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Well today is submission day and with my proposal document all handed in I wanted to quickly reflect back on where this project all came from. (I wanted to include this in my proposal but alas the word count was not in my favour)

From 2017 until 2019 I worked for Northumbria Univeristy as a Graduate Ambassador. As part of my work there I got to help develop and lead sessions for the Widening Participation team whose main aim was to help with the attainment levels of students. This included the Key Stage 2 work in Primary schools you will find most English Universities undertake in some form.

At Northumbria we developed 3 interactive presentations for the three core subjects - Maths, English and Science. These sessions revolves around the national curriculum and were meant to show students that not only could learning be fun but also it could be relevant in real world situations. In was when thinking back to how valuable my work was during these two years that I first came up with the idea for Super Class.

Here are a few photos that my former colleagues at Northumbria Univiersty have kindly shared with me and allowed me to in turn share with you! They show where Super Class, and indeed Super Bun, began.

It’s 23:02 on the 24th April and I’ve just finished the first draft of my written assessment for this module. To celebrate here is the cover page and logo for Super Class as designed by Natalia Rogowska who has had the “privilege” of being in lockdown with me for the past 4+ weeks.

Meet Fizz Ics. A master physicist who loves all the modern gadgets that 21st Century physics has provided. He’ll go head to head with Sir Kit the Knight who tries to turn off the lights and take the world back to Medieval times!

Thanks to Chris Townsend for drawing these for me!

Meet The Past. A dark shadowy figure going head to head to make sure Her Story doesn’t find out about all the fantastic Women from History!

Thanks to Chris Townsend for drawing this for me!

Meet the villainous El Niño who’ll go up against Jog On Ralphie in our Geography challenges. He’s got his head set on World Domination no matter what the season!

Thanks to Chris Townsend for drawing this!

Motivation, Rewards and Gamification

How do you get people to play your game? A big draw for us would be that teachers would be requiring students to download and play the app as part of their homework.

Obviously our main motivation and reward for teachers to buy the app is to save them time and give them a social life to enjoy. Another motivation is that it complements their teaching scheme so it’s essential we get the educational/learning aspect right.

Of course we want students to want to play the game outside of their homework. Our main method of doing this will be to award housepoints, a reward system used in schools, for completion of levels. In schools these houseplants can be exchanged for real world items such as drinks, toys and stationary. Naturally this will be a major draw for some students.

By having students personalise their characters early in the game i hope that this will help them form an emotional connection to the character. This will keep some, but not all, players invested in the game, especially given the age range of the players.

Gamification, as i have quoted previously on this blog, is the process of using game like elements in education to keep students engaged. This includes but isn't limited to rewarding students for completing tasks. A key aspect of Super Class is that it is an educational app. The education is at the forefront of the games in the app rather than being shoehorned in at a later date. Because the gamification takes place at the inception of the idea it will allow it to grow and not feel tokenistic.

Education is at the heart of Super Class and we will be honest about this throughout the process. I feel this is the best policy as students, no matter how old, are extremely perceptive of peoples motives so it is essential they don't feel they are being tricked into learning, instead we want them to enjoy it. We want them to know they are doing homework but for it to be fun to do and not feel like a chore.

Meet Captain Literacy! He’s always prepared with his Reading Glasses on his Belt and his Book Cape!

Thanks to Chris Townsend for drawing this. More characters to be revealed in the coming days!

This is my estimates of the cost of making Super Class, including the Staffing Costs for a year. You will notice i have included the annual wage of a Leading Key Stage 2 Practitioner. This is because it is vital to the success of the app that we get the educational elements right and having a teacher on the staff will help with that.

I’ve also included how i intend to get that money. including which grants we could apply for. These tend to be aimed at raising attainment and outcomes of students from disadvantaged backgrounds, something which i feel our app could do.

On top of this i’ve included the Monetisation option of a subscription service which would cost schools £2 per student subscribed to the app. This means if a school wanted to enrol a class of 28 into the app it would cost them £56 per year. I’ve escalated this maths to a national level to show an estimated maximum annual revenue if every UK Key Stage 2 student was subscribed. Obviously achieving this is extremely unrealistic however it shows that even a tenth of this would pay for the app.

My aim would be to utilise grants to pay for the production and marketing of the app and then use a subscription to ensure regular profits. The subscription element wouldn't be a hidden course cost for students but instead would come from the schools annual budget, again extra motivation for us to get the educational elements right.

