................................................................... 86
1.7 Winning Condition ................................................................................................................................. 86
1.8 Gameplay ............................................................................................................................................... 86
1.9 Idea ........................................................................................................................................................ 86
1.10 Genre & Target Audience .................................................................................................................... 87
1.11 Mobile phone ...................................................................................................................................... 87
1.12 Fun Learning ........................................................................................................................................ 87
1.13 60 Seconds of Gameplay ..................................................................................................................... 87
1.14 Unique Selling Points ........................................................................................................................... 87
1.14 Common Questions ............................................................................................................................. 88
2.0 Features ..................................................................................................................................................... 90
2.1 Images and Animations ......................................................................................................................... 90
3.0 The Gameplay ............................................................................................................................................ 90
3.1 Game Mechanics ................................................................................................................................... 90
3.1.1 Walking and Selecting .................................................................................................................... 90
3.2 Mini Games ........................................................................................................................................ 90
3.2 What is the game about? ...................................................................................................................... 91
3.3 What do I control? ................................................................................................................................. 91
3.4 Philosophy of Control ............................................................................................................................ 91
3.5 Walkthrough .......................................................................................................................................... 91
3.6 Hours of Gameplay ................................................................................................................................ 91
3.7 End Game State ..................................................................................................................................... 91
4.0 Camera and View....................................................................................................................................... 91
3
5.0 The World and Level Design ...................................................................................................................... 91
5.0.1 Key Locations ...................................................................................................................................... 91
5.0.2 Controls .............................................................................................................................................. 91
5.0.3 Objects – Define Units & Events ......................................................................................................... 91
5.0.4 Rules for interaction ........................................................................................................................... 91
5.1 The World Layout .................................................................................................................................. 92
5.1.1 Graphics .......................................................................................................................................... 92
5.1.2 Graphics Formats – Types of Graphics ........................................................................................... 92
5.1.3 Graphical Pipeline ........................................................................................................................... 92
5.2 World Map Design ..................................................................................................................................... 93
6.0 Game Characters ....................................................................................................................................... 93
6.1 The Sprite............................................................................................................................................... 93
6.2 The Monsters ......................................................................................................................................... 93
6.3 The House .............................................................................................................................................. 94
6.5 The Danger Zones .................................................................................................................................. 94
6.4 How do I control the Sprite? ................................................................................................................. 94
6.4.1 Button Press Control Scheme ............................................................................................................. 94
8.0 User Interface ............................................................................................................................................ 94
8.2 Game Interface ...................................................................................................................................... 95
General Game Overview.......................................................................................................................... 95
Game Interfaces ...................................................................................................................................... 95
9.0 Music and Sound FX .................................................................................................................................. 96
10.0 Credits...................................................................................................................................................... 96
11.0 Appendix .................................................................................................................................................. 97
Screen Menu - Wireframe ........................................................................................................................... 97
Appendix II - Arabic Consonants.................................................................................................................... 100
Appendix III - Miriam Taouk and Max Coltheart’s Three Phases .................................................................. 104
Appendix IV - Definitions ............................................................................................................................... 105
4
Abstract
This work sought to build an educational game for illiterate Arabic speakers in Africa, since Arabic is the
alphabet in most of Northern Africa (and the Middle East). The design of a mobile phone educational game
for the poor and illiterate is a serious challenge which pulls from diverse disciplines, including the obvious
ones like Educational Theory, Software Engineering, and Language Theory and seemingly less obvious ones
such as Sociology, Psychology and Typography among others. Those theories with research on educational
games will be combined to build a learning game that will enable and motivate people to learn to read,
even without the access to a classroom or teacher. We implemented a basic game framework based on
those principles and outlined future steps to be taken to get it ready for deployment. As part of that
framework we have a functional game designed according to these principles. Our conclusion is that mobile
gaming could be fertile ground for educational games. It has so far been largely unexplored due to the
significant limitations that still constrain mobile phone development but is one more resources from
various fields should be contributed to.
5
Preface
The purpose of writing this thesis was to push ourselves to venture into a whole new field of interest that
could actually carry the potential to do some good in this world. Though it has been an extremely
challenging journey to venture into fields of the “unknown”, we feel that the blood, sweat and tears have
been worth it.
6
Acknowledgements
We would like to give big thanks to:
Jens Christian Godskesen for providing his time and help in supervising and ping ponging with us for the
project.
Claus Witfelt for his inspirational help and advice.
Josie Taylor and Agnes Kukulska-Hulme from the Open University for their help and support in the
research on m-learning.
The DMI Crew for their loving disturbances, making us cold, lovely food, candy, help and entertainment.
ITU for providing us with the resources
The ITU Cleaning Lady for helping to keep the office clean.
7
1.0 Introduction
Education in poorer regions has been an ongoing problem for many years. Numerous projects have been
made to increase the financial economy in these regions; however money alone will not fix the problems
that have stemmed as a result of poverty. Education is one of the areas that are often missing, when one
speaks of poverty. As education requires money, the difference of percentage GDP invested in this area
make a difference to what can be provided to the society. Though developing countries invest a large
percentage of their GDP into education, the amount is still small compared to developed countries, due to
the difference in size of GDP. However the investment into education is where the hope for the economy’s
growth in countries stems from.
Taking this into consideration, one question is whether there are other ways of learning that can be
stimulated within these societies. In the more developed countries, we see a trend in people learning not
only through their peers as it has traditionally been, but also through mediums such as the internet, as
tutorials and guidelines continue to be posted and discussed.
“Computers as information access devices require a lot of overhead costs, steep learning
curve, and infrastructure to be useful. These prerequisites make computers impractical to be
used as a medium for social development.” (Chakraborty, 2006)
Most developing countries do not have such infrastructure in place to support such activities however.
Many countries in continents such as Africa do not even have land phone lines installed in order for
“ordinary” communication to take place across distances. And with the lack of money and educated labour,
schooling across the ages has continuously remained an issue that governments continue to tackle. World
initiatives such as and similar to the “One Laptop per Child1” have been initiated but even this takes a long
time, due to the necessary research, cost reductions and manufacturing processes.
During the development of the African continent, the wireless telecommunication industry saw an
“explosion” during the end of the 1990s and start of the 21st century. The reason for this is that “its national
telecommunications monopolies are poorly managed and corrupt, and they can't afford to lay new lines or
maintain old ones” (Mbarika & Mbarika, 2006). By the end 2001, more than half of the nations in Africa (28)
had more mobile subscribers than landline ones, creating a percentage higher than any of the other
continents in the world (Mbarika & Mbarika, 2006). The figure below presents the differences in
subscribers between fixed lines and mobiles between 1994 and 2004.
1
U.S. non-profit organization set up to oversee the creation of a cheap, affordable educational device for use in the
developing world. Its current focus is on the development, construction and deployment of the XO-1 laptop to
promote children's education in developing nations. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_laptop_per_child)
8
Figure 1: differences in subscribers between fixed lines and mobiles between 1994 and 2004
Source: International Telecommunication Union (Azran, 2006)
With "more than 80 percent of cellphones purchased in sub-Saharan African countries are for personal use,
not business" (Mbarika & Mbarika, 2006) it would not be surprising that this too is the trend throughout
the rest of Africa: even for the countries that already have many fixed main lines, such as Egypt, South
Africa, Tunisia, etc. (Africapedia, 2007). With such a growth in subscribers, the penetration rates’
(percentage of the population that has a mobile phone and uses it) increase “reflects an affordable service”
(C-News, 2005) throughout Africa. This signifies that in comparison to the low personal computers’
penetration rate, due to the affordability of the hardware, internet and the insufficient number of
dependable lines (RNCOS, 2006), mobile phones as a communications tool is currently the most widespread
and accessible medium.
Bearing the above in mind, considering that mobile phones are slowly tending towards becoming small
handheld “computers” with their capabilities of running various applications due to their support in running
J2ME2 based programs, the possibilities in creating useful tools sound endless. Thus as the African countries
do not have the luxury to have ready and affordable access to computers and the high speed internet, what
if this medium is used to “fulfil this role by allowing users to access relevant information” (Chakraborty,
2006) through use of specially made applications?
2
J2ME – Java 2 Mobile Edition – this is a computer programming language and virtual machine that has become a
standard present in most of the mobile phones created since… Thus most of the phones that the countries in Africa
have are expected to carry such support, as they often get the generation of mobile phones after the more developed
countries. (EDIT)
9
Klopfre et al (2002 as cited in Naismith, Lonsdale, Vavoula, Sharples, 2006) identified five properties of
mobile devices, which in this case were PDAs that could produce unique educational affordances (mobile
phone devices also share the same properties in these cases):
1) Portability
a. The small size and weight of the mobile devices means that they can be taken to different
sites or moved around within a site.
2) Social Interactivity
a. Data exchange and collaboration with other learners can happen face-to-face (Nyiri, 2002
as cited in Naismith, Lonsdale, Vavoula, Sharples, 2006), deposits a new philosophy of
mobile learning that points to mobile technologies as facilitators for the innate
anthropological need to communicate.
3) Context Sensitivity
a. Mobile devices can both gather and respond to real or simulated data unique to the
current location, environment and time.
4) Connectivity
a. A shared network can be created by connecting mobile devices to data collection devices,
other devices or to a common network.
5) Individuality
a. Scaffolding for difficult activities can be customized for individual learners.
When coupling Africa’s still widespread educational issues, such as having a high illiteracy rate with the
ever increasing use of mobiles, the possibility of using the mobile phones as a medium for learning comes
to mind. Here, the emphasis of Klipfre et al’s list will focus the qualities of portability and individuality.
Research behind the use of using mobile devices for education has observed numerous pros. One of the
most quoted ones is the concept of portability: “Portability – the small size and weight of mobile devices
means they can be taken to different sites or moved around within a site.” (Klopfer et al, 2002 cited in
Naismith, Lonsdale, Vavoula, Sharples, 2006). This allows users to study, when their motivation is high
(McNicol, 2004), i.e. whenever and wherever they feel like it.
“To fully appreciate the potential of mobile technologies for learning, we must look beyond the use of
individual devices and consider their use embedded in classroom practice, or as part of a learning
experience outside the classroom” (Naismith, Lonsdale, Vavoula, Sharples, 2006).
1.1 Problem Statement
The developing world has a low literacy rate, which hurts the economic development, which in turn again
hurts the literacy rate and so forth. The project attempts to make a game to help the very worst of the
10
literacy problems, which may then be built upon to further increase the literacy level and in turn improve
the economy.
However, this alone is a very large problem to tackle as a whole. The focus is therefore based on making a
game that can contribute to the ripple effect in improving the economic situation in the developing
countries.
The project attempts to do this by tackling the individual’s own education, just as the internet platform has
aided in doing, for the internet users in the developed countries. To do this, certain questions will need to
be investigated, in order to clarify the possibilities:
What are the challenges involved in designing a mobile game with focus on “independent learning”? What
possibilities are there regarding building a framework for developing a mobile game to be easily
customizable to localization? And how could one go about creating a mobile game for someone that cannot
read?
1.2 Delimitations
“We are all biased and we all view the world through our own experience. This helps us in
some places and hinders us in others.” (Becker, 2008)
As there are many areas involved in creating a mobile game for learning, there are fields that the report will
not go into detail with. There may be many dependencies that affect the results of the outcome of the
investigation and as it may be out of the scope of this project, it will make a note of this.
The project does not seek to revolutionize the way language should be learnt. Instead, it uses what existing
techniques there are and attempts to incorporate it into a mobile device for the purpose presented in the
problem statement.
The features involved in the design of a learning mobile game consist of areas such as: usability, culture,
language, theories of best practice regarding learning and teaching of languages.
1.2.1 Usability
The report will go into discussion about building a game without the use of text as part of the user interface
due to the target group in question. It will however not explore the various possibilities and areas regarding
how the interface may vary. Nor will it provide the possible solutions for these interface problems based on
the target groups, as this is a research area in itself.
11
1.2.2 Culture and Language
These two areas are closely tied to one another and also affect the aspect of usability. The project is aware
of this but will not investigate deeply into the cultural connotations regarding the symbolic value or types
of symbols used.
1.2.3 Best Practices in Language Learning
Attempting to create an application/software/game that helps in teaching an individual how to read, the
project will not go into discussion regarding what the most optimal method of teaching languages is. This,
although also a very relevant area, is however one that continues to grow and is again a research field in its
own right.
1.2.4 Play testing
Due to the time and resource constraints, fully fledged play testing towards the target group is not carried
out. However, general iterative testing is carried out during development among peers in order to maintain
feedback and consistency with the user interface.
The game does not seek to become a full fledged course as an all-in-one solution for those who want to
learn to read Arabic. Instead, it provides a conceptual sample of some of the possibilities, with special
emphasis on those that do not recognize “a single word” of Arabic. With these samples, the project should
be extendible to target/stimulate other areas of language learning.
The project does not seek to create an educational system.
1.3 Methodology
“The understanding of [learning theory or] psychology offers a framework to developing an
educational game that promotes learning while maintaining high motivation of the player.”
(Siang & Rao, 2003, p. 239 as cited in Batson & Freiberg, 2006, p.34)
The research consists mainly of secondary data and will begin by first reviewing theories on language
programs, learning games and information on mobile game development. Doing so will help provide a
stronger focal point to finding answers to our problem statement.
In order to implement any game to teach a player how to read Arabic will require research on the
fundamental building blocks of an Arabic word. As it carries a different set of rules and font/writing
compared to that of languages with some Latin origin, using the same techniques to teach Latin languages
may or may not be compatible with the teaching of Arabic. This needs to be investigated before the design
of the game takes place.
Mobile games in their current form are differentiated from the “conventional” PC or console games. Due to
this, research into the limitations and possibilities of the used mobile devices, their development kits,
usability preferences, controls, etc. need to be done.
12
As the project seeks to develop a product for Africa, the current platform to look at will be of an older
generation phones that will not be near as powerful3 as the newer phones today, such as the Nokia N96s
and iPhones. This is due to the fact that although mobile phones are most widespread in Africa, their
models are not necessarily new. But as we are testing on previous generation phones, we will begin by
creating some minimum phone specifications to work from, before going about designing and developing
the game. This will be important due to the fact that creating an application that will not be able to run on
the “older” phone models will deem the application non-practical.
As teaching reading has been tackled in numerous ways over the years, the methodology we have chosen
to focus on is that of mobile learning. One reason for focusing on this is because, “Mobile learning helps
learners to improve their literacy and numeracy skills and to recognise their existing abilities”
(Southhampton, 2005). And it was found from the university’s experimentation that, “even when the
technology went wrong, it still generated opportunities to practice new vocabulary” (Southhampton, 2005).
This may provide the project to experiment with different areas of learning without having to stick too
closely “to any set rules” on how to build up and design such a game, as it is a very open area of research.
What the project however makes sure not to tackle is the possibility of having the mobile device and
application completely replace the educational structures that may exist in any country’s educational
system. This is because there are still results maintained by such structures, which will have to be analysed
thoroughly, before being able to consider such a replacement solution. Secondly, such an application will
also require many other variables to be changed, such as the way teachers teach, how the meaning of
“school” is considered, etc. Instead, the project has decided to pinpoint the various areas which can be
strengthened, stimulated and motivated from the use mobile learning. A large reason is because it has
been considered a "big mistake to try to import the classroom experience to different platforms -- that's
not going to work. You have to figure out, what are the tasks that can be accomplished given the
parameters of the computer? Mobile learning isn't a substitute for a great teacher or a great class
experience" (McNicol, 2004)
The focus on the product is to create a game that is based on fun and learning intuitively whilst doing so,
even without support like teachers around. Here research cases based on fun and learning, as well as the
analyses of existing games will be investigated. These theories will help act as a foundation for some of the
decisions made during the product design.
During the design evaluation, the paper will make use of Shelton and Wiley’s modified version of Hedden’s
conditions to analyse and discuss the current design of the mobile game.
The reflections will then present Becker’s own existing compiled list of principles based on her current
study on “the direct significance to game design for the purpose of learning” (Becker, 2008). Though this list
is presented by Becker as incomplete, it contains elements which will aid in seeking to pinpoint areas which
may be fulfilled, partially fulfilled or lacking with regards to learning in the game. Becker herself has stated
that:
3
Powerful – refers to hardware advancements such as memory, disk/memory space, processor speed, screen
resolution, screen type, etc.
13
“No single Instructional Design model is going to be able to address how to build educational games, and if
we heed the lessons that can be learned from thirty-odd years of Software Engineering (Hayes, 2003) and
that of Instructional Design (Kenny, Zhang, Schwier, & Campbell, 2005), no model or theory will be
forthcoming that can serve as anything but a guide. In other words, there will be no reliable recipes for
designing and developing educational games.” (Becker, 2008)
And due to this, the research paper will move from the above to provide its own lessons learnt from the
research and investigation involved in creating a mobile learning game. It will then provide the areas which
will be needed for further research and testing to contribute to this particular area of learning in games.
While it is not the purpose of this project to scientifically approve or disprove the theories on games,
themes of learning and motivation, it is necessary to provide some background in these areas to argue for
our decisions.
1.3.1 Technical Methodology
The programming of the mobile game took place in an iterative fashion. It began by first creating a
prototype mock up to evaluate the technology that the application has to deal with. It then proceeded to
the design of the game and the building of the underlying structure to support the framework for the
game.
The sources used were primarily based on secondary evidence gathered from researches made by other
researchers in the area of learning. This theory will be read and used in attempt to develop the project.
However, during the development cycle, results gathered from the implementation itself were compared
to that of the theory and the iterative process in implementing the game continued another round.
14
2.0 Background Theory
2.1 Learning On The Go
The concept or idea of building a learning application for the mobile phone is not new. This concept can be
viewed as mobile learning. In the report by Connolly and Stansfield (2006), they included a table adapted
by Taylor (2001) regarding different generations of distance learning. At the very bottom of this table is the
concept of m-Learning, which is also being considered the third generation of eLearning. What is most
apparent in this table is how “Highly Refined Materials” and “Advanced Interactive Delivery” technologies
were not yet met at the time.
Figure 2: Table of “A New Model of Distance Education” from (Connolly & Stansfield, 2006)
15
There are multiple reasons for these, which will be discussed later in the report, when discussing the
limitations and quirks to be aware of, when developing for mobile technology. As it currently stands,
mobile technology has evolved and many of the new phones at the time of this writing can be seen as mini
computers.
If one looked at the table carefully and observed the underlying generations, one will realise that every
generation contains elements of one another that are useful for learning. Whether it has to do with
stimulating the visuals, the communication process or audio, the pattern of influence from one to the next
generation is to be considered with any new “revelation”.
Mobile Learning has often been viewed upon as an extension of the classroom or as an extra tool to be
used for classrooms. Its uses and applications have been the subject for discussion for some time but all
agree that the potentials are there. Collins expressed in his paper on “Mobile Language Learning with Cell
Phones” that the idea of “mobile learning is just beginning. Only now are technologies emerging that will
support basic learning applications, but even these technologies offer the ability to develop meaningful,
effective learning objects for language learning. New technologies will support learning applications of
greater sophistication. By drawing on previous experience, integrating effective, research-based methods,
and melding those with the emerging capabilities of mobile phones, the possibility exists of developing
compelling mobile learning content to meet the needs of language learners worldwide.” (Collins, 2005)
Connolloy & Stansfield’s research in 2006, they found that “Initial results on the use of mLearning have
been encouraging and research suggests, for example, that mLearning enhances autonomous and
collaborative learning and that it can be applied to a wide age range of learners. mLearning is still at an
early stage but as these devices become more functional and commonplace we would expect to see
significant developments in this area. mLearning has the potential to provide truly “anywhere” learning.”
(Connolly & Stansfield, 2006)
When considering these results and suggestions, putting on the game designer hat, a few thoughts come to
mind. Collaborative learning can give rise either to multiplayer environments or simply become
collaborative because people are able to “sit together” and discuss whenever and wherever they are.
Sitting together, in this case, can be considered physically or virtually.
As mLearning continues to emerge and grow, theories regarding this area are still more “scarce” than that
of eLearning. But questions arise as to whether aspects of eLearning can be applied to that of mLearning,
just as “traditional” forms of learning have been partially applicable to that of eLearning. Fundamental
research in areas of learning, such as cognitive and behavioural learning are areas in which can be
discussed. However, as this is out of the scope of this project, this section will present various areas in
which research has been conducted in the areas of eLearning.
16
2.2 Types of Learning
Behaviourist
Activities that promote learning as a change in learner’ observable
actions.
Constructivist
Activities in which learners actively construct new ideas or concepts
based on both their previous and current knowledge.
Situated
Activities that promote learning within an authentic context and culture.
Collaborative
Activities that promote learning through social interaction.
Informal and lifelong
Activities that support learning outside a dedicated learning environment
and formal curriculum.
Learning and teaching support
Activities that assist in the coordination of learners and resources for
learning activities.
Table 1: Six Types of Learning
Source: (Naismith, Lonsdale, Vavoula, Sharples, 2006)
Of these six types of learning activities mentioned above, the ones that may be relevant to the mobile
project are the behaviourist, constructivist and informal and lifelong learning. This is because providing that
the game provides good feedback, the individual should be able to adjust his/her actions accordingly, whilst
being able to use the knowledge learned throughout their “trial and error” journey in the game to improve.
The fundamental learning of the language in the game will not necessarily create completely new ideas,
however it may aid in recognizing new words not learned.
Informal and lifelong learning is the type that is most relevant for the project. Although this may be
considered in theory as having the existence of a learning environment and formal curriculum, the game in
itself is to support the learning of the language, whether there is an educational system in place or not. If
an educational system is in place and is involved with the individual, the game serves to allow further
development during the time outside of school, in order to aid in obtaining better results.
2.3 Game-Learning
Having now provided a quick overview over the various types of learning and existing educational models,
where does this project stand? Where does this project have its place?
Behavioural theory in game design is used for learning basic rules of game play and promotes stimuli.
Providing immediate positive or negative feedback in the game play allows the user to respond on the basis
of earlier experience (Siang & Rao, 2003 as cited in Batson & Freiberg, 2006, p.35). For example, when
playing a game and the player sees an enemy running after his/her “character”, he/she will spontaneously
move to miss it. And “when basic rules of [the] game are understood, players start to think cognitively how
they should respond in a new situation, actively update existing knowledge to fit what is newly confronted
in the game environment” (Siang & Rao, 2003, p. 241).
17
Cognitive constructivism, on the other hand, when successfully implemented in e-learning applications,
allows users uninhibited navigation for learning and multimedia interaction for feedback. This is where
computer games allow for discovery learning by immersing the players in a virtual world where they learn
by discovery along with trial and error (Siang & Rao, 2003).
What the project seeks to create is a game for the mobile phones that aids in learning. The question of,
“why not just create an ordinary application for this purpose?” arises. This is because “games are so
engaging, precisely because they tap into some of the most effective approaches for learning” (Becker,
2008). The game should be fun to play, whether or not the player “learns anything”4 from it. “Good” games
have been argued to already “embody sound pedagogy in their designs despite the knowledge that the
incorporation was not deliberate” (Prensky, 2006; Becker, 2005d, 2005f, 2006d; Gee, 2003 cited in Becker,
2008).Fun will help make the game better and more engaging, as without it, the player will have no
motivation to stick too long with it. If one manages to make the player stick long enough, chances of
“accidental learning” occurring are higher as a result of the intrinsic motivation of the player.
Motivation is an important component to make the concept of play work. The following section will present
the motivation behind learning, what it is that drives people to keep doing so, and how it relates to games
and the design of educational games.
2.4 Motivation Behind Learning
This section regarding motivation will be based on Connolly & Stansfield’s and Bixler’s discussion regarding
the motivational theories and how it relates to games. Bixler mentions that his paper, including the cited
research in the paper is “biased towards constructs of motivation appropriate for Western cultures” (Bixler,
2005). Although the plan is to use these concepts as part of the basis for a game made for Africans, as every
culture has some form of play and games, it is assumed that fundamentally, there is a high likelihood that
there are many roots to similar forms of motivation.
In Bixler’s investigation of the relationship of motivation with the design of educational games, he refers to
John Keller’s ARCS (1987 as cited in Bixler, 2005) model. This is presented in the table below, which is
compiled from the information gathered and presented by Bixler:
Attention
4
This emphasises the fact that gaining learning is a prerequisite and sustaining this is
critical. A student’s knowledge-seeking curiosity is to be aroused without overstimulation, i.e. to find a proper balance between boredom and hyperactivity.
In reference to Yerks-Dodson’s Law, as tasks become increasingly difficult, the optimum
level of motivation declines (Travers, 1982).
On method of gaining and keeping attention is through the use of novelty. This makes
the individual focus on the object or situation in an attempt to discover the nature of the
object of situation (Travers, 1982).
Use of colour, animation and sound can also help provide external stimuli to motivate
learner, as it attracts and retains users (Ritchie & Hoffman, 1997).
Three ways of gaining attention:
Perceptual Arousal
Learns anything – debatable as one may need to learn something to be able to play along by the rules
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-
Relevance
Confidence
Satisfaction
Gaming and maintaining the student’s attention through the use of novel,
surprising incongruous or uncertain events in instruction.
Inquiry Arousal
- Stimulate information-seeking behaviour by posing, or having the learner
generate, questions or a problem to solve.
Variability
- Maintain student interest by varying the elements of instruction.
Here relevance cannot only come from what is taught, but also how it is taught. An
example is where people who are in need for affiliation will perceive relevance in group
projects. Curiosity, creativity and high-order thinking are stimulated by relevant, authentic
tasks of optimal difficulty and novelty for each student, according to Wagner (1998).
Three methods for providing relevance:
Familiarity
- Adapt instruction, use concrete language, use examples and concepts that are
related to the learner’s experience and values to help them integrate new
knowledge.
Goal Orientation
- Provide statements or examples that present the objectives and utility of the
instruction, and either present goals for accomplishment or have the learner define
them.
Motive Matching
- Adapt by using teaching strategies that match the motive profiles of the students.
Here there is expectancy for success, where the locus/focus of control plays an important
role.
People with an internal locus tend to attribute success to effort.
People with an external locus look to luck or the difficulty of the task for determination of
success.
Travers (1982) validated in his research on discussion of fear of failure people that
confidence is a motivational factor in instruction. He found that fear of failure in people
will accept the risk if the odds of success are either very good or very poor, where very
poor chance failures can blamed on outside factors. Success-oriented people on the other
hand accept middle-of-the-road risks and avoid the high and low-risk situations. This is
because low-risks offer too little challenge, whilst high risks are too chancy.
Three methods of building confidence in a learner:
Expectancy for Success
- Make learners aware of performance requirements and evaluative criteria.
Challenge Setting
- Provide multiple achievement levels that allow learners to set personal goals or
standards of accomplishment, and performance opportunities that allow them to
experience success.
Attribution Molding
- Provide feedback that supports student ability and effort as the determinants of
success.
This has to do with the involvement of normal reinforcements for work well done and
contends with issues of learner control. E.g. if a student must accomplish a goal to get a
teacher-derived reward as opposed to an already-existing intrinsically satisfying reward,
control of the learning situation is lost to the student. In such a case, the learning
satisfaction is decreased. Malone (1981) and (Zombardo, 1969 and Letter & Greene, 1979)
19
among other researchers also do.
Three methods of enhancing satisfaction:
Natural Consequences
- Provide opportunities to use newly acquired knowledge or skill in a real or
simulated setting.
Positive Consequences
- Provide feedback and reinforcements that will sustain the desired behaviour.
Equity
- Maintain consistent standards and consequences for task accomplishment.
Table 2: John Keller’s ARCS model
Source: (Bixler, 2005)
Continuing with Bixler’s paper, he mentions Wlodkowski’s (1985) Time Continuum Model of Motivation,
which is more focused on the adult learner:
Time Continuum Model of Motivation (Wlodkowski, 1985)
-
-
-
Before Instruction
 Attitude
 Need
During Instruction
 Stimulation
 Affect
After Instruction
 Competence
 Reinforcement
Adult learners are portrayed in (Bixler, 2005) as the following:
-
Learners whose “needs are addressed by reducing or removing environmental components that
lead to failure”.
-
In so doing, they are willing to attempt trying out the new piece of skill before assessing whether it
is worth their while or not.
-
Will ask during the beginning of a learning sequence, “Do I need it?” and “What do I think of it?”
And these thoughts, “needs and attitudes interact with the stimulation and affective processes that
occur during instruction”.
And to handle this (Bixler, 2005):
-
Maintaining of the learner’s attention can be done by providing a variety of activities and through
the use of varying presentation techniques that will stimulate them.
-
Be sure that they are participating actively in the learning process.
-
Maintain positive attitudes; utilize cooperative goal and learning structures to maximize the
cohesiveness in the learning group.
20
-
Increase learner competence by making them aware of the progress towards goals via positive
feedback.
-
The above reinforcement provides a strong motivational influence for continued/future learning.
To learn effectively requires that the learner is in the right state of mind. It requires that the learner is
willing to learn and wants to do so. This will often also mean that the learner is somewhat motivated in the
initial phase as well. With this attitude, in order to continue learning requires that the motivation is kept
within the learner. This requires stimulation and is done so by having the materials being learnt affect the
learner's state of mind in a positive manner. Having done so then requires that the material is being
reinforced in the learner until he/she becomes competent at it. Doing so, the learner will turn this data into
knowledge and may use it for whatever comes next in line.
These aspects of learning can be cross referenced in Bixler's account of John Keller. He too emphasises that
the sustainability of learning requires knowledge-seeking curiosity that should be stimulated without "overstimulating" it.
Keller quotes Travers (1982) in saying that one method of gaining and keeping the attention of the student
is via the use of novelty, which is a "a fictitious prose narrative of considerable length and complexity,
portraying characters and usually presenting a sequential organization of action and scenes". Like reading a
book, this "causes the individual to focus on the object or situation in an attempt to discover the nature of
the object of situation." This is one reason for embedding the learning in a game as games, whether they
tell a story or not, have a stronghold in attracting the player's attention. Combine this with the use of
colour, animation and sound, one should be able to obtain the complete package.
This is one of the reasons for going after the RPG format with mini games to stimulate the player in
multiple different ways.
To make things short, Keller's descriptions presented by Bixler consist of being aware of the attention,
relevance, confidence and satisfaction of the player. These are areas which can be tested during the play
tests, although they may be difficult to rate. However, these are the areas to be kept in mind when
designing the game.
What can one do to apply these stimulants presented above for a learner in a game? Taking the ARCS
model as a template and Bixler’s considerations, the qualities the learning game should have are shown in
the table below:
Attention
There is a world of obstacles for the player to explore. Each obstacle contains different
challenges, which are designed in such a way so as to reinforce the player’s prior
learning. It provides higher difficulty so as to continuously challenge the player, to make
sure that he/she will not become bored. This is used to withhold and sustain the
attention of the player to continue grinding away.
For the game to be complete however, the colours, animations and sound will have to be
reworked in order to attract players to the game.
21
Relevance
Confidence
Satisfaction
The challenges and reinforcement of the material learnt should help the player be able to
apply the knowledge learnt throughout the game. Without having the ability to do so will
most likely cause the player to either forget it or simply not see the point in why he/she
should continue to play the game.
The mini games in question should contain stimulants for a set of skills that are relevant to
the target group.
The game should be intuitive so as to make it easy to get started. The mini games should
not be too difficult, especially in the beginning, in order to stimulate the player’s
confidence. Design choices should then be made to increase the difficulty level over time
to sustain this level of confidence.
The game should drive the player to want to continue to play because of the satisfaction
they get out of the game. This is often done from the reward system in the game.
As a game, it can provide the player with instant feedback, which can allow the player to
toy with the fluctuations of learning, where mistakes and quickly turn to success in a
matter of seconds.
Table 3: John Keller's ACRS model applied
The addition of cultural sensitivity into the motivational framework by Wlodkowski (1999) became what is
presented below:
Establish Inclusion
Develop Attitude
Enhance Mearning
Engender Competence
Done by creating a feeling of respect and connectivity between teachers and
students.
Done by ensuring personal relevance and choice.
Done by creating challenging experiences that include learner’s values and
perspectives.
Done by creating an understanding that learners will learn about something
that they want to learn about.
As it is with any form of learning, the concept of motivation is key (Connolly & Stansfield, 2006). Katzeff, is
referenced in Conolly & Stansfield stating that “motivation is a crucial factor for instructional design and for
learning to occur the learner must be motivated to learn.” This brings a twofold question to the design of
the game and where the prime focus will be. This is because, “What if the user does not have the
motivation to learn? Is the user motivated to learn about how to complete the game or more interested in
learning the material beside the game? Does it really matter or do these go hand in hand?”
To attempt answering the last question, one could refer to Malone and Lepper’s (1987 cited in Connolly &
Stansfield) framework regarding intrinsic motivation. The idea surrounding this topic relates with doing
something because it is interesting or enjoyable in some way (Connolly & Stansfield, 2006). The framework
consists of “four individual factors: challenge, fantasy, curiosity and control and three interpersonal factors:
cooperation, competition and recognition.”
Challenge
-
Goals
Uncertain Outcomes
Performance Feedback
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-
Self-esteem
This is referred to activities that provide an optimal level of challenge.
Curiosity
-
Sensory Curiosity
Cognitive Curiosity
Control
-
Contingency
Choice
Power
Fantasy
-
Emotional Aspects
Cognitive Aspects
Table 4: Malone and Lepper’s Framework of Four Individual Factors
By stimulating these factors, “conditions such as: satisfaction, desire, anger, interest, enjoyment, etc.” can
occur. The provoking and control of such emotions and their consequences is what computer games may
have the potential to benefit education (Becta, 2001 cited in Connolly & Stansfield, 2006). To support this
area of research are the results obtained by Ricci et al. (1996 as cited in Garris, Ahlers & Driskell, 2002 and
Connolly & Stansfield, 2006), which “found that incorporating game features into instruction increased
motivation and consequently produced greater attention and retention.” In addition, an empirical research
conducted by Chen, Shen, Ou and Liu (1998, as cited in Connolly & Stansfield, 2006) showed positive effects
on motivation and learning from computer games.
What can be gathered from the results of these studies is that if the conditions are stimulated in some
fashion from the mobile application, it should provide motivation and learning with a positive spin. And if
the game results are boring, signs of de-motivation will show case, giving rise to the possibility of a negative
impact on learning (Connolly & Stansfield, 2006). But what is it that holds the player together to continue
playing and thereby hopefully continue to learn?
Corbett (2006) stated that computer gaming in classrooms is one of the ways of stimulating a child’s
openness to accidental learning and intrinsic motivation for playing computer games. In other words, by
designing the game in a coherent and fun manner, the child may learn through play, due to his/her interest
in continuing to play at it. However, as discussed above, the games as a package requires visuals and audio
as well. If these are not at a certain quality, Connolly & Stansfield (2006) were concerned that “anything
significantly below the quality of a commercial game may have a negative impact on learning as students
may not become fully engaged nor motivated to play the game, and eventually lose patience with the
game’s limitations.”
Connolly and Stansfield (2006) built simulation game prototype in their research of learning and also found
a potential problem regarding the issues of scalability and whether it can be “easily adapted to present
23
other types of problem scenarios and tasks”. These are situations that this project will also keep in mind,
when creating the game for a simple yet complicated purpose. Another is how it is an accepted fact that
“games-based eLearning will not be for all learners and it is accepted that there may be issues surrounding
development costs.”
2.5 Fun
"Fun is about learning in a context where there is no pressure, and that is why games matter!" (Koster,
2005)
The concept of fun has been discussed throughout many years, with Malone (1980as cited in Sim,
MacFarlane and Read, 2006) being the pioneer of this study from the software point of view. It is presented
that many of the definitions surrounding fun is centred on emotions, where Carroll (2004 as cited in Sim,
MacFarlane and Read, 2006) says that “things are fun when they attract, capture and hold our attention by
provoking new and unusual emotions in contexts that typically arouse none, or arouse emotions not
typically aroused in given context”. This definition, as said by Sim, Macfarlane and Read, leaves out the
aspect of pleasure. In other words, just because something is “engaging or captivating” does not necessarily
have to be fun, e.g. tests can be engaging but are not necessarily seen as fun (Dix, 2003 as cited in Sim,
MacFarlane and Read, 2006).
2.6 Usability
Usability is the extent to which a product can be used by specific users to achieve specified goals with
effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction in a specified context of use (ISO, 1998 as cited in Sim, MacFarlane
and Read, 2006). As this is a definition for usability for a general context, it seems very logical. But in order
to define usability in a “specified context”, we turn to Larillard (2002 as cited in Sim, MacFarlane and Read,
2006) who sees usability from a pedagogical perspective as one which is focused on the user interface, the
design of the learning activities and the determination of whether learning objectives have been met. The
user interface must then also be intuitive enough and not distract the user from achieving their objectives,
(Sim, Horton & Strong, 2004 as cited in Sim, MacFarlane and Read, 2006).
3.0 Research Cases and Games
This section involves the collection of data from research made by others. It will present short summaries
of cases and lessons learnt and provide analyses to three existing learning games. A section devoted to the
Arabic language will also be presented before providing an overall summary on the main decisions made
from the evaluated data.