We might consider over- arching narrative structures and quests as forms of roles and point systems and achievements as examples of goals. These design features can, and often are, used to good effect in games for learning or impact.

Walz, S., & Deterding, S. (2014). The gameful world : Approaches, issues, applications. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press.

The process of gamification—introducing game-like elements in order to keep students engaged, create a playful environment, and quantify activities—has also become popular in education.

Walz, S., & Deterding, S. (2014). The gameful world : Approaches, issues, applications. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press.

Adventurous young people too are also part of the innovation—they are blogging, creating their own multimedia of high quality, doing simulations, and participating in on- line role-playing games with thousands of players worldwide. Many of these games expand the imagination, requiring intense participation, long attention spans, and the development of sophisticated mental strategies.

O’Hara, M. (2006) ‘In Search of the Next Enlightenment?: The Challenge for Education in Uncertain Times’, Journal of Transformative Education, 4(2), pp. 105–117.

Video games are not just mere entertainment, video games teach. Video games teach knowledge. Video games teach skills. Video games teach dispositions. This is why it is so important to pay attention to the video games with which youth are engaging.

Kellinger, J. (2017). A guide to designing curricular games : How to "game" the system (Advances in game-based learning). Switzerland: Springer.

Who is SuperClass For?

The App is primarily for Key Stage 2 students. That means year 4, 5 and 6 in the English School System. As such the app’s educational elements will follow the UK National Curriculum to ensure it remains relevant to crucial learning objectives. Whilst the App’s main users will be students it is important to note it is not them we are attempting to sell the app to. Whilst we want students to want to play the app to do that we have to get Teachers to Want to BUY It. Therefore it is important that we market the app primarily at these Teachers and really highlight the benefits it offers to them as well as their students. Sure it being fun is a good draw for students but what appeals to teachers? It will be extremely easy for teachers to see how students have progressed through the app and see their scores. This means they will be able to see where their students need the most help in class.

It self marks so teachers don't need to do the marking. This saves teachers valuable time, which given most of my teacher friends end up marking on their own time, gives them more time to attempt a social life.

Teachers will be able to easily upload academic advise for students to access via the “Super Bun” sidekick character part of the game. This will be painfree for the teachers and need only remind them of the correct working out method for the problem the student is struggling on. All in all we have to convince teachers, and their schools, that this app is worth some of their annual budget. If we can get teachers on side then they will be a key force in encouraging students to us the app.

Pitch Presentation Feedback

So due to the unexpected Coronavirus situation I ended up pitching a week earlier than expected. Overall i thought it went really well but as always there is room for improvements. Here is the feedback i received from the Panel. Brian Baglow noted that it had hit all the briefs but to highlight WHO the app is for. Nigel Smith wanted clarification on the Teacher interaction aspects of the app to ensure that teachers wouldn't be expected to stay up all night typing out instructions at home. (Which of course they won't; more on that soon) Chris Peck said he believed in me more than the idea which he ensured me he meant as a compliment, and i took it as one! He wanted a clearer understanding of who would pay. He pointed out if we got the government grants, as suggested, that we wouldn't need to charge for the app. Also who is paying? The school or the student? Phil Harris wanted more images and for me to talk slower. Unfortunately i can't draw and talk faster than the Squirrel from Hoodwinked (Brownie points if you got the reference). Fortunately one of these problems has solved the other but fast talking my friend into doing some drawing for me. I hope to be able to reveal these soon. Paddy Sinclair also wanted more visuals and shared Chris’ concerns for about the monetisation. He also questioned what would be the motivation for the students to play the game would be and advised i implement rewards for everything on top of the houseplant system offered by the schools.

All in all I felt it was a very successfully presentation which highlighted where i needed to improve or clarify the game. I hope to get most of this done in the next few days so stay tuned.

Academia

Over the next few days i’ll be posting a few quotes I’ve found from my reading around Educational Gaming. These will form part of my supporting document for the assessment!

Games are, after all, both genres of media and modes of interaction, and we carry over practices from one media experience to the next.

Walz, S., & Deterding, S. (2014). The gameful world : Approaches, issues, applications. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press.

Clearly the government is starting to take notice of the benefit educational apps have for disadvantaged students!

Thousands of families to receive free access to educational apps that help boost early literacy and language skills

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