3.1 Dyslexia
"Reading is the key to educational success and educational success is the key to economic
success. A child who leaves school with poor reading skills is, in most cases, doomed to a life
of unemployment and underemployment." (Boyles, 2003)
This is a generalized statement written by Salynn Boyles (2003) from an article focusing on dyslexia in
children and the various brain activity patterns that exist between the various children. Why this is looked
24
upon as a starting case for the report is because people who live with dyslexia are often in a similar
situation as those who have never learned to read. Both are often able to speak a language or more but
have troubles reading5. Despite dyslexia often carrying the characteristics of being “marked by difficulty
processing language sounds that can lead to consequences ranging from problems in reading
comprehension to reduced reading and vocabulary skills,” (Boyles, 2003) this may not necessarily be the
case of those who are “just” illiterate. Thus in order to tackle this issue, we have chosen to investigate how
dyslexia in some cases are treated, in order to gain inspiration for focus of implementation of our product.
The test conducted by Salynn Boyles (2003) was accomplished by the University of Washington, Seattle,
which measured the brain activation patterns between 10 children with dyslexia and 11 without. The
results showed that after twenty eight hours of comprehensive reading instruction, the brain activity
patterns were almost identical between the two groups, despite the large differences during the start of
the test (Boyles, 2003). From these results, although a rather small scale experiment, the report will assume
that reading practice will provide improvement.
“Reading proficiency depends on the resolution of these three problems of reading acquisition: availability,
consistency and granularity (Rayner, Foorman, Perfetti, Pesetsky, & Seidenberg, 2001). The efficiency with
which these problems can be solved seems to vary across languages and, we argue, should predict reading
acquisition in different languages.” (Ziegler & Goswani, 2005) These three problems are displayed and
explained on the following page.
Figure 3: Schematic depiction of the three main problems of reading acquisition: availability, consistency and granularity (Figure
1 from Ziegler & Goswani, 2005, p. 4)
5
Although there are multiple forms of dyslexia, which will cause variations in performance.
25
Availability
Consistency
Granularity
This problem reflects the fact that not all phonological units are consciously (explicitly)
accessible prior to reading. Thus connecting orthographic units to phonological units
that are not yet readily available requires further cognitive development.
This problem reflects the fact that some orthographic units have multiple pronunciations
and that some phonological units have multiple spellings (Glushko, 1979; Seidenberg &
McClelland, 1989; Ziegler, Stone, & Jacobs, 1997).
This problem reflects the fact that there are many more orthographic units to learn when
access to the phonological system is based on bigger grain sizes as opposed to smaller
grain sizes, i.e. there are more words than there are syllables, more syllables than there
are rimes, more rimes than there are graphemes, and more graphemes than there are
letters.
Table 5: Schematic depiction of three main problems constructed from (Ziegler & Goswani, 2005)
Ziegler & Goswani's research suggests that “the most accessible phonological units for the truly beginning
reader are the larger units (e.g., whole words, syllables, onsets, and onset–vowel or body units, rimes).”
And “depending on the simplicity of the phonological structure of a given language or the degree of direct
training in phoneme awareness provided, as the child learns letters the child discovers and isolates
phonemes.” (Ziegler & Goswani, 2005)
“As the learning of grapheme–phoneme mappings progresses, graphemic knowledge in turn promotes the
development and refinement of phonemic awareness” (Ziegler & Goswani, 2005).
The research by Ziegler and Goswani above highlights how sound and the reading of letters are
interrelated; how it affects the process of learning to read. This affects how the mini games will be
designed as children have not been exposed to the necessary phonemes as adults have throughout their
lives. This creates a different focus and challenge in the design of the game. And depending on the target
and age group, the game will have to consider these variables.
3.2 Research on Fun and Usability in Learning Software
(Sim, MacFarlane, Read, 2006)
Gavin Sim, Stuart MacFarlane and Janet Read conducted an empirical study of fun, usability and learning in
educational software in 2006, with twenty five children aged 7 and 8 from an English primary school. Their
findings summed up to learning not being correlated with fun or usability but that “observed fun and
observed usability were correlated, and that children of this age appeared to be able to differentiate
between constructs used to describe software quality.”
The authors had however difficulties in measuring the learning effect of educational software designed for
the children. And the fact that the experiment only lasted for a short duration of time also meant that it is
difficult to compare different products within that frame of time. Creating longer experiments would also
not be feasible either as there may/will be other variables that come into play, such as external factors that
may contribute to the children’s learning. Thus, unless the children are tracked constantly and the
variations are accounted for, it will give rise to inconsistent statistical data.
26
One of the key results they found was also that the educational software that was linear and had no games
was considered least fun by the children.
3.3 Researchers’ Opinion on Educational Games (Edutainment)
The purpose of this section is to investigate into areas of learning and some opinions about educational
games that the authors of this project have not yet understood or am not sure whether or not has been
“proven”. The reason for doing this is because in order to create an educational game, having some
fundamental insight into the area of how people learn can only be advantageous. Thereby possibly also
how games have attempted to tackle this area in teaching individuals.
Many games throughout the years that have been known to be in the form of “edutainment” or
educational games have been criticized for not having carried out any form of background research into the
area and creating poor products. Makers of such games have been said to “sugar coat” the education with
entertainment, i.e. the entertainment of playing is actually the reward for getting the answers correct
(Resnick, M., 2004 as cited in Becker, 2008).
Inspired by Becker’s dissertation where Egenfeldt-Nielsen’s findings from his dissertation were cited:
Simon Egenfeldt-Nielsen in his 2005 paper discusses how “edutainment” games have fundamental issues in
educating the player.
• Little intrinsic motivation: Edutainment relies more on extrinsic motivation through
rewards, rather than intrinsic motivation. Extrinsic motivation is not really related to the
game but consist of arbitrary rewards, for example getting points for completing a level.
Intrinsic motivation would for example be the feeling of mastery from completing a level.
• No integrated learning experience: Usually edutainment lacks integration of the learning
experience with playing experience, which leads to the learning becoming subordinated the
stronger play experience. The player will concentrate on playing the game rather than
learning from the game. One example is the skipping of text about the pyramids and going
straight for the mini-games located in the game universe.
• Drill-and-practice learning principles: The learning principles in edutainment are inspired by
drill-and-practice thinking rather than understanding. This means that you will constantly get
arithmetical problems like 2+2 memorising the results, while not necessarily understanding
the underlying rules that make 2+2 = 4.
• Simple game play: Most edutainment titles are built on a simple game play often from
classic arcade titles or a simple adventure game with a world you can move around in.
• Small budgets: Edutainment titles are often produced on relatively limited budgets
compared to commercial computer games and with less than state-of-the-art technology.
• No teacher presence: Edutainment never makes any demands on teachers or parents.
Rather edutainment assumes that students can simply be put in front of the computer with
27
the edutainment title and learn the given content or skills. There is no required teacher or
parent guidance, help or involvement.
• Distribution and marketing: They are distributed and marketed differently than commercial
computer games for example through bookstores, supermarkets, schools and family
magazines.
(Egenfeldt-Nielsen, 2005)
For the first part, no intrinsic motivation and no integrated learning experience seems to result in the
player not being able to gain much learning from playing the games. This is because if the player does not
get the feeling of having achieved something through mastery, it can almost be assumed that there is little
chance that they have learnt anything new and beneficial. And by skipping learning material because it is
not well integrated into the game prevents the player from learning the material in the first place.
This is often combined with the drill-and-practice learning principles that are discussed above. The con of
memorising only is that the there is a high risk that the player will never be able to understand why the
answers are the way they are. The argumentation against this however is that it really comes down to what
it is that is being taught. In the case of learning the letters of an alphabet, memorising the individual
alphabets and their sounds would not necessarily be bad start. Understanding why they sound the way
they do are not the same as explaining why the number 2 is a combination of two 1s. However, learning the
letters alone will not enable a reader to learn either, but it is a fundamental step to being able to being able
to read.
The comments on simple game play most probably stems from the research made on “edutainment” titles
before the 2005. Many of them (if any) did not contain design and materials anywhere near the quality of
commercial games at the time. However, the fact that they provide simple game play with mechanics from
classic arcade titles or that of a simple adventure game is not necessarily a con. Again, it should come down
to what one is trying to convey and teach from the game.
Small budgets and different distribution and marketing often come down to the amount of money invested
in this area. And as this genre has not become a commercial hit, it is not surprising that the distribution
channels and investments are lower than that of commercial computer games. And now we also have
mobile phone games increasing in sales and production in the market, which too carry “small” budgets.
Last but not least, the fact that edutainment games do not collaborate with teachers or parents for
guidance is not necessarily a bad thing either. It again comes down to what it is one is trying to train. Nor
does the statement seek to suggest that edutainment can simply act as a supplement to existing schooling,
as take home practice tests do in “traditional schooling”. However, when taking edutainment as a form of
learning for schools and institutions, taking into consideration the teachers and parents as part of the
formula for, children at the very least, sounds very reasonable.
In Egenfeldt-Nielsen’s defence, he states that "Rote learning in relation to spelling and reading for preschool and early school children may see some gains from edutainment.” But does this then exclude adults
who are also illiterate? The questioning here is not to suggest that the critiqued “edutainment” games
28
alone will create players with journalistic skills after having completed a series of practices, which consist of
memorization and “probably not a deep understanding of the skill or content.” (Egenfeldt-Nielsen, 2005)
Taking this list of critiques and the coupling of the criticism that edutainment is superficial in attempting to
“revolutionize learning (by) undermining the very foundation for learning” (Kafai, 2001 as cited in
Egenfeldt-Nielsen, 2005), one can argue that with such "weak learning experiences especially if you
consider the time-on-task issue – the player won’t spend a lot of time on educational experiences, but
rather gain a lot of game experience" (Egenfeldt-Nielsen, 2005). With such negative comments towards
“edutainment” and the perception of edutainment as “bad educational software” (Becker, 2008) varying
across different researchers, this report will refrain from using this term and include them in the category
known as “educational games”. In other words, references made towards any forms of edutainment will
from here on be considered in the category of older educational games.
Based on the analysis of the research data above, it can be summed up and suggested that: Unless one
incorporates the learning experience into the game in some form, the “educational experience” may not be
uncovered or taken away as a result. “The disappointing results are due in part to how instructional
designers have used rigid methods when implementing models within the educational product
environment (Shelton & Wiley, 2006).” This can therefore lead to a failure as an educational game, whilst it
may have succeeded in being fun and entertaining.
It is therefore important to argue for understanding some learning theory or psychology before attempting
to create one. Becker argues that:
"With the possible exception of those few truly talented masters, it is not possible to see the possibilities and
limitations of gaming without a thorough understanding of programming and software design, and it is not
possible to design a game that will deliver on its instructional objectives while retaining that which makes it
a good game without an understanding of learning theories, their application, and instructional design
theories." (Becker, 2008)
This exemplifies some of the reasons for this report to begin by investigating a few areas of learning theory
and game designs before attempting to create the game as a proof of concept.
Having now gained an insight into various areas of learning theory and educational games, the following
section will look into three games.
3.4 Learning Games Analysis
Before beginning the design of an educational game, research was done on learning games. Many of them
contained what one could refer to as “repetitive trial and error” sequences. This section will seek to provide
information on our investigations involved with three learning games and one for mentioned for its
inspiration. Though only two of them had to do with language directly, the third one contained various
design decisions which made it interesting to evaluate upon.
3.4.1 Slime Forest Adventure
(http://lrnj.com/)
29
The aim this game is to teach people Japanese, through the use of an RPG. It provided a major inspiration
for the project as one of the authors played it a couple of years ago and still remembers some of the
Japanese he learned through the game, even without studying Japanese aside from the game. The game
has since significantly changed, one of the major changes has been a focus on drilling people in Kanji and
expecting that the person playing the game has actually studied Japanese. In the original game that
happened after the player had already spent a significant time levelling up and it was therefore possible to
pick up the language without prior studies.
The mechanic for teaching is to have the monster have a Japanese word above it's head and then typing
the English translation of that word when attacking it, getting it right will hurt the monster, but if you do it
wrong then the correct answer will appear which you than have to type. Getting it wrong will also will heal
the monster and frequently result in more monsters joining the fight.
Also Slime Forest Adventure (SFA) encourages pacing yourself by limiting your character to three free
healings a day, represented in the game as three meals (breakfast, lunch and dinner) and enforced by the
system clock, this encourages a limited amount of practice each day which is helpful in long term retention.
It also forces the player to make a strategic decision if he will continue playing and get all his healing from
sources that cost money or if he will quit for the day.
Figure 4: Screenshot of “Slime Forest Adventure” (2008)
3.4.2 Knuckles in China Land
(http://www.kicl.info/)
Knuckles in China Land (KCL) bears many similarities to Slime Forest Adventure, it is also reminiscent of the
old console RPG's, though combat is against a random card from a set selected at the beginning of the
battle. Aside from that mostly graphical change the game play is remarkably similar as in both games you
have to type in the English word for the foreign word shown to you during battle. On the surface this game
is very similar to SFA with more plot and better graphics; however there are several important differences
30
between the two games. One of the most obvious is the introduction of new material which in KCL shows
you the solution when it is added for the first time and each time you get it wrong, while the SFA will only
show the right answer if you get it wrong. This makes Knuckles a lot friendlier to new learners while SFA
assumes you also have lessons outside of the game.
Figure 5: Screenshot of “Knuckles in China Land” (2007)
In SFA the player is constantly levelling up, completing mini quests and getting other rewards such as better
weapons. In KCL however the player is only advancing the story and is much more constrained in where
they can go and what order they have to accomplish their objectives in. Also in SFA you can choose which
slime to attack next instead of having one chosen for you. In large part this means that in SFA more tactical
decisions need to be made.
One large plus about KCL is that it is possible to replace the dictionary files in the game, i.e. it can be used
to learn other languages.
31
3.4.3 Dora the Explorer – The Lost City Adventure
This game was built up of a number of games. The idea is for the user to match up the number of elements
to the displayed number. Failure to do so will simply not allow the user to be able to place the object under
that number, if it is wrong. As the player has to complete these rounds three times before being allowed to
move onto the next game, through the combination of visuals with trial and error, it provides intuitive
memory learning.
These “match the number/pattern” with objects are used throughout the game but in different forms. In
the one level, as displayed in the image below, one has to colour a picture with colours. Using the brush
(mouse pointer), one has to click on the colour and match it with the number which is in the middle of the
area that needs colouring.
Figure 6: Screenshot from Painting Level in Dora the Explorer – The Lost City Adventure (2002)
In another level, one has to match the number with the number shown underneath the jewel that needs to
be collected. These numbers are running from the right to the left of the screen and the idea is to click the
figure before it goes out of the screen. These can be seen from the picture below. Upon selecting the
correct number, the number is read out to the player. Unlike the other levels, this level allows the user to
select the wrong number. In this case, the wrong number that is selected disappears. In the other games,
the wrong number or selection could never be made. This makes it more “challenging” and dynamic.
Reasoning for such choices will be made at the end of this section.
32
Figure 7: Screenshot from Pyramid Level in Dora the Explorer – The Lost City Adventure (2002)
The reason for adding such a mechanic at the end of the game is most likely because during the early parts
of the game, it is designed to first
This form of learning is what players tend to remember through repetitive activity. As long as they are
having fun, it does not feel the same as sitting down with e.g. what some students consider a textbook, and
memorize the information. It becomes interactive and the player gets feedback right away when the wrong
decision has been made. As Prensky states from her research (2001 as cited in Batson & Freiberg, 2006)
“games are a form of fun and play that provides enjoyment and pleasure to all of us. Games have goals,
rules and win states that give users structure and motivation. They also are very interactive providing users
positive and negative outcomes and feedback throughout play.” This is seen throughout games that
provide either replay ability or is designed with replayed sequences as the “Dora the Explorer” game.
The “Dora the Explorer” game seems to follow some form of instructional design. The game forces the
player to repeat each mini game three times. Besides explaining everything in audio, it begins by first
allowing the player to paint the image (as shown in the image previously) without allowing them to make
any errors. This allows the player to continue trying to match the numbers and get longer visual exposure
to the numbers in question. Here the numbers and colours are both read out aloud upon initial selection
and the correct answer.
The game then moves onto another mini game, which consists of helping the mother insect in finding and
catching the baby insects with numbers attached to them and place them in the correctly numbered
compartment of the trolley. This again is a matching game where upon selecting the correct answers will
read the number out.
33
Figure 8: Screenshot from Help Insect Mum Level in Dora the Explorer – The Lost City Adventure (2002)
After having played matching the numbers in two different forms of mini games, the third level consists of
understanding what the numbers actually mean. Here the game is to help the captain queue the correct
number of pigs to each ship. Upon placing the correct amount, the pigs will then enter the ship. This game
does not allow one to place e.g. 4 pigs into the ship numbered 3, i.e. it’s a trial and error process which is
fool proof. The game succeeds in providing visuals to help define what the numbers mean.
Upon completing the level, when the ship sails away, the game will playback audio calling out the numbers
for each consecutive ship that sails.
Figure 9: Screenshot from Count the Pigs Level in Dora the Explorer – The Lost City Adventure (2002)
34
As a final prize and to finish off the story, the idea is to find the hidden treasure. This becomes a game of
visuals with the audio describing the visuals to match. This last game allows errors as choosing the wrong
treasure causes all the windows to shut (thereby causing all the objects to disappear and hide again). This
final level seems to act as a reward game for the players to relax and try something a little different.
Figure 10: Screenshot from Find the Treasure Level in Dora the Explorer – The Lost City Adventure (2002)
Upon completing this, the player can then start the game again by replaying it or selecting a different level
of difficulty.
With three levels of difficulty, increasing the difficulty from one to two forces the player to not only match
numbers but also colours, e.g. in the pig game, one has to match the colour of the pig to the colour of the
ship as well. Increasing the difficulty level to three creates little difference in difficulty with level two, from
a mechanics point of view. Instead, it reads out the numbers in Spanish, so as to help the children learn the
numbers in Spanish.
35
Figure 11: Screenshot from User Menu in Dora the Explorer – The Lost City Adventure (2002)
The menu contains almost no text except for what is being displayed in the menu screenshot with the “Yes”
and “No”. Whenever any of the text is moused-over, a sound reading the text is played. This helps guide a
player who cannot read at all to make their choices.
All the navigation is done on the map shown below, to select the different mini games to play. This shows a
good and intuitive use of graphics to help navigation in the game, without requiring the user to be able to
read.
Figure 12: Screenshot from Navigation Menu in Dora the Explorer – The Lost City Adventure (2002)
36
3.4.4 Spread the Word
Spread the Word is a project at the Global IT University (of which ITU is a part) to improve an already very
successful project to help people in India how to read. It works in a very different way, as it runs on
computers in a classroom with teachers and has mentioned the ability to read in 40 hours. The project took
some inspiration from them, though the methods and problems are quite different. We for instance do not
have the problem of men being embarrassed to be taught by women, and similar cultural issues, and the
problem in finding enough volunteers to teach the material.
37
3.5 The Arabic Language
As the aim is to create an educational for Arabic reading, some background in the buildup of the language is
called for. The whole section is built up of information and quotations assembled directly through research
on the language in order to provide the reader with a sound idea on the complexities of the language. It
then rounds up with the quotations from a research made on learning Arabic and the trends observed.
Most of the material for the foundations have been gathered and quoted from Bouchentouf’s “Arabic for
Dummies” book.
3.5.1 Foundations of Arabic
(Bouchentouf, 2006)
This section provides a short and simplified introduction to the fundamentals of the Arabic alphabet
system. It begins by providing information regarding the build up of a word and the pronunciation changes
involved in the language.
There are mainly three different types of Arabic:
Koranic Arabic – the form of Arabic used to write the Koran. It is Arabic in its most traditional form. It is the
equivalent of Biblical English.
Regional Dialects - The three main geographical categories for this informal type of Arabic are the North
African dialect, the Egyptian dialect and the Gulf Arabic. Though the expressions and words vary, the
speakers from these different regions more or less understand one another. This is under the assumption
that their regional dialects lie under modern standard Arabic (MSA).
Modern Standard Arabic – This is the most widely used and understood form of Arabic. It is the form of
Arabic used to present the news; for formal business and technical purposes and amongst social groups.
Despite these differences in variations across regions, the writing system used is the same. The system is
read from right to left. It is comprised of an alphabetic system where "each Arabic letter has four shapes,
for example, depending on where it appears in a word -- at the beginning, middle, end or by itself"
(Chartrand, 2004). “Further, different rules are used for the writing of each form. Recognizing the nature of
these letters and their diverse writing rules in different positions, and recognizing the different short
vowels under, in, and above the letters, is critical for readers' word identification in reading, which may
demand considerable cognitive attention” (Abu-Rabia, 1999).
Arabic contains both vowels6 and consonants7, however the vowels are not actually letters. Instead, they
are symbols that one places on top of or below consonants, to create certain sounds. An example is of a
6
Vowel - One of a class of speech sounds in the articulation of which the oral part of the breath channel is not blocked
and is not constricted enough to cause audible friction ; broadly : the one most prominent sound in a syllable
(Merriam-Webster.com, 2008)
7
Consonant - A sound in spoken language that is characterized by a constriction or closure at one or more points
along the vocal tract. The word consonant comes from Latin meaning "sounding with" or "sounding together", the
idea being that consonants don't sound on their own, but only occur with a nearby vowel; this conception of
38
fatHa, a vowel representing the “ah”. When this is placed above a consonant representing the letter “b”,
the sound you get ends up being “bah”.
3.5.1.1 Vowels
Arabic contains three main vowels and three vowel derivatives. Below is a table showing these:
Main Vowels:
fatHah
The way one pronounces a fatHa depends on what consonants come before and after it. This
can be seen by a small horizontal line above a consonant. The fatHa is the same as a short “a”
in “hat” or “cat”.
Damma
This vowel sounds like “uh” in the words “foot” and “book”. It can be seen as a tiny backwards
“e” above a consonant.
Kasra
This sounds like a long “e” like in the words “feet” and “treat”. It is written the same way as a
fatHa but goes under the consonant instead of above.
Table 6: Main Vowels compiled from (Bouchentouf, 2006)
Derivative Vowels: Double Vowels, Long Vowels, Diphthongs
Double Vowels (tanwiin): The way this works is by placing one of main vowels and duplicating it right beside
it. The sound depends on which vowel is doubled:
Double fatHa
Creates the “an” sound, e.g. “ahlan wa sahlan” (ahel-an wah sahel-an) – Hello
Double damma
Creates the “oun” sound, e.g. “kouratoun” (koo-rah-toon) – Ball
Double kasra
Creates the “een” sound, e.g. “SafHatin” (sahf-hah-teen) – Page
Table 7: Double Vowels compiled from (Bouchentouf, 2006)
Long Vowels: These derivatives elongate the main vowels. It can be seen as “if a main vowel lasts for one
beat, then its long vowel equivalent lasts for two beats.” Whereas you create double vowels by writing two
main vowels next to each other, you create long vowels by adding a letter to one of the main vowels, i.e.
each consonant has a corresponding consonant that elongates it. The three characters used to elongate the
main vowels are shown on the following page.
consonants, however, does not reflect a modern linguistic understanding, which defines them in terms of vocal tract
constrictions (Wisegeek.com, 2008)
39
Figure 13: Arabic Vowel Characters Table from (Bouchentouf, 2006)
Dipthongs: This is considered a special category of vowesl as they are monosyllabic soundsthat begin with
one vowel and “glide” into another vowel. Here there are two dipthong sounds to distinguish between
“yaa” and “waaw” forms of long vowels. The way to tell the difference between a long vowel and dipthong
is that whenever the yaa or the waaw is a dipthong, one will see a “sukun”, which is a small circle that you
place above the consonant. However, the “sukun” is never vocalized, i.e. acts like a “silent vowel”.
Examples: waaw dipthong – nawm (nah-oom) and yaa’ dipthong – ‘ayn (ah-yen).
3.5.1.2 Consonants
For the consonants in Arabic, please refer to the appendix II of this report.
“Arabic (unlike English) does not possess any heterographic homophones, that is, words identical in
pronunciation but different in spelling – only one grapheme8 can ever correspond to any particular
phoneme. Hence, in Arabic, if two words have the same pronunciation they must also have the same
spelling.” (Taouk & Coltheart, 2004)
3.5.2 Learning Arabic
The difficulty in the language lies in how "Arabic is printed and written only in flowing script, never as
individual letters" (Chartrand, 2004).
Arabic native speaking children are born into a unique linguistic context called diglossia9 (Ferguson, word,
14, 47–56, [1959] as cited in Saiegh-Haddad, 2005) There are slight differences in syntax and vocabulary in
different Arabic-speaking countries (Azzam, 1993), and significant differences in phonology among different
dialects. The spoken language is totally different from the literary written language (Abu-Rabia, 1999).
Literary Arabic is taught to children at school almost as a second language (Abu-Rabia, 1999).
In this context, children grow up speaking a Spoken Arabic Vernacular (SAV), which is an exclusively spoken
language, but later learn to read another linguistically related form, Modern Standard Arabic (SaieghHaddad, 2005). To display the differences between the two, “spoken vernaculars usually have a more
complex vocalic system, but a simpler consonantal inventory incorporating a smaller number of
8
Grapheme – a minimal unit of a writing system consisting of all the written symbols or sequences of written symbols
that are used to represent a single phoneme, e.g. as f, ph, and gh is for the phoneme “f” in English. (Dictionary.com,
2008)
9
Diglossia - A sociolinguistic phenomenon in which complementary social functions are distributed between a
prestigious or formal variety and a common or colloquial variety of a language, as in Greek, Tamil, or Scottish English.
(Dictionary.com, 2008)
40
consonants” (Saiegh-Haddad, 2005). In other words, those who are illiterate are faced with foreign
consonantal phonemes that they have not familiar with from their oral experience10 (Saiegh-Haddad, 2005).
“To read an alphabetic orthography, children must first understand that the acoustically seamless sound
stream that represents spoken words can be segmented into smaller component phonemes” (SaieghHaddad, 2005). “Such a metalinguistic insight is a prerequisite to reading because alphabetic writing
systems map the oral language at the level of the phoneme (Shankweiler & Liberman, 1972 as cited in
Saiegh-Haddad, 2005) and training in phonemic11 awareness has also been shown to result in gains in
reading.” (Bus & van IJzendoorn, 1999 as cited in Saiegh-Haddad, 2005).
However, as spoken Arabic comes in many forms of dialects, it was made aware by Saiegh-Haddad (2005)
that the syllabic structure might even vary with the MSA forms.The differences between spoken and MSA
are wide enough to slow down the learning process of reading, due to the differences in phonemes. Here,
“Abu-Rabia (2000) and Feitelson, Goldstein, Iraqi, and Share (1993) showed that early oral exposure to
MSA, through story telling, was associated with gains in literary language development and reading
comprehension.” (Saiegh-Haddad, 2005).
3.5.3 Research in Learning Arabic
To round this section off, Saiegh-Haddad (2005) conducted a research with a variety of tests that included
the likes of phoneme isolation, discrimination, reading fluency, etc. to test the possible variations that can
affect a child’s literacy process.
“Although the isolation of diglossic phonemes was found by previous research to affect the decoding
accuracy of poor readers (Saiegh-Haddad, 2003), the reading fluency of first graders at the end of their first
year of formal schooling does not seem to be as strongly related to this skill. Reading in the shallow
orthography of vowelized Arabic, and despite the presence of diglossic phonemes, seems to be primarily
accountable by the speed of converting graphemes to phonemes, and by memory.” (Saiegh-Haddad, 2005)
There were three reading conditions: fully vowelized, partially vowelized, and unvowelized texts. Results
showed that vowels were important variables to facilitate word recognition in poor and skilled readers in
Arabic orthography.
10
Saiegh-Haddad, 2005 referred to this aspect on behalf of children. However, it is assumed that this will also be the
case for adults who have also never learned read before. The difference being that the adults may have possibly been
exposed to more phonemes over time.
11
Phoneme - Any of a small set of units, usually about 20 to 60 in number, and different for each language, considered
to be the basic distinctive units of speech sound by which morphemes, words, and sentences are represented. They
are arrived at for any given language by determining which differences in sound function to indicate a difference in
meaning, so that in English the difference in sound and meaning between pit and bit is taken to indicate the existence
of different labial phonemes, while the difference in sound between the un-aspirated p of spun and the aspirated p of
pun, since it is never the only distinguishing feature between two different words, is not taken as ground for setting
up two different p phonemes in English. (Dictionary.com, 2008)
41
Usually, the presence of short vowels disambiguates homographs12 in reading Arabic texts, but when short
vowels are not presented, the sentence context is the crucial factor for disambiguating homographs (for a
similar approach see Shimron, 1993)
3.5.4 Differences Between Poor And Skilled Arabic Readers
Figure 15: “The Arabic poor readers’ reading model”
Figure 14: ”The suggested Arabic normal/skilled reader’s
reading model
Source: Created from (Fig. 4 and Fig. 5 in Abu-Rabia,
1996, pp. 478)”
There are certain irregularities that require the mature reader to bring to the text considerable knowledge
of literary Arabic—syntax, vocabulary, and contextual interpretations—in order to derive meaning from
print (Abu-Rabia, 1999).
“In most modern written and printed literary Arabic texts, no short vowel signs are given and the reader
has to deduce them through relying on context or linguistic prior knowledge (Abu-Rabia, 1998; Abu-Rabia &
Siegel, 1995 as cited in Abu-Rabia, 1999).” As a result, “texts are typically written in vowelized shallow
orthography for beginning readers and in unvowelized deep orthography for more advanced readers,”
where “Literary Arabic is taught to children at school almost as a second language” (Abu-Rabia, 1999).
12
Homograph - One of two or more words that have the same spelling but differ in origin, meaning, and sometimes
pronunciation, such as fair (pleasing in appearance) and fair (market) or wind (wĭnd) and wind (wīnd) (Dictionary.com,
2008).
42
“Reading Arabic script without short vowels can become a difficult task for poor and/or beginning readers
owing to word and letter similarities and homographs. This is because certain letters can be distinguished
from each other only by a single stroke or dot, or may be phonologically indistinct in the colloquial dialect
of Arabic spoken by the individual” (Abu-Rabia, 1999).
In its written form, the modern Arabic writing system, like the English writing system, is alphabetic (Azzam,
1993). That is, it is a system which allows reading (and writing) to occur at the level of the phoneme, since
the individual characters of the Arabic writing system correspond to phonemes. However, if one considers
the diacritics13 used for specifying vowels in vowelized Arabic as ‘part of’ the consonant letters with which
they correspond, then it might be argued that the Arabic writing system is syllabic, unlike English (Taouk &
Coltheart, 2004).
“The reading process in Arabic for skilled readers cannot be viewed only as a word recognition process
without reliance on other factors such as sentence context and vowels. The reading process for skilled
readers reading unvowelized Arabic texts should be viewed as an interactive-dynamic process of context
and word recognition, namely, if the Arabic text is presented unvowelized the only way to ensure word
recognition is to rely on context.” (Abu-Rabia, 1996)
3.6 Teaching Arabic
(Taouk & Coltheart, 2004)
The first major task for a beginner reader in Arabic “is learning to recognise letters, generally in their
isolated forms, and remembering their names and sounds. From the teacher’s point of view this means
teaching basic letter–sound correspondences, one letter at a time. Although for some letters there are
different forms for all three positions, as well as an isolated form, at this stage the different position forms
are treated as independent letters all corresponding to the same phoneme.”
The sound corresponding to each Arabic letter represents the sound of the initial consonant of the letter
name. Gradually, each letter is then taught in the context of its associated short- and long-vowel sounds, as
well as with absence of a vowel sound.
Typically, the children are taught to recognise and write each letter individually in its initial, medial, and
final forms, and they are exposed to words in which the letter appears, generally in its initial form. The
main purpose behind this exposure to words that the children usually cannot read is to develop phonemic
awareness, that is, awareness that a particular sound exists. This involves a phonological-recoding phase
followed by a gradual transition to an orthographic phase.
The children are presented with words, and to familiarise them with the appearance of its corresponding
letter in words. Otherwise, “reading” and comprehension of these words is facilitated by graphic pictures
and is commonly executed “off-by-heart”, and word writing involves repeatedly copying the same words.
A technique passed on to children to facilitate their word reading involves analysing each word by
phonemic “cutting and pasting”. The teacher speaks a monosyllable to the child (typically a non-word since
13
Diacritic - A mark, such as the cedilla of façade or the acute accent of resumé, added to a letter to indicate a special
phonetic value or distinguish words that are otherwise graphically identical. (Dictionary.com, 2008)
43
Arabic has very few monosyllabic words), and the child has to break the word into phonemic units
comprising the consonant and its corresponding diacritic (usually a vowel sign at this stage), and then
phonemically “pasting” or pronouncing these phonemic units together, resulting in a complete
pronunciation of the word. This strategy is then used to decode words made up of up to three syllables.
This technique may also be referred to as “sounding-out” phonemic units.
This amounts to the claim that children at early stages of learning to read Arabic need to rely on letter-tosound translation of print rather than whole-word recognition.
Knowing how and when these relationships and transitions come into existence or change over time and
the nature of their role in determining or influencing the cognitive processes involved in learning to read
Arabic is important for the development of a comprehensive theory of how learning to read occurs.
For more information regarding the findings and phases found by Taouk and Coltheart’s research, refer to
the appendix III.
44
4.0 Data Evaluation
Despite the fact that there are different forms of dyslexia, if reading practice for the dyslexic can provide
improvements, this will be also be expected to be true for those that know how to speak a language but
have never learned to read. However, depending on the age group and experience of the learner in
question, reading can become difficult because the person learning to read has not necessarily ever heard
the sound before. And as spoken language can vary and written language can have multiple phonological
spellings, these end up attributing to the confusion of the learner.
For the case of Arabic, this is especially true, due to the differences in speech and writing. However, when
having learned the writing, there is in fact only one single way of pronouncing the spellings, i.e. multiple
phonological spellings is not something that exists in the Arabic language. This means however that the
words though can contain the same spellings, can mean different things. Thus the definition has to be read
out of context. The only way to overcome this is through practice and experience.
Factors presented regarding drill and practice learning principles, simple game play, small budgets, no
teacher and distribution are all very relevant areas for mobile educational gaming. We especially want to
keep the budget small and make things as easily and quickly created and distributed as possible. Yet we
want to make the game play simple enough because of the existing mobile platforms in question. And for
the purpose of learning the fundamentals in languages, drill and practice, i.e. learning by rote, seem to be
one of the effective ways of teaching in and outside of the classrooms. This case is also true for that of
Arabic. In order to nurture the player’s ability to read the letters, sound needs to be added and mapped to
the letters to provide the phonological and grapheme pairing. This in result will provide a starting step for
the learners to Arabic. Further improvement in Arabic will require the game to support game types
containing variations of the letter paired with others with and without vowels. And this will continue until
the basic understanding of how to read has been obtained. Only then will the learners be able to use their
oral experiences to read out of context.
In creating the mobile educational game, one has to make sure that the areas of attention, relevance,
confidence and satisfaction are carried through. These coupled with the factors of challenge, fantasy,
curiosity, control, cooperation, competition and recognition should be considered. For mobile games, all
these can be met in some form, however with the current hardware and infrastructure limitations, the
design will refrain from using features regarding networking.
Educational games should be carefully moulded to create an integrated experience. Without this integrated
experience, the player may end up focusing on playing only and ignoring the significant details which they
“were supposed to read”. In other words, the educational properties of the subject at hand should be part
of the game in order for the user to come out feeling that they have learnt something, and thereby may
want to continue playing. This is one way to attempt stimulating the intrinsic motivation to keep going. It is
a “natural human tendency: to get better at thing” (Koster, 2005).
The experiment on fun, usability and learning revealed how difficult it will be to play test a learning
application and its efficiency in teaching the users. As external factors can affect the experiment and
thereby tamper the results, in practice for this project’s purpose, does it really matter? If the external
factors provide any help to the learning process, that can only be good, as they may act as a form of
45
extrinsic motivation. If the external factors end up disrupting the learning process, one can only hope that
the game is interesting enough so as to sustain the intrinsic motivation in the learner. As without the
learner being willing to learn, there is close to no hope.
In hope to sustain this motivation, a game is recommended, based on this study. This is supported by other
research, showing that games can aid in learning, if not give rise to it. With this in mind, the usability of the
mobile game will have to be in order, as the correlation between usability and fun will be of utmost
importance. Especially for a game where the use of text may act against the product, finding a way to
create a pleasurable and coherent navigational experience for the game will be a challenge.
The experiment by Ziegler and Goswani found that there was no correlation between learning and fun or
usability. This however will not necessarily mean that it does not exist. One explanation for it could simply
be that the instructional learning material was not compatible with the software design.
What is most important first and foremost is that the product ends up being fun, in order to stimulate the
emotions of the learner. This is because good material with no fun may not encourage nor motivate the
learner to play the game. And without playing the game, the material will not be learnt through this
medium at the very least. And if this medium is the “only” way to provide access to any form of learning for
reading, the learner will never learn.
Even if the learner were to pick up the game, no motivation may also lead to a state of mind which is not
optimal for learning that particular subject, i.e. one has to want to learn to learn anything efficiently. Thus
being the reason why it has been chosen as a priority to first make the game fun and then be sure to
embed the learning material into the game, in hope that the players may get something out of it. Can this
be considered accidental learning? The game will be designed to provide enough feedback for information
regarding the language in question. Thus the learning
will probably not be seen as this.
With the fun in place, the learning materials can be
expanded in the game. Depending on what the
materials are, resources can be placed in creating
educational content with emphasis of an increasing
amount of challenge. With the game designer hat on,
we are interested in designing games that generate a
flow experience (Eggen, Fejs, de Graaf, Peters, 2003).
Correlations with this experience and games have been
made, based on the research and usage of the concept
in researchers of the field.
The flow experience is a concept that Mihaly
Czikszentmihalyi created after the research conducted
on identifying elements of enjoyment. He did this by
studying similar experiences across different tasks and
types of people (Fullerton, Swain, Hoffman, 2004). He
46
Figure 16: Flow from (Fullerton, Swain, Hoffman, 2004)
found a relationship between abilities and the concept of a challenge. The challenge being too high will
lead to frustration if the person’s abilities are too low, whilst vice versa will create boredom for the person.
Thus to stay in the state of flow, Farmer14 summarised it as:
-
Completely involved, focused, concentrating - with this either due to innate curiosity or as the result of
training
Sense of ecstasy - of being outside everyday reality
Great inner clarity - knowing what needs to be done and how well it is going
Knowing the activity is doable - that the skills are adequate, and neither anxious or bored
Sense of serenity - no worries about self, feeling of growing beyond the boundaries of ego - afterwards
feeling of transcending ego in ways not thought possible
Timeliness - thoroughly focused on present, don't notice time passing
Intrinsic motivation - whatever produces "flow" becomes its own reward
“When all of a person's relevant skills are needed to cope with the challenges of a situation, that person's
attention is completely absorbed by the activity… People become so involved in what they're doing that the
activity becomes spontaneous, almost automatic; they stop being aware of themselves as separate from the
actions they are performing.”(Czikszentmihalyi as cited in Fullerton, Swain, Hoffman, 2004)
One can view this as a form of immersing, where the player becomes tied up in the world and becomes
determined to complete whatever it is they have set out to do. Thus in the case of playing a game, one
could say that they continue to play and “lose track of ordinary time” as they continue to play through the
game. However, this can also happen when a person reads a story book. Do the challenges increase as a
result of this? This question alone casts some doubt regarding the concept of flow.
But despite such questions, carrying on with the discussion of flow brings about some interesting areas of
thought. To be in this state of flow, it has been noted that one needs to know what needs to be done and
to get direct feedback, in order to obtain and update as to how one’s performance in achieving the goals is.
(Fullerton, Swain, Hoffman, 2004) In order to aid in maintaining such a state, the designer has to make sure
that there is a balanced correlation between the challenge of the game and the reward that the player
receives upon completing the challenge. Succeeding in doing so may result in the player continuing to be
drawn by the game; and in so doing, “emerges with a stronger self-concept” after ending the game
(Fullerton, Swain, Hoffman, 2004)
The above is due to the new findings and afterthoughts resulting after having played a game. If one could
achieve this in a learning game it can be assumed that it has been successful in the player having learnt
something as it goes hand in hand with the learning and motivational theory presented earlier: providing
that there is a need for challenges to take place in order to map the person’s abilities and reinforce these to
sustain the intrinsic motivation.
14
http://www.austega.com/gifted/articles/flow.htm
47
Mlearning has the potential to be anywhere learning but it is not as widespread yet. Research is still scarce,
with little experimental data. This project will mostly use informal and lifelong learning, as the game in
itself is to support the learning of the language, whether there is an educational system in place or not. The
game also seeks to utilize the motivational aspect of playing to facilitate learning. Individual motivational
factors will also be tackled, to make sure that the game is engaging. If the game is properly motivating it
will be fun, a key factor of which involves the usability of the interface, which should not represent a
challenge to operate, otherwise the challenge will be too high. Using the data gathered and analysed from
existing learning games presented earlier in the report, will be of inspiration and help.
"Developing curriculum for mobile phones requires understanding of both the delivery platform and good
instructional practices. At present, the technology supports mostly static, non-interactive content. Viewers
can listen and view content, but not do much more." (Collins, 2005) Though we support the comment
regarding the curriculum, we do not quite agree with the comment on mobile phone technology. This is
because it provides the possibility to create games and we believe that games, as they have done
throughout history, both in digital and non-digital format, have supplemented in teaching players.
Thus we take the challenge to create just such a game for the mobile phone platform. The following
sections from here on forth will discuss the rollercoaster journey.
48
5.0 The Game
5.1 Implementation
The decision was made to use J2ME because it is the de facto standard for the industry almost every mobile
phone supports it. It also has the advantage that the authors are already familiar with Java and thought it
would be straightforward to write for J2ME instead of the Standard Edition. Unfortunately this later only
proved partially true, as the API differs significantly between the editions. The Mobile edition is still using
version two of the languages without all the enhancements the later versions brought that the authors
have gotten used to, like generics.
There were other possibilities such as investigating the use of the Snap Mobile15 SDK by Nokia or Sony
Ericsson’s Project Capuchin16 SDK. However, this would have meant that the game would have been phone
specific and most likely have to be rewritten to work on other phones. And the other aspect is that the
phones may not support the features that the SDKs support.
The implementation at its core relies on the ThesisGameCanvas to provide the control flow while various
games modes decide what to display and how to handle user input. The ThesisGameCanvas does this by
maintaining a stack of game modes and each tick determining the current game mode. It then notifies that
mode of any key presses and verifies its state each tick, before notifying the display thread to update the
screen and then pausing between each tick to ensure the game happens at the right speed. Originally, it
also suppressed key presses during animations, but through testing it was found to be way too annoying
and so that feature was disabled. This control flow is shown in the following image below:
Figure 17: Control Flow of Game
15
16
http://www.forum.nokia.com/main/resources/technologies/snap_mobile/
https://developer.sonyericsson.com/site/global/docstools/projectcapuchin/p_projectcapuchin.jsp
49
Each game mode meanwhile exists mostly independent from the others with their only interaction with
other game modes in general is putting them on the stack, although some are a little more closely linked,
such as the battle map mode and the word match mode where the battle map mode uses the word match
mode to damage the monsters.
5.1.2 Game Modes
The current game contains only 5 game modes, World Map
Mode, Battle Map Mode, Word Match Mode, Memory Game
Mode, and the Letter Finding Shooter Mode.
The World Map Mode is fairly simple. It consists of the player
moving over a map with the possibility of entering various
things, such as houses to get into other mini games. It's a basic
world map such as found in almost any RPG.
In the screen shot you can also see the status bar at the
bottom of the screen and the red scrollbars which are used
whenever we need to scroll anywhere. Those GUI elements
stay consistent in every game mode that uses them, in an
effort to keep the interface intuitive. Worth noting is the fact
that these screen shots have roughly twice the height and
twice the width of what we expect to encounter on most
cellphones.
Figure 18: Screenshot of The World Map Mode
Battle Map Mode is similarly just a fairly normal battle map as
found in most RPG's like the old final fantasy games. However
this game mode begins instruction by calling the Word Match
Mode for each attack, thereby giving an incentive to do the
game repeatedly and to get the result right since any false
attacks heal the monsters instead of damaging them.
Seen here are all four types of monsters currently in the game
and the animation that shows how much damage a sprite took,
in this case the player which is represented by a wedge that
gets filled in clockwise for damage and counter clockwise for
healing with the size of the wedge growing as you do more
damage in comparison to the total amount of hit points of that
sprite.
Figure 19: Screenshot of Battle Map Mode
50
Word Match Mode plays a word and displays a list of words for
the player to choose one along with a time limit to keep the
pressure on the player. From the limited and informal play
testing we have done this time limit was crucial to making it
fun, though it probably made the game too difficult for people
who do not yet know how to read.
This is the only game so far that adds a second bar to the game
that shows the time remaining to match the word. Clicking
right or left will replay the word, while clicking up or down will
change the selected word.
Figure 20: Screenshot of Word Match Mode
Memory Game Mode was intended to teach people how to
match letters of different fonts, and uppercase and lower case
letters in the Latin alphabet, this took on far more importance
as we found out that in the Arabic alphabet a letters
appearance changes based on its position in a word.
Here you can see the game with a very small set and all tiles
being shown which is for beginning players, as the player levels
up more tiles will be added and sometimes the tiles are
hidden.
Figure 21: Screenshot of Memory Game Mode
51
Letter Finding Shooter Mode is a latter addition to the game
and served on the technical side to verify that a new game
mode could be easily added while on the game design side it
gives pattern to sound feedback by playing whatever word you
shoot. It works by having words drop from above and you need
to shoot those words and only those words which have the
central character in them.
This game involves using the targeting reticule to shoot words
as they are dropping down, but to only shoot those words that
have the target character in it, which is determined by the grey
character in the centre of the screen. This game mode still
requires extensive tweaking, as it is its just way too hard with
words dropping way too often.
Figure 22: Screenshot of Letter Finding Shooter
Mode
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5.2 Implementation Post Mortem
As J2ME was designed for resource limited devices some memory intensive features contained in the Java
SE were dropped. J2ME is still Java 1.2, and several API problems that have since been fixed are still around,
and many features that Java developers have become accustomed to when working with the standard
edition are missing, such as generics. This lead to many problems during the implementation phase. It
forced workarounds, game design changes and in this case, many dependencies across the source code.
This section will go through the main issues that were faced during the coding of the product. These will
then be discussed and as a result, the section will conclude with possible improvements to the existing
product.
However before we continue we need to establish some terminology, namely the difference between a
character and a letter. We define a character as an encoding that the character encoding recognizes as
distinct, for example in ASCII lowercase ‘a’ and uppercase ‘A’ are distinct characters. Letters we define to be
a set of characters that represent the same thing, such as the letter ‘A’ being represented by the characters
‘a’ and ‘A’.
5.2.1 Main Problems Encountered
This section will discuss about the problems that the authors encountered during the implementation
phases of the game/application. It will begin by describing the problems and include discussions regarding
why they became problems and what it changed.
During development the authors encountered more problems than had initially anticipated, starting with
the IDE17, continuing through the closed platform most mobile phones are, the limitations of the API18 and
last but not least the problems that come with using the Arabic character set. These let us to change our
design and abandon several features.
Originally, it was intended to use Eclipse19 as the IDE, however while Eclipse has several plug-ins for mobile
phone development, there were severe problems with all the ones tried until it was decided to switch to
NetBeans20. It has its own set of issues but it is at least possible to get it to work with Mobile Edition code.
Though not perfectly, one of the issues with NetBeans is that you cannot change the size of the emulated
screen, even though there are options for it.
Mobile phones are often referred to as a closed platform and are compared to computers. This is in part
because of their more limited capabilities, but also in large part to restrictions put in place in the name of
security, which can include such things as disallowing the running of any programs which do not have the
proper cryptographic signature. This makes giving people the ability to modify the jar file troublesome,
though this is a minor problem when compared to the others.
17
Integrated Development Environment – A tool to make development easier by integrating the editor, version
control, compiler and debugger into one program.
18
API – Application Programming Interface – Libraries that provide useful functions.
19
http://www.eclipse.org
20
http://www.netbeans.org
53
A far bigger problem to allowing people to modify the game as originally planned is that everything the
application will access must be in the Jar file, which means any user that modifies the game would also
need to rebuild the jar and the jad files. This is not a trivial operation and automating it still leaves a
troubling number of points of failure, which would take a skilled user to troubleshoot.
A further nail in the coffin of the original idea of customizability, are gaps in the API that where unexpected:
the very limited ability to manipulate files, there is no reflection and serialization is missing too.
Due to the lack of serialization we decided to build the byte arrays ourselves without relying on the stream
libraries provided by the J2ME API. This is a trade-off between the performance and the maintainability of
the code. The code written using streams is slightly easier to read and is much easier to maintain if there
are any changes. However it incurs a significant overhead in both the memory used and in the time
required for the operation. This especially the case as the implementation requires that the addition of
“try-catch” blocks which slow down some JVM21's by a significant factor, which would differ for each mobile
phone JVM.
There are two significant problems to which we have yet to find a good solution, one is presented by the
Arabic alphabet which has multiple Unicode characters assigned to most of the letters, and some
characters cannot be displayed by themselves but must be combined with another character to actually
become displayable as glyphs. This generates a multitude of problems for both teaching the alphabet and
for processing the words. String comparison can get very tricky, especially since some characters are
optional in Arabic. By the same token seeing if words contain a letter or not automatically is a difficult task,
and some letters have the same glyphs in some situations making it even more confusing. In fact this is a
problem that has not yet been solved well on desktops, which puts it well beyond the authors’ capabilities
on the mobile phone.
A closely related problem is a design for the dictionary the game will use, since it needs to provide a wide
range of possible information on words, such as producing words that match or do not match a certain
letter, provide a limited list that the player is being trained upon, be easy to modify and have the capability
of being easily modifiable to support new game modes. In addition it should be fast and lightweight in
terms of memory requirements. There is no single data structure that fulfils all of these requirements, the
best that could be done is to have several lists containing pointers to the same strings, but with string
comparisons being as complicated assigning words to those lists automatically is difficult and doing it
manually makes it a pain to modify. Some people consider the problem intractable in Unicode and propose
to use a separate standard for Arabic, which doesn't help us but did make us decide to avoid tackling this
problem as it is unlikely that we could have found a solution.
Even though we abandoned our original goal of having the game easily editable by non-programmers we
did strive to keep the game easy to modify even for a novice programmer, and believe we have at least
partially succeeded, though some specific parts are still way too complicated, such as saving and loading
the game.
21
JVM – Java Virtual Machine – The program that isolates MIDlets from the details of the particular phone it is running
on.
54
5.2.2 Serialization and Reflection
Serialization is a way to reduce a class to a byte array and the convert it back later, which is often used to
simplify sending data over a network, or, more importantly for this game, to store a class and restore it at a
later date. Reflection is a way for a program to analyse its own structure, and it can be used to do such
things as making your own general case serialization solution. It is also required for profilers and most other
Java tools to work.
Without these features in J2ME, it makes exceedingly difficult to save games and restore them, since a
general framework to do it cannot be made. It is also very difficult to make your own file format that is
more flexible, such as something XML22 based formats, where new fields can be added without major
changes to the parsing algorithm. Unfortunately those methods carry too much overhead for many phones,
in terms of both memory and processing power needed.
To create save game functionality we had two options, to have each class encode and decode themselves,
or to have a central handler to do that. It was chosen to have each class handle their own encoding and
decoding so that they have easy access to their private fields, as opposed to making all the fields public or
protected, so that any changes are reasonably localized. However, this had the problem of creating class
encodings dependent on each other, which means that if one needs to change a bit of the data saved in the
one class, it might need to be changed in multiple classes to make it work. For example if the Point class
were to store additional data, all the classes storing one or more Point classes as part of their data would
have to update the amount of space they allocate for saving themselves and between the items that they
save.
Without the reading of files and without reflection, the original plan of creating a game easily modifiable by
non-programmers did not become reality. This is because, without reflection, the only real option is to read
configuration files. But with security and other considerations limiting accessibility to within the JAR23 file
the configuration files would have to be included in the jar file. This unfortunately introduces many failure
modes because the jar file has a specific structure and the accompanied JAD24 file would also have to be
updated. Even if there was the addition of reflection, this case alone would not be resolved, as the record
store25 can only be accessed once the application is installed onto the phone. It cannot be easily and
generally accessed from outside the phone.
5.2.3 Collections
Another API problem results from the cut down in the number of available collections26. This is in part due
to J2ME being based on Java 1.2, and partly because it was cut down even further from that small selection.
We did not write new general case collections, but there are several implementations of a linked list in the
code, instead of just having one that has all the features that are used repeatedly. These are each tailored
22
XML – eXtensible Markup Language – A general purpose markup language
JAR – Java Archive file – often used to place or package many files into a single file and is generally used to
distribute Java classes and associated metadata (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JAR_(file_format))
24
JAD – Java Application Descriptor – describes the MIDlets in an accompanying JAR file.
25
Record store – memory storage mechanism for mobile phones in J2ME
26
Collections – Java implementation of commonly reusable data structures
23
55
to the task they fulfil, but even though this results in it being faster and more memory efficient, they also
had to be individually debugged. This is unfortunately bad for maintainability.
The reason additional collections where needed is because there are only 3 collections in J2ME, Vector27,
Stack28, and HashTable29. And of those Stack is a subclass of Vector, which is implemented on top of an
array. This has the advantage of having O(1)30 lookup, but insertion and deletion can be very expensive
because many elements in the array might have to be shifted or a new array allocated if the insertion goes
over the current array size, which makes the average case insertion or deletion O(n). By contrast we
needed a data structure with fast traversal, insertion and deletion and we didn’t need ordering in two out
of the three linked lists we made. Linked Lists31 have O(1) insertion and deletion and their traversal time is
O(n), so that is just as fast as the Vector, but with faster insertion and deletion. Memory wise our they both
occupy O(n) memory meaning that they will always consume about an equal amount of memory. The
reason the speed was considered a major issue for the places where we used Linked Lists is because they
are used at least once per tick, meaning any slowdowns would occur about 10 times per second.
5.2.4 The Concept of the Editor
The original plan set out during the start of the project was to call for the game data to be easily editable by
non-programmers. The limitations of mobile phones unfortunately put a stop to that idea.
One of they key features planned was a Kismet32 like editor where different mini-games could be dragged
into place and connected to simple logic objects and different dictionaries could be connected. Along with
the capability to use Excel or similar software to create new dictionaries, it would have provided an
interesting way to make the game customizable by the locals. This allowance for flexible retooling would
have allowed the game to be customized in difficulty for a target group at a different age level or
proficiency, or retooled to a completely different language by someone unable to program, and it would
have enabled programmers to just write a new mini-game, to add to the functionality of the game.
This in itself would also have made the development of the game easier in this project, as the original idea
was to emulate the traditional style of RPG's to take advantage of the tendency of players to grind, which
means to do the same thing over and over again; as this seems ideal for drilling people into some piece of
knowledge, which must be learned by rote, whether that be the periodic table or how to read.
27
Vector – One of the Java Collections, implements an array that grows on demand.
Stack – A subclass of Vector, this is like a stack of plates with being able to push plates on top of the stack and take
them off.
29
HashTable – A Java Collection that provides a way to store Key-Value pairs and enables the fast retrieval of any
value if you know they Key.
30
Big O notation describes the speed or size of an algorithm in easily comparable terms. O(1) means that the number
of items don't affect the speed while O(n) means that doubling the number of items will double the time it takes.
31
Linked List - A data structure of nodes, where each node contains data and a link to the next node.
32
Kismet - Kismet is part of the level editor for Unreal 3 that provides a simple way to drag and drop objects in a
flowchart like manner. This enables people to create complex scripts through the use of a visual interface without
having to learn a scripting language. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kismet_(gameplay_scripting)#Kismet)
28
56
We do have a partial editor inside NetBeans, but it is hard to use and it being inside a development
environment will intimidate many people. It is also more limited in scope than we wanted being only able
to edit the sprites and the world map, still it is something.
5.2.5 The Controls
During the implementation of the controls, changes in the design of controls were discussed, in order to
make the game and controls more intuitive. However, the Java API recommended that “portable
applications that need arrow key events and gaming-related events should use game actions in preference
to key codes and key names.“ In other words, it recommends one to just use of game actions for the keys
and only guarantees that the four directions and the fire key exists. Thus in the quest to continue striving
for compatibility, the decision was made to restrict the game to just using those keys. This is however does
necessarily have to be seen as a restriction, as the concept is to keep the game simple and intuitive across
multiple devices, i.e. movement and fire should suffice for all game functions.
It was soon also discovered that the game action keys are defined by the manufacturer. In the case for the
Sony Ericsson K series, which was the hardware used for the development, 2, 4, 6 and 8 seemed to be
mapped to the directions, with 5 as fire. There is the risk that this might differ for different phones, and
maintaining the same or at least similar behaviour between multiple applications on a phone should further
help into making the game intuitive.
There is the possibility of using key presses to override the native key game functions, however from a
design perspective, it would be better to implement the game with the game action keys for general
purposes and then modify these to specific phones, than implement the game for a specific phone and then
try to generalise it thereafter. This was a programmatic design decision made to make the controls as
compatible as possible, as all J2ME supported phones are expected to support such keys natively. Also
game actions bypass certain buffers which means they have less latency than key presses.
Development forums have several bug reports about how the behaviour of a specific phone or group of
phones do not match the standard, and the only way to deal with it is to detect that type of phone it is and
change the behaviour based on that. Hence there are companies that do nothing but port games to
different mobile phones, because it is a time consuming and difficult process. Nokia even notes this by
saying;
“A lag between user key press and application response varies between different devices. Especially on
some older devices and Java™ Platform, Micro Edition (Java™ ME), formerly known as Java™ 2 Platform,
Micro Edition (J2ME™) games, the keypad lag may affect the game experience. A game may not run as
smoothly as intended on all supported devices. Developers need to take this device-specific lag into
account when testing their game. To achieve the best results, timing and calculation of keypad lag may
need to be optimized for each supported device.” (Nokia, 2006)
5.2.6 Game Modes
The current game is currently designed to be easy to modify with new mini-games being easy to drop into
the game. There are parts that need some refactoring to make this better such as switching the
SaveGameHandler from using raw byte arrays to using input streams which would make the various classes
57
less interdependent and it would be easier to read and modify, though whether we should do that change
is an ongoing discussion because of the severe performance issues with using streams.
5.2.7 Sound
The Java API makes very minimal guarantees about the capabilities of the sound player, and from the
experiences gathered even those guarantees are not always met. Prior to installation one should query a
device's sound capabilities and modify the sound files accordingly. But this is a difficult to achieve in real
life, although newer phones seem to do this better in that regard than older ones so maybe the problem
will fix itself.
5.2.8 Graphics
There were experiences with some mystery glitches with the graphics systems on some phones that were
unable to be reproduced on other phones or in the emulator which makes diagnosis and fixing them
difficult. But since these problems occurred even with the small number of phones tested, the game on the
amount of problems that this will occur in wider testing can be staggering. Fortunately, none of the
graphics glitches so far have been anything more than minor annoyances.
5.2.9 Dictionary
The dictionary represents several design challenges in that we want to be able to query it in a number of
different ways for the different mini games while still being able to fit in the limited memory of a mobile
phone. In addition it should be easy to modify and hold at least a thousand words. Considering the WAV33
files for that alone would take up around 30 megabytes even such an unreasonably modest version would
stretch the capabilities of most mobile phones, though the WAV's being compressed into a jar certainly
helps.
In addition, the different alphabets, such as Arabic, combined with the limited string manipulation
capabilities of J2ME poses its own set of challenges. For example most Arabic characters have between 3
and 5 Unicode characters that map to them, which makes string comparisons difficult, when added to that
that some characters are optional and some ligatures have their own Unicode code. This is a general
problem with the Arabic alphabet, to which no good solution has been found34.
5.3 Ideas for further development
At the moment game play is too limited to be fun for very long. Important additions will be weapon
upgrades which originally where planed with different sprites, but after seeing how small the sprites are
that idea was dropped. Still it is an important reward mechanic in many RPG's, and representing a new
attack with a different animation should do just as well.
In addition there should be a game mode that acts as a character sheet so the player can check up on their
stats, which should make levelling up more rewarding. Some forms of showing how much exp is needed till
the next level have been considered but no good design for it has yet been found.
33
34
Waveform audio format – A simple way of storing complex audio streams, such as voices.
http://www.k2.dion.ne.jp/~oibane/aonl/en/uni-prob.htm
58
5.4 Documentation
Our code is well documented when compared to most, this is essential to make it easier for others to
continue the project as it allows them to reference what the code is doing without having to read all of it.
This is important if we want anyone to join in the project after us, since without documentation it is very
difficult to get an understanding of what is happening, and hence the potential developer is less likely to
join in the project, and even if they do it will take them longer to get up to speed. Also after not working on
the code for a while we need the documentation too, because there are many details you just forget and
looking them up in the documentation is a lot faster than re-reading the code.
We haven't used unit tests because we have had many changes during development and the constant
drastic changes of the code base would have meant a lot of extra work to adjust the unit tests all the time,
and it wouldn't have helped the development. However now that the framework is more mature it is time
to start adding unit tests to ensure that things don't break during refactoring or future development.
6.0 Evaluation of the Design
(Shelton & Wiley, 2006)
The challenge was to create a game using J2ME. This required learning the API and finding its limitations.
Many of these limitations can however only be found when one has a need for a feature that does not yet
exist.
This section seeks to evaluate the design of the existing game, including the features that exist thus far. The
decision to use Shelton and Wiley’s 2006 research paper on instructional designers is because it focuses on
embedding engaging elements from video games into instruction. In our case, the project’s approach has
been go the other way, where the engagement will bring the learning out of the game.
Shelton and Wiley propose a modified version of Hedden’s conditions (Shelton & Wiley, 2006) to represent
the efforts in creating learning environments, and provide explanation of these elements that focus
attention and combine to form “engagement:”
• challenge – the gamer is provided a goal, and activities (neither too complex nor too
simple) are required to make progress within a situation or environment
• proclivity – an environment that holds a personal interest, drawing an individual toward
the subject matter in a way that sustains interest
• uncertainty – imagining a number of possible outcomes to an activity, and the desire to
want to reach an attainable stopping point which requires a measure of persistence
They claim that off-the-shelf instructional software has tried to capitalize on the formula for motivating
gamers using challenge, proclivity, and uncertainty with the goal of engaging the learner in educational
activity. However, that the designers have failed to engage learners in the same way commercially
successful video games have. “The disappointing results are due in part to how instructional designers have
59
used rigid methods when implementing models within the educational product environment.” (Shelton &
Wiley, 2006)
An example is when designers disengage the learner through conventional assessment activities. Much of
educational software, including many of our own online courses, attempt to account for “learning” by
offering a series of questions at the end of each lesson that reviews material that the learner encountered
moments previously. This method is not only questionable in its effectiveness it also tends to disengage the
learner by taking their attention away from the gaming environment.
When students are using games to learn, they are actively seeing and doing, rather than listening and
reading. Depending on the learning style of each student, playing a game where they are actively engaged
and personally invested motivates them to retain the information presented (Whelan, 2005 as cited in
Batson & Feinberg, 2006, p42i).
The way the environment helps maintain the gamers’ interest, drawing the gamers into the subject matter
realm, is key to intrinsic motivation. Thus the formula will be kept in mind when evaluating the game.
6.1 Design Decisions
One basically will not be able to think about verbs, nouns, adjectives, etc. Until they know the fundamental
building blocks of the language that they know how to speak. And until they know how to read, it becomes
difficult in creating reading games involving such things. One way would be through the use of images and
symbols but even that will require the learning and understanding of some type of system, which will
require the user to take time to do the mapping.
It was therefore a decisive decision to begin with the fundamentals of being able to firstly feel
“comfortable” with the alphabet system of the language. As explained in the Arabic section of the report,
the difficulty lies in not only recognizing the text but also what they look like when combined with other
letters to form words. However, any chance of recognizing such combinations may be slim, if the individual
letters are not recognized to begin with. It was thus decided to focus on the basics and design games to
help the learning process of this.
Having researched existing games made for the PC, the one element that was apparent in games where the
player was not expected to be able to read, was the wide use of sound to explain the activities involved in
the game. The sound was used in combination with visuals in order to provide a combination of feedback
to the user; to help the user complete the activities to progress. This however is unfortunately not
applicable to the mobile phones’ systems that we are targeting, as the number of resources is nowhere
near the same. Decisions thus had to be made in order to make it work with the mobile phone.
6.1.2 No Menu
The assumption that users who owned mobile phones knew how to use the mobile phones was made.
However, the assumption that they did not know how to read any of the phone menus was also made. As
phones these days are capable enough to carry various numbers of icons in different sizes, we assume that
the users will navigate based on these icons for guidance.
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The decision of excluding an in game menu was thus thrown out, due to the fact that menus are often text
based. There is the slight possibility, however, of creating menus with symbols and images, but this in itself
will require research into how people in the different regions in the African countries associate the
symbols. An arrow seen from a Westerners perspective may very well be different from that of an African.
The same goes for the associations involving colour. One idea was to create a menu based on number of
stars, where the difficulty would increase depending on the number of stars that the user would choose.
This would not only make things easier but from an implementation perspective, it may also have been
easier, as less information would have to be stored like the way it currently is. But as the number of stars
may not necessarily be intuitive, it was decided to leave these for another time.
It was thus decided that at this conceptual stage, we pursue building the game and make it simple enough,
with the aim that the user can figure out the game through trial and error by using their intuition (which in
itself is also a “biased” idea). The goal was to develop a game that could then be tweaked accordingly to fit
the regional needs.
The dangers of providing no menu can simply mean that if the user were to e.g. quit the game, they may
not know how to. As an extension of this decision there is no menu to save or load the game, so the game
is saved when the user quits and restored when he comes back. This was then latter amended to not
restore some information, for instance the Word Matching Mode is not reset at all due to the time limit,
and because it’s trivial to go back into it.
6.1.3 Limited Sounds
As phones do not have the tendency of carrying a lot of memory, sounds and the quality of them have also
been limited in order to not only save memory but also processing power. Sounds provide the capability of
being able to reveal the instructions through the use of voice dialogue. The combination of this and some
animation sequences could provide feedback to the user to see how things are done. This in itself is
however a rather complicated process and was not prioritised at an early stage.
6.1.4 Colours
High contrast colours were decided for use as mobile phone screens vary in quality and the contrast
changes accordingly depending on the angle the phone is held and the amount of sunlight available. As a
document guideline from NokiaForum put it, “Often mobile games are played in situations where viewing
the screen is challenging. For example, bright sunlight requires very good contrast to make objects on the
screen easily visible. Playing a game on a moving vehicle, such as a bus or a train, makes it harder to
perceive movement on the screen. And different game objects need to be clearly differentiated from the
game background (Nokia, 2007). The choice of colours were however not chosen to represent anything
symbolic in particular, as this was not an area of research that was chosen to be conducted.
There is the realisation that the colours of green and red may become an issue to those that are colourblind. However, the contrast may be high enough to reveal the differences between the two. This however
is an aspect that needs to be tested and researched on.
Upon deciding the change of colours, these can be changed quickly using RGB hexadecimals in the code.
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6.1.5 Icons
As the goal was to make a framework that was ready to accept modifications, sprites were not a priority.
The choice was to use simple sprites in order to provide the user with feedback in order to tell the
difference between the character and the targets in question.
Current issues with this: Despite the fact that each sprite on the level represents a type of game, the sprite
itself provides no relation to what puzzles are to be expected. These symbols, like the rest of the visuals,
will however be an area that must be researched in, when working further on the project in the future.
They will then be suited to the target groups in question.
6.1.6 Music
Thus far there is no music, as the addition of music playback is expected to be trivial. Things to be aware of
however are the compression size and quality of the music in question. The music may not be too short and
will have to be capable of looping without sounding jerky when doing so. It will also have to sound decent
on mobile phone speakers, i.e. certain editing measures might have to be taken in order to make it sound
better. Whether the music is to set a tone in the game is also something to be decided. However, to decide
this will be a research area in itself, as the triggering of emotions will vary depending on one’s cultural
background. It is thus important not to select music that will be considered irritating.
Another problem with playing music is that the mobile phone might not be capable of playing more than
one sound at once, so playing both the music and the wav files might become an issue. And in the case of
the possibility of adding midi35 music, applications and games tend to ignore the “silent profile” on the
phone, if it is set, when played.
Last but not least, music may affect the some of the existing games, as the mix of music and the playback
sound of the letters may come out muffled from the mobiles. Thus unless one uses a phone headset, the
quality will be worse than the already “poor” version in the phone.
6.1.7 Voice
The alphabets are taken from a source, which goes through all the alphabets one at a time. This provides
the game with the capability of separating the individual sounds for playback. An attempt on using a speech
synthesis system (Festival36) was done with the English version. But although the reading up of sentences
sounded relatively “okay”, the reading up of single words were not very clear. However given our lack of a
recording studio and time constraints we left the generated sounds as good enough for this proof of
concept.
6.1.8 Narrative
We deliberately left the narrative very vague because we wanted to avoid tripping on any cultural taboos
we are unfamiliar with; and because it is hard to tell a story without text. Animations and sound could be
used to convey the narrative, but the limited space on mobile phones makes that option less attractive.
35
Midi - Musical Instrument Digital Interface – A simple way to store music made by instruments, very compact but
can't handle the more complex audio, like voices.
36
http://www.cstr.ed.ac.uk/projects/festival/
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6.2 Evaluation of the Mini Games
6.2.1 Creature Battle Game
This game of matching the sound with the correct letter or word contains a simplistic design. The current
potential problems lie in the user interface, the sound quality and the hit/miss feedback.
As text cannot be used and specific symbols have not been investigated, questions regarding the status
bars come to mind. See picture below.
The current version of the health bar carries a blue frame with a
dynamic green fill. It is most definitely difficult to see what this
bar could represent. That in itself poses a problem regarding
usability. When playing the game however, every time a laser
beam from the spiders shoots the character, this bar will
decrease towards the left. This will continue to do so until there
is no health left and the character will then get kicked out of the
match. This sounds almost logical enough after being told about
it, but is it usable?
The player can see when the character is hit by the small pie
Figure 23: Screenshot of Health Bar
charts, that decrease and display in green or red, depending on whether it was a hit or a miss. However,
having created a blind test on others, where the sound was not working, it was difficult to tell what was
happening and what the difference between the red and the green was. This is because without the sound,
the player is not able to hear whether the word is repeating itself whenever he/she chooses a character.
This results in the player not knowing for sure as to whether the red or the green represents a successful
hit. One could possibly guess by making associations to traffic lights that the green is a good hit and the red
is a miss. This assumption alone is however not compatibly intuitive enough, as not everyone from any
place let alone modern cities, necessarily associate colours in this way.
What could help with this is a combination of the pie charts or other health bars and some animation to aid
it, e.g. an animation of jumping joy when the enemy is hit and an animation of being knocked down
whenever the character is hit. This can be coupled with sounds in order to provide the full feedback.
Alternatively, if one was to save on creating sprites, sound could be put in focus, where a joyful tune could
be played when the enemy is hit and a dreadful tune of sorts when the character is hit. But the danger of
using sounds in this way is that it may quickly become irritating as the tasks repeat themselves and the
same sounds play over and over again. This could lead to a poor incentive to continue playing the game and
decrease the overall motivation to learn through this medium. One way to get around this is, to provide
various sounds by putting them into different categories (such as joyful and sad) and randomize them
depending on which category should be played. This will however lead to an increase in the sound library,
which in return will require more memory and may still not fix the possible problem of annoyance.
6.2.1.1 The Sound
Due to memory issues, sound needs to be compressed to a certain size. If one was to follow the Java mobile
phone recommendations, one will need to keep the sound files to 8 KHz in order to keep compatibility at its
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highest. Doing so will however decrease the sound quality by a lot. Having tested the results of these after
manipulating the files, it was realised that the quality of the sound was not very usable. Couple this with
the poor phone speakers and it sounds even worse.
The game currently uses 16 KHz to retain some of the quality and has been set to mono. This in result
means larger files and may have been the reason that the sounds played back on the one phone and not
the other.
6.2.2 Memory Game
The interface in this game as the previous is kept simple. The idea is for the player to match the same
alphabets with one another. But as the level of the character increases, the tiles will be overturned so that
it becomes a “typical” memory game.
To be successful in memory games requires some form of pattern recognition; whether it consists of certain
details in an image or if the general impression of the image is recalled. As it is with pictures, there is a
possibility that this is also the way most will acquaint themselves to unknown alphabets. The difference lies
in that alphabets are often paired with some form of sound, which in turn provides more stimulants for the
brain.
It was decided in this game to focus on training the visuals to allow the user to gradually feel more
comfortable with the individual “patterns”. In the English prototype, the learning first involved matching an
alphabet of upper case with upper case and lower case with lower case. In the Arabic version, the idea is to
match each alphabet with one another but later be capable of matching all 4 versions of the letter with one
another.
Creating the 4 version mapping can quickly become a daunting task, as every error causes the memory
blocks to turn over again. If the game is to take too long, there is the possibility of pure boredom and no
reward. Thus, if one was to refer to Flow (Fullerton, Swain, Hoffman, 2004), the player would most likely
not reach the optimal state and thereby also not be motivated to continue the learning process. However,
if during the beginning, the player has had success in mapping the original alphabets in succession; the
selection of the other versions can display the alphabets in various versions at the same time. The issue
that arises here is screen space.
6.2.2.1 Screen Space
During the design of the memory game, the prototype very quickly showed that creating a 5x4 case became
a difficult task to complete. This is because the resolution of the screen requires one to scroll horizontally
and vertically from the one end of the table to the other. A suggestion could be to make the boxes smaller,
however this affects the font size drastically, which in return affects the clarity of the letters. Thus unless
one is able to read before hand, the clarity is of utmost importance to make out the words.
But nevertheless, as it currently stands, with primitive graphics, the environment may not hold the player’s
interest for long.
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6.2.3 Letter Finding Shooter Game
This game has seemingly been the most intuitive one out of the three tested. Most knew right away that
one had to aim and shoot at something. For the most part, it took some of them time in order to figure out
what exactly to shoot, as the version we had implemented contained both individual words and single
alphabet letters. Most noticed the large font letter in the middle of the screen and started shooting the
individual letters only, but were confused as to why they were losing anyhow until they hit one of the long
words by mistake and got a “successful” feedback.
When hitting the wrong word, the letter turns red and disappears, whilst when hitting the correct word, it
turns green and disappears. This allows for the instant feedback and for the player to adjust accordingly.
But with the current version, the rate of the letters and words fall too quickly, as it has been set so that the
more correct answers one has, the faster the rate it will fall, thereby making it more challenging.
As these game sessions are meant to be kept short, so as to not bore the individual and continue to provide
a challenge, the rate was set high. It was however realised that even for those that know how to read, they
found difficulty in maintaining their consistency and thereby became overwhelmed by the falling letters
and the letters overlapping one another.
The fix for this will have to do with tweaking the speeds accordingly after having play tested these for the
target group. It will have to be implemented in such a way so that the speed of getting a certain amount of
answers correct will lead to a speed adjustment of some kind.
The game was originally planned to carry these features and then also be extended into a semi-rhythm
game where the letters are spoken whenever they are hit. The adjustment in the version of the game that
will be released will include a letter only, so that one only sees single letters raining down. And whenever
the correct alphabet is hit, the sound will play. The possibility for emergent game play will stem from the
users finding some sort of pattern or rhythm on their own, to hit the letters in succession.
6.2.3.1 Controls
These may have to be changed along the way. As they currently stand, it is a challenge to move and shoot
the cursor. However, the question regarding whether the crosshair should move like a hockey puck on ice,
or provide the user with a little “easier” control is up for discussion. The way to test this will have to contain
a comparison test, which should find out:
1) Which version of the controls the player likes.
2) If the player enjoys having more control or a little less in this particular game.
3) If it acts more as an irritant than a challenge.
6.2.4 Final Evaluation
The games in question contain potential but still require plenty of tweaking in order to enable them for
final deployment. What the game as a whole currently lacks is the feeling of proclivity and uncertainty, as
the world as it stands is pretty stale. This is in due part, as mentioned, because of the icons used and how
the progression feedback is not clearly shown.
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The only progression feedback that is shown is in the mini games themselves; however that still makes it
currently detached from the game world itself. The only current indication is the health bar, which can be
refilled again, depending on the game selected. And due to this, the challenges are also in the mini games
themselves and do not feel as part of the “greater world”.
As the game currently stands, from the perspective of playability, there is work left to be done for the
implementation, including getting the Arabic letters and sounds to work. Combining all the thoughts from
the evaluation should provide some steps closer to a game that will be able to tease the intrinsic
motivation and thereby tickle the features for learning.
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7.0 Reflections
(O’Malley et al, 2003 as cited in Naismith, Lonsdale, Vavoula, Sharples, 2006)
Practical concerns regarding mobile learning were developed in the MOBIlearn37 project. These are used as
guidelines for discussing the product in its current state.
Investigate a cost model for
infrastructure, technology and
services.
Study the requirements of all those
involved in the user of the
technology (learners, teachers,
content creators) to ensure it is
usable and acceptable.
Assess that the technology is suited
to the learning task and examine
advantages and disadvantages of
each technology before making a
decision on which one to use.
As presented in the introduction, the infrastructures regarding
mobile telephones are already in place. Most already have
phones and are a part of their everyday lives.
Personal cost saving strategies has lead to people in Africa using
their phones in creative ways. This openness to using their tools
in “new” ways to achieve their purpose may result in them
being more open to such a learning application.
However, in order to get such an application out to the phones
may pose problems, as the existing infrastructures such as WAP
may not be affordable or used by most. And if they are not able
to read, use of this WAP technology can almost be avoided.
It has thus been proposed that the game comes pre-installed in
the phones to begin with and that for more versions of the mini
games that may appear over time; these can be updated in
centralised service centres in Africa.
Before being able to carry out the above, the game will need to
be extensively tested on different versions of mobile phones
and tweaked according to the specifications of those phones.
As this project has been focusing on creating an application for
the individual, reliance on teachers have been avoided.
This however does not mean that the content creation process
cannot include teachers, parents and others. It is one of the prime
reasons for attempting to research and understand the theory
behind various forms of learning.
Closer inspection into these areas with people specialised in the
fields of teaching, usability, linguistics, culture, graphics, sound
etc. should provide very solid material for creating educational
games for different purposes.
Mobile phones provide other features than “just” the ability to
play games. Their networking and communication advantages are
numerous. However one must keep in mind the cost structure
involved in using such services. And in the case where phone
messaging (SMS) oriented learning can be used, even if it were
available, it would first only become useful for those that have
passed the fundamentals of reading.
Whether the mobile phone is a better “learning game tool” than
the possibilities provided by a more powerful machine, such as a
laptop, can be discussed. But the fact of the matter is that the
37
MOBIlearn is a worldwide European-led research and development project exploring context-sensitive approaches
to informal, problem-based and workplace learning by using key advances in mobile technologies.
(http://www.mobilearn.org)
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Assign the necessary roles for
initiating and thereafter supporting
mobile learning.
Develop procedures and strategies
for the management of equipment
when it is provided by the
institution.
Provide training and (ongoing)
technical support to the teachers to
enable them to use mobile
technologies to enhance current and
to enable new instructional
activities.
Consider the user of mobile
technologies for student
administration tasks.
Consider the user of mobile
technologies to support collaborative
and group learning.
Discover and adopt suitable
applications that match the needs of
your specific classroom and map
directly to your curriculum needs.
Ensure security and privacy for the
end users.
mobile phone “solution” is the fastest way to get the material out
to the people.
Service centres or help centres of sorts will be required in order
to provide aid, especially during the beginning.
The target groups will need to be taught how to use the
applications in question. Those that have learnt how to use the
application and play with it can then teach others how to get
started.
Content creators will have to be educated to learn how to add
new games to the system. And to get this to work, a formalised
system for submitting and adding games will have to be created.
This will have to be dealt with through the use of user guidance
from the service centres, which may consists of stores that cell
phones; private salespeople, etc.
Instructions and guidelines will have to be made – i.e. a graphical
manual.
Whether the game in this project will be considered as part of an
educational system will have to be tested and researched on
before even considering it. This is because the design of a
pedagogical application, which is to be part of a classroom will
most likely carry another form of instructional design.
This is because in such a case, it may be best to nurture the
possibility of consulting and using the available teacher, parent or
counsellor.
See previous two comments.
Not applicable for this particular project. However will be
interesting to look into for future feature expansion.
Not applicable for this particular project. However, if groups end
up gathering together to play the game, that will become a good
by product of the current design.
But this is definitely an area to be looked into in future iterations,
after first getting the mini games right.
Not applicable for this project.
Not applicable for this project. Statistics and the likes are not kept
in the game. Information of any kind if not asked to be inputted
either.
Table 8: MOBIlearn Project guidelines for practical concerns regarding mobile learning applied.
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Becker cited that “Gee (2003) has offered 36 principles for how games help players learn though it is not
clear whether all games must implement all 36 principles, or if some principles may be better suited to
some kinds of games (and learning goals).” In the case where the play testing of the mobile game creates a
complete product, the continuous experimentation after this will allow one to collect enough data to be
able to reach a closer conclusion. At the end of the day, how games help players learn is often also highly
dependent on what the material to be learnt consists of.
Cited in Becker (2008):
Games need to be embedded into practice and in accordance with sound pedagogic principles and design.
More research is needed to:
-
-
Provide empirical evidence for how game-based learning can be used most effectively
Quantify how much and in which ways games and simulations are currently being used most effectively
to support learning.
More effective supporting materials are needed to support practitioners
There is a need for guidelines, case studies and exemplars from current practice to inform and improve
the quality of delivery of games-based learning across the sector and to support better future planning
and resource allocation.
The games development and education communities must be brought closer together in order to build
shared vocabularies and expectations
New learning designs to support effective game-based learning experiences.
Educators and practitioners need to become involved with games development for learning
More opportunities for staff development needed (supported by a more coordinated approach to staff
development and opportunities for buying out staff time to allow tutors time to explore and
experiment with existing tools and game spaces).
(de Freitas, 2007)
Many of these are challenges that we faced throughout the product development lifecycle of the game.
The question which has also lurked was how one could develop a game for education, when one was not a
specialist in this field. Depending on the results from testing the game, this answer remains to be seen.
However, as stated by Becker (2008), designers tend to create certain learning paths throughout the game
as a result of the design. But whether this makes them educators is another question to be answered. And
despite placing oneself in the shoes of the player, not all the answers can be answered, which is why play
testing sessions exist to begin with. An empirical research based on the game should provide another step
towards answering this.
How does multiplayer affect such a game? As a large area of research in e-learning including games
research consists of social cognitive studies, one question is how individual mobile games will become, if
the aspect of multiplayer were added to it. This would most likely call for a change in the existing design, as
seen in single player games turning into multiplayer games throughout history. However, whether it will be
vastly better or not will depend highly on:
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1) How it is designed.
2) Whether the material is something that individuals will tend to learn by themselves anyhow, even
when the game is multiplayer.
3) If the medium for social interaction and communication is designed or developed properly.
4) If there is a need for the important role of a teacher/moderator to be involved.
7.1 Other Areas of Research
There is always the possibility that the ability to learn in another topic can contribute to the learning of a
language. Variables, such as the social influence and learning theories in other areas such as mathematics
has not been investigated. These can possibly influence the person’s ability to learn and thereby affect the
results of the use of the program. As theories have shown that many tend to use cognitive thought in order
to predict and decide their reactions to future events in the game, will this also mean that those who are
learned in mathematics will have an advantage, as this too is emphasized on cognitive thinking? And as
computer games for language learning are seemingly creating cognitive stimulant worlds to aid the learning
of one’s linguistics, the correlation between the two developmental skills will be interesting to research
into.
Learning strategies have been used by teachers for students for many years. Such strategies consist of two
main strategies: cognitive and metacognitive learning strategies. In the case of cognitive strategies, learning
languages appears under this category, as it consists of repetition, monitoring by the teacher and feedback
for the students to adjust to. This is very much similar to what a game is. A game tends to monitor what the
player is doing and as a result will decide what to display accordingly, e.g. if the player gets the question
wrong, the game may show an X and if it’s right, it may show a tick. The main difference between the two,
if one puts the social interaction on the side, is how the cognitive learning strategy involving the teacher
requires time to be taken by two individuals, whilst the game method for a mobile phone (unless it’s
multiplayer) requires that of a single person. Requiring the time of two people may influence the way
material is taught and learnt, as the person may see it as pressure, whilst playing in a game may be
different.
Speculations aside, this is an area of research to be investigated further into and may just affect the
outcome of what types of games be effectively used (important that it does not refer to “best” as the
authors of this project feel its relevancy is not heavily weighed) under what settings and conditions.
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8.0 Conclusion
As research has shown, there is no single instructional design that can be applied to every culture, but that
the aspect of learning correlates highly with motivation. There is also a correlation between motivation and
fun. This is where our product of a mobile game fits in, since games and play have been used to learn
throughout history and even many animals use play to learn.
During the process of building the mobile game we found many problems to overcome.
Having wanted to initially develop a framework which not only allowed the adding of different games and
game types, but also allowing editing and reconfiguration of the games, this was technically not plausible.
Whilst not impossible to do with non optimal itty gritty workarounds, it would have created many issues
regarding accuracy and testing. One could see it like using a keyboard as a spoon to eat one’s cereals: It can
be done, but may not be the most optimal solution.
In implementing the game, the limited available libraries in the API became clear, when storing and writing
of data was needed. Due to the lack of functionality, such as serialization and reflection, methods of
implementation had to be changed from “regular” Java. These changes in habit also included optimizing
processes for throughput and changing the code structure of the game.
As the development of the framework was not a possibility, the next best thing was to clarify and focus on
creating the application itself with classes being as independent and decoupled as possible. A lot of time
was then allocated to make sure that these classes well documented, in order for any other person to be
able to pick up the project and add to it. The framework is currently now flexible enough for a new person
to add their own mini game with the changes of very few classes, including the dictionary.
During these phases of implementation, tests were carried out in the emulator on the PC. However it was
soon found out that the resolution on the PC emulator never changed, despite setting a fix resolution. This
required one to transfer the files to a phone to test how it would look and work. With this quickly becoming
a habit of the process, the known mobile problem of different hardware standards became even more
apparent than originally thought. Having used Sony Ericsson phones, both from similar generations, gave
different results. Besides the difference in screen resolution, which is predetermined, the playback of
sound would not work on one of the phones, even after attempting to tweak the phone settings. And the
next difference was that regarding the sensitivity of the controls that were slightly different.
With such issues appearing even with what seemed to be very similar phones, one can imagine the amount
of time and work that will need to be put in to customize and tweak the game to each phone in Africa.
Resources will have to be put there unless it can be pre-installed in certain models of phones, so as to limit
the problems that can be encountered due to variations in hardware.
These were the problems related to the implementation of the mobile game. However as the goal was to
develop a learning game for people who were not able to read, this posed another challenge in its own
right.
Many fundamental aspects of learning, such as visuals and sound, are difficult to implement on the mobile
platform. Inspiration was taken from desktop educational games, however direct porting of such games is
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nearly impossible. When developing for mobile game one must consider the limited screen size and
controls. The key to making a good game on the mobile phone, however, is to make use of this simplicity as
an advantage for game play, and not as a limitation.
An important aspect of creating a mobile game for our target group that does not know how to read is a big
challenge for a game designer. It precludes using text menus and other common user interface designs.
Thus the design of the game called for enough simplicity so as to make the game intuitive enough to not
puzzle the player for too long a period. The learning was also embedded into the game, so as to not distract
the player from focusing away from the main goal: to play with the character in the game to face new
challenges and work on improving; as opposed to trying to figure out how to navigate and play. On PCs,
sounds and large graphics can be used in place of menus; however this is a problem on a mobile phone.
Thus raises the question if the mobile phone is the appropriate platform for this kind of game.
We all know how sitting and studying for long stretches of time can be inefficient and how there are
moments throughout the day where one feels like doing something, e.g. learning. This is where the
strength of mobile phones’ quality of “use it wherever and whenever one wants” can be cherished and
should be preserved. Learning is considered fun when one is not forced to do so and mobile games allow
people to study where and whenever they are highly motivated.
This is where the game developers and educational experts have the opportunity to work together to
overcome these shortcomings and determine what roles the mobile phone can and should occupy in
teaching. This is because as current mobile phones have such a limited input and output functionality, they
will not be able to replace the “classroom”. However like traditional flashcards and board games has had a
place in education, mobile phones also have its place in being able to already provide training for specific
things.
In this particular case, when applying mobile phones to Arabic script, it is fundamental that the player learn
the letters that make up the alphabet. Research has shown that the mapping of the sounds and the
visualization of the letters provide the most efficient form of learning amongst children. One big question
remains as to whether the mobile phones will be a good platform for teaching people how to read Arabic
words, due to the complexity in not just the implementation, but also in the language itself. It will require a
large library of images and sounds in order to make this happen. Alternatively, these games can be released
as isolated cases, i.e. different game versions that will allow the players to practice on different sets of
letters and words where there are commonalities.
Here again, educational experts in language learning and teaching should be able to provide their input
regarding effective (not necessarily the theoretical optimal) solutions to teaching the language. However,
before being able to complete the game for deployment, it will also require expertise in user interfaces to
make certain of the symbolic undertones that may aid positively or affect negatively to the learning
experience. Such culturally related aspects should not be undervalued as they may be the deciding factor to
the success of the game.
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Is creating games for the mobile phone platform a viable solution for the illiteracy in Africa? It has its place.
Will it do wonders for the state of illiteracy? This will depend highly on the collaboration between the
developers, the academics and the phone companies. Are games a better solution in comparison to the
usage of networked services to create games via use of e.g. messaging services? That depends on the target
group and the area of training in question. But in all practicality, why not have both if they both end up
showing to provide good means and results for learning?
73
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74
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76
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Reading Theory
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children learning to read in Wales, British Journal of Psychology, Vol. 94 Issue 1, pp. 1-28 (Feb. 2003)
Goswami, U., Synthetic Phonics and Learning to Read: A Cross‐language Perspective, Educational
Psychology in Practice; Vol. 21 Issue 4, pp. 273-282 (Dec. 2005)
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Reading; Vol. 28 Issue 4, pp. 383-399 (Nov. 2005)
Morgan, P., Fuchs, D., Is There a Bidirectional Relationship Between Children's Reading Skills and Reading
Motivation? Exceptional Children; Vol. 73 Issue 2, pp. 165-183 (Winter 2007)
Torppa, M., Tolvanen, A., Reading development subtypes and their early characteristics, Annuals of
Dyslexia; Vol. 57 Issue 1, pp. 3-32 (2007)
Roberts, G., Torgesen, J., Boardman, A., Evidence-Based Strategies for Reading Instruction of Older Students
with Learning Disabilities, Learning Disabilities Research & Practice (Blackwell Publishing Limited); Vol. 23
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and Challenges, Learning Disabilities Research & Practice, Volume 23, Issue 2, pp. 61-62 (May. 2008)
Faggella-Luby, M. N., Deshler, D. D., Reading Comprehension in Adolescents with LD: What We Know; What
We Need to Learn, Learning Disabilities Research & Practice, Volume 23, Issue 2, pp. 70-78 (May. 2008)
Ebbers, S. M., Denton, C. A., A Root Awakening: Vocabulary Instruction for Older Students with Reading
Difficulties, Learning Disabilities Research & Practice, Volume 23, Issue 2, pp. 90-102 (May. 2008)
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Disabilities Research & Practice, Volume 23, Issue 1, pp. 50-59 (Feb. 2008)
Harlaar, N., Dale, P., Plomin, R., Reading exposure: a (largely) environmental risk factor with
environmentally-mediated effects on reading performance in the primary school years, Journal of Child
Psychology & Psychiatry; Vol. 48 Issue 12, pp. 1192-1199, (Dec 2007)
Abu-Rabia, S., The Effect of Arabic Vowels on the Reading Comprehension of Second- and Sixth-Grade
Native Arab Children, Journal of Psycholinguistic Research; Vol. 26 Issue: Number 4 pp. 465-482 (Jul. 1997)
Saiegh-Haddad, E. Correlates of Reading Fluency in Arabic: Diglossic and Orthographic Factors, Reading and
Writing; Vol. 18 Issue: Number 6 pp. 559-582, (Aug. 2005)
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Writing; Vol. 17 Issue: Number 1 pp. 27-57 (Feb. 2004)
Schiller, N. O., Ferreira, V. S., Xavier, A. d F., Words, pauses, and gestures: New directions in language
production research, Language and Cognitive Processes, Volume 23, Issue 2, pp. 258-281 (Mar 2008)
Kauscke, C., Lee, H. W., Pae, S., Similarities and variation in noun and verb acquisition: A crosslinguistic
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Issue 7, pp. 1045–1072 (Nov. 2007)
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picture naming, Language and Cognitive Processes, Volume 22, Issue 7, pp. 1114–1139 (Nov. 2007)
Huxley, F. C., Contrasting Semantic Structures in English and Arabic: Problem and Promise in SecondLanguage Learning, Anthropology & Education Quarterly, Vol. 17, No. 2, pp. 67-99 (Jun., 1986)
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read, Scientific American Inc. (Nov. 1996)
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Writing, Vol. 18, pp. 559-582 (2005)
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Languages: A Psycholinguistic Grain Size Theory, Psychological Bulletin, Vol. 131, No. 1, pp. 3-29 (Jan. 2005)
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Games
Dora The Explorer – Lost City Adventure, Infrogrames Interactive, 2002
Silme Forest Adventure, http://lrnj.com
Knuckles In Chinaland, http://www.kicl.info
Other Resourceful Links
http://www.13bit.at/projects.html
http://www.educationarcade.org/iglf_program
81
List of Figures and Tables
Figure 1: differences in subscribers between fixed lines and mobiles between 1994 and 2004...................... 9
Figure 2: Table of “A New Model of Distance Education” from (Connolly & Stansfield, 2006) ...................... 15
Figure 3: Schematic depiction of the three main problems of reading acquisition: availability, consistency
and granularity (Figure 1 from Ziegler & Goswani, 2005, p. 4) ....................................................................... 25
Figure 4: Screenshot of “Slime Forest Adventure” (2008) .............................................................................. 30
Figure 5: Screenshot of “Knuckles in China Land” (2007) ............................................................................... 31
Figure 6: Screenshot from Painting Level in Dora the Explorer – The Lost City Adventure (2002)................. 32
Figure 7: Screenshot from Pyramid Level in Dora the Explorer – The Lost City Adventure (2002) ................ 33
Figure 8: Screenshot from Help Insect Mum Level in Dora the Explorer – The Lost City Adventure (2002) .. 34
Figure 9: Screenshot from Count the Pigs Level in Dora the Explorer – The Lost City Adventure (2002) ...... 34
Figure 10: Screenshot from Find the Treasure Level in Dora the Explorer – The Lost City Adventure (2002) 35
Figure 11: Screenshot from User Menu in Dora the Explorer – The Lost City Adventure (2002) ................... 36
Figure 12: Screenshot from Navigation Menu in Dora the Explorer – The Lost City Adventure (2002) ......... 36
Figure 13: Arabic Vowel Characters Table from (Bouchentouf, 2006)............................................................ 40
Figure 15: “The Arabic poor readers’ reading model” .................................................................................... 42
Figure 14: ”The suggested Arabic normal/skilled reader’s reading model ..................................................... 42
Figure 16: Flow from (Fullerton, Swain, Hoffman, 2004) ................................................................................ 46
Figure 17: Control Flow of Game..................................................................................................................... 49
Figure 18: Screenshot of The World Map Mode ............................................................................................. 50
Figure 19: Screenshot of Battle Map Mode .................................................................................................... 50
Figure 20: Screenshot of Word Match Mode .................................................................................................. 51
Figure 21: Screenshot of Memory Game Mode .............................................................................................. 51
Figure 22: Screenshot of Letter Finding Shooter Mode .................................................................................. 52
Figure 23: Screenshot of Health Bar ................................................................................................................ 63
Table 1: Six Types of Learning ......................................................................................................................... 17
Table 2: John Keller’s ARCS model................................................................................................................... 20
Table 3: John Keller's ACRS model applied ...................................................................................................... 22
Table 4: Malone and Lepper’s Framework of Four Individual Factors ............................................................ 23
Table 5: Schematic depiction of three main problems constructed from (Ziegler & Goswani, 2005)............ 26
Table 6: Main Vowels compiled from (Bouchentouf, 2006) ........................................................................... 39
Table 7: Double Vowels compiled from (Bouchentouf, 2006) ........................................................................ 39
Table 8: MOBIlearn Project guidelines for practical concerns regarding mobile learning applied. ................ 68
82
Appendix I - Game Design Document
Design Document
For
“Arabic Mobile
Learning”
1st of September 2008
Work In Progress…
83
Contents
1.0 Introduction and Pitch ..................................................................................................................................... 86
1.1 Working Title ............................................................................................................................................... 86
1.2 High Concept ............................................................................................................................................... 86
1.3 Genre ........................................................................................................................................................... 86
1.4 Main Character ............................................................................................................................................ 86
1.5 Time and Place............................................................................................................................................. 86
1.6 Story............................................................................................................................................................. 86
1.7 Winning Condition ....................................................................................................................................... 86
1.8 Gameplay ..................................................................................................................................................... 86
1.9 Idea .............................................................................................................................................................. 86
1.10 Genre & Target Audience .......................................................................................................................... 87
1.11 Mobile phone ............................................................................................................................................ 87
1.12 Fun Learning .............................................................................................................................................. 87
1.13 60 Seconds of Gameplay ........................................................................................................................... 87
1.14 Unique Selling Points ................................................................................................................................. 87
1.14 Common Questions ................................................................................................................................... 88
2.0 Features ........................................................................................................................................................... 90
2.1 Images and Animations ............................................................................................................................... 90
3.0 The Gameplay .................................................................................................................................................. 90
3.1 Game Mechanics ......................................................................................................................................... 90
3.1.1 Walking and Selecting .......................................................................................................................... 90
3.2 Levels ....................................................................................................................................................... 90
3.2 What is the game about? ............................................................................................................................ 91
3.3 What do I control? ....................................................................................................................................... 91
3.4 Philosophy of Control .................................................................................................................................. 91
3.5 Walkthrough ................................................................................................................................................ 91
3.6 Hours of Gameplay ...................................................................................................................................... 91
3.7 End Game State ........................................................................................................................................... 91
4.0 Camera and View............................................................................................................................................. 91
5.0 The Physical World and Level Design .............................................................................................................. 91
5.0.1 Key Locations ............................................................................................................................................ 91
84
5.0.2 Controls .................................................................................................................................................... 91
5.0.3 Objects – Define Units & Events ............................................................................................................... 91
5.0.4 Rules for interaction ................................................................................................................................. 91
5.1 The World Layout ........................................................................................................................................ 92
5.1.1 Graphics ................................................................................................................................................ 92
5.1.2 Graphics Formats – Types of Graphics ................................................................................................. 92
5.1.3 Graphical Pipeline ................................................................................................................................. 92
6.0 Game Characters ............................................................................................................................................. 93
6.1 The Sprite..................................................................................................................................................... 93
6.2 The Monsters ............................................................................................................................................... 93
6.3 The House .................................................................................................................................................... 94
6.5 The Danger Zones ........................................................................................................................................ 94
6.4 How do I control the Sprite? ....................................................................................................................... 94
6.4.1 Button Perss Control Scheme ................................................................................................................... 94
8.0 User Interface .................................................................................................................................................. 94
8.2 Game Interface ............................................................................................................................................ 95
General Game Overview................................................................................................................................ 95
Game Interfaces ............................................................................................................................................ 95
9.0 Music and Sound FX ........................................................................................................................................ 96
10.0 Credits............................................................................................................................................................ 96
11.0 Appendix ........................................................................................................................................................ 97
Screen Menu - Wireframe ................................................................................................................................. 97
85
1.0 Introduction and Pitch
1.1 Working Title
Learning to Read Arabic
1.2 High Concept
Use the mobile phone to become more literate through fun and games.
1.3 Genre
Casual Mobile Learning
1.4 Main Character
- The Little Sprite Man
1.5 Time and Place
A moment in time when the player must continue to fight against opposing forces: no concept of day and
night.
1.6 Story
The player seeks to power up throughout the field in order to be able to defend it against these monsters.
For every success he gets, he becomes more powerful.
1.7 Winning Condition
The player has been able to hit the correct answers in succession until the monsters’ power has
deteriorated.
1.8 Gameplay
Simple – the idea is to get better with each level and fight one gets into and remember how to defeat these
monsters. As one continues, the monsters and missions get harder to beat, thereby requiring practice in
order to defeat these monsters.
Recognition of patterns (in this case letters) and the speed of doing so will be central to the game. The
visual feedback will let the player know when it is doing well.
1.9 Idea
The game sets its focus on a simple grinding adventure game, which is to be kept simple and therefore not
require any written instructions. The idea is for the player to figure out what to do in each level and
gradually improve their skills whilst doing so.
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1.10 Genre & Target Audience
The game is targeted towards Africans who already speak the Arabic language but do not yet know how to
read.
1.11 Mobile phone
The game is made for a small device that carries a coloured screen of a low resolution.
The phone will have to have support for J2ME MIDP 2.0 and have a certain amount of memory, but we
don’t know how much, so we will strive to keep memory use low. It must at least have a screen resolution
of 128x128, and it should have a higher resolution for best effect. It also needs several megabytes of free
space to install the game.
There is hope that the application/game will be compatible with many other phones, however, due to the
security settings, this may not be a possibility.
1.12 Fun Learning
The game is designed to make learning and intuitive part of the play. As the goal of the individual player
during game play is often to beat the game, get better at it or just plain “joy” alone, the idea is to have the
player learn and recognize words by playing continuously.
As language is a large field with many variables, the idea is to have the players learn the fundamental parts
of the language before moving onto other levels.
This will be used with a combination of audio and visuals, in order to stimulate the player’s senses and help
the player’s memory.
1.13 60 Seconds of Gameplay
You are wandering the dessert when you are ambushed by a group of monsters; however you fight them of
with your word-recognition skills. Afterwards you head to one of the mini games to regain health.
1.14 Unique Selling Points
The game provides and alternative form of learning that has yet to be seen in mobile phones. Similar games
have been seen in portable devices, such as the Nintendo DS, however the games are rather different. As
they are aimed at either a younger or more literate audience. The target audience also tends to be
wealthier.
87
1.14 Common Questions
Why a mobile game?
For most areas in Africa, the mobile platform is pretty much the only widely available platform for
games, as PCs and consoles are rare items.
Besides the above, it will also allow individuals to play whenever and wherever they want, as long
as they can use their mobile phones. The idea is to make it simple and fun enough that they will get
used to recognizing the letters and words through play.
What makes your game different?
The game is different as it has no written instructions that tell the player what to do and will be a
combination of different “proven” game mechanics to provide these mini games with some
challenge.
What are the goals of the character?
The goal of the character is to defeat all the monsters and become powerful.
How will the players know what to do?
Each game will be made as simple as possible in order to allow the player to figure things out by
him/herself. Upon doing so, the idea is for the game to get more difficult, so that the player may
keep trying.
How will the players obtain their goals?
The players will need to be consistent with their answers and simply be good at recognizing the
various letters that build up the game.
How do you know how well you’re doing?
There will be visual feedback such as a decreasing/increasing pie or flashes in order to indicate to
the player that something good or bad is happening. And the characters hitpoint meter will be
displayed throughout.
Where is the challenge in this game?
The challenge is in defeating the monsters and making sure that one does not die. This will require
speed and memory in order to advance. And in some cases, finding some sort of rhythm may also
help.
Where does the game take place?
In a fantasy world.
What makes this different from other games in the genre?
It uses mini games to attempt teaching the user to recognize and read the alphabets/words, rather
than patterns and shapes alone.
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Why is this targeted towards African Arabic speaking nations and/or individuals?
The reason for this is because a large population of Africans speak Arabic and a large percentage is
illiterate. And as more people have mobile phones than PCs in the country, it is may be one of the
most accessible means or mediums to reach out to the population.
89
2.0 Features
2.1 Images and Animations
The images and animations are kept simple and are in sprite form to reduce the number of resources
needed to run them.
Walking animation – North, South, East, West
Other animations will be puzzle animations, which will consist of various types, depending on the themes in
play.
3.0 The Gameplay
3.1 Game Mechanics
The player mostly walks around gathering experience and in later versions other stuff. Along the way he
has random encounters with monsters as in almost every console RPG, and there are mini games around to
heal the player up or provide some other benefit.
3.1.1 Walking and Selecting
During the main level, the character is able to walk around on a 2D plane and be able to select the mini
game it wants to face.
Selecting will consist of tapping the middle button to execute the mini game.
3.2 Mini Games
3.2.1 Battle Map
The Battle Map is similarly just a fairly normal battle map as found in most RPG's like the old final fantasy
games. However it makes the player match a word to a sound out of multiple choices, thereby giving an
incentive to get the result right since any false attacks heal the monsters instead of damaging them.
3.2.2 Memory Game
The Memory Game has a set of tiles with the goal being to match a pair of the same latter that looks
different. This will hopefully give the player the ability to recognize a character regardless of case or font, or
in the Arabic case the position in the word.
3.2.3 Letter Shooter
The Letter Shooter has words dropping down from the top, and a letter that the player is looking for, the
goal is the to shoot only those words that have the target letter in them and let the ones without it pass by.
This will give the player the ability to hear what the word they shoot sounds like and trains them to
recognize characters when they occur inside of words.
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3.2 What is the game about?
The game is about being able to defeat these monsters using the knowledge of reading. Knowledge is
power and with knowledge, one will get stronger.
3.3 What do I control?
The player controls the main character and hits the fire button accordingly to select the correct answers.
3.4 Philosophy of Control
Keep it simple, so that the player can focus on the letters and patterns.
3.5 Walkthrough
At the moment there is no victory condition or story planned so there is no walkthrough.
3.6 Hours of Gameplay
-
To be tested – will depend on the player’s capabilities.
3.7 End Game State
When every monster has been destroyed in that level, the mini game round is over for the time being.
There is no end condition for the game as a whole at the moment.
4.0 Camera and View
A birds-eye view of the level and character. Very simple and primitive.
5.0 The World and Level Design
5.0.1 Key Locations
The world map appears when you start a new game, and between most mini games which allows the
player to move around.
5.0.2 Controls
One cannot manoeuvre freely in this world, there are obstacles which block the way. There will be an
acceleration mechanic in the world map mode so the player can move for just a moment when he wants to
precisely adjust his character, but if the player keeps going in one direction then he will speed up so large
areas can be crossed in a reasonable time.
5.0.3 Objects – Define Units & Events
The various mini games will result in the main character either losing power or gaining power.
5.0.4 Rules for interaction
During the testing phase interaction will only be initiated on a click, in later phases random encounters can
occur when the player is moving, or if he moves onto a certain type of tile.
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5.1 The World Layout
5.1.1 Graphics
Graphics will currently consist of simple sprites, which will be there as a representation to help distinguish
between the character, monsters, alphabets and words.
5.1.2 Graphics Formats – Types of Graphics
The graphics will be saved as a series of png images that can be subdivided into sprites using some fixed
size. Java will then turn that image into a series of smaller images. Using the World class these smaller
images are then assembled into various tiles or animated sprites.
5.1.3 Graphical Pipeline
One of the sample images from NetBeans, after it has been edited by us to include more monsters.
The Image is then split into tiles by java and those tiles are then assembled into a variety of sprite
animations, show here are part of the player sprite animations.
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5.2 World Map Design
The world map will be assembled from tiles in NetBeans with multiple layers to support the easy triggering
of events in the game. Shown here is the building of the collision layer.
6.0 Game Characters
6.1 The Sprite



This is the character the player controls.
The character will be moving throughout the level to interact with various objects in that level.
The character can move Up, Down, Left, Right but also has the option of combining these to move
diagonally, should the phones permit this.
6.2 The Monsters



These are the characters that the player interacts with.
They seek to punish the character whenever things go wrong.
Make sure he/she does not destroy the character.
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6.3 The House

The player can enter these to power up and level up themselves. The games involved here tend to
provide practice for the player to handle the other games.
6.5 The Danger Zones


These consist of bushlands, rocks, trees, desert and so forth.
Each of these will represent the type of mini game, most monster fights with different kinds of
monsters.
6.6 How do I control the Sprite?
6.6.1 Button Press Control Scheme
The overall control consists of marking, aiming and shooting.
Controls consist of the following keys on the mobile phone:
Joystick/joypad and buttons 2, 4, 5, 6 and 8 on the keypad will be used.
Pressing these consist of the following:
Tap 2, 4, 6, 8
2 = up
4 = left
6 = right
E.g. Used for moving
around the level/main
map and for selecting
the mini game/battle
to take on.
8 = down
5 = fire, enter
Joystick/Joypad
North, South, East and
West = up, down, left,
right
Same as the 2, 4, 6, 8
control scheme. These
are mapped by the
telephone system.
Possible scenes, which will make use of the control mechanics described above.
Depending on the placement of the activity on the screen, the user will decide on whether to use 4, 6 or
both.
7.0 User Interface
The idea of the game is to in fact minimize or completely discard the use of text, except as a game object.
This will be done through the use of sound and graphical cues.
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7.1 Game Interface
General Game Overview
Game Interfaces
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8.0 Music and Sound FX
Situation
Background music
Shooting
Successful hit
Unsuccessful hit
Letter sounds
Type of Sound
Played throughout the game- catchy yet not
interfering
Sound to reveal that something has been fired –
sound feedback
A ding sound or the sound of the alphabet
An uncomfortable error sound
Revealing of the letters
9.0 Credits
Name
Dirk Walter
Guo Yu Pan
Title
Programmer / Game Designer / Multimedia
Game Designer / Researcher / Multimedia
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10.0 Appendix
Screen Menu - Wireframe
To be updated with comments.
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Appendix II - Arabic Consonants
(Bouchentouf, 2006)
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Appendix III - Miriam Taouk and Max Coltheart’s Three Phases
(Miriam Taouk and Max Coltheart, 2004)
-
These three phases that appear to characterize progression in reading acquisition in English also
appear in the characterize progression in reading acquisition in Arabic:
Discrimination-net phase: this way of reading involves selecting some visual features from the printed
word and using these to select from the small store of visual word forms the child has already learned to
read. When an Arabic letter string is presented whose consonants are those of a word but which is
vowelled in a way that does not match this word’s phonology, the use of just the consonants for
determining a reading response will produce a word response which is an error. Grade 4 Arabic children
perform poorly with such stimuli but Grade 6 children do not. That suggests the presence of the
discrimination-net reading mode in only the younger Arabic readers; just as it is present in just the younger
English readers. The results of Azzam (1993) in Arabic support this claim.
Phonological-recoding phase: By the time Arabic readers are in Grade 6, they are proficient at reading
nonwords written in vowelled form, so have the key skill needed for the phonological-recoding mode of
reading. What is more, that appears to be the strongly predominant mode of reading at that age, since (a)
Grade 6 readers are much less affected than adults by presenting words in orthographically unfamiliar form
(which harms reading in the orthographic phase) implying that little or no use is made and (b) as argued in
the previous paragraph, the discrimination-net mode of reading is also not being used by Grade 6 children.
Orthographic phase: Skilled readers of Arabic use this mode of reading. The evidence is that their word
reading is seriously perturbed when word representations are orthographically but not phonologically
distorted, by using letter shapes which are visually wrong (though phonologically correct) for their position
in the word. Furthermore, our results imply that the systematic use of ‘skoon’ corresponds to being in the
orthographic phase (or in a more advanced stage of the phonological-recoding phase) where word
decoding is directly reliant on the context and on the spellings of words, whereas the systematic use of
‘fatHa’ corresponds to an earlier stage of the phonological-recoding phase where word decoding is reliant
on letter–sound translation and phonological information.
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Appendix IV - Definitions
Alphabet: a set of letters
Character: as represented in an encoding, such as in ASCII where lowercase 'a' and uppercase 'A' are
encoded as different characters even though they are the same letter.
Glyph: a particular representation of a character.
Letter: a set of characters that are logically the same thing, such as upper and lower case letters in the
alphabet we are familiar with.
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