Salt Lake City, Utah
June 23, 2018
June 23, 2018
July 27, 2018
Computing and Information Technology
Diversity
15
10.18260/1-2--30781
https://peer.asee.org/30781
554
Brian Durney teaches computer science at Utah Valley University. His research interests are educational games and game AI.
Magnitude Museum is an educational game that helps students develop a sense of scale and understand the terminology of nanotechnology. Educational and entertainment aspects of the game complement and reinforce each other. Story elements strengthen the learning value of the game and make it more fun. In Magnitude Museum, students explore a 3D virtual museum where each floor of the museum represents an order of magnitude of size in meters. Each floor contains exhibits of objects for that order of magnitude. The top floor (10 to the 26th power) has an exhibit that represents the entire universe and the lowest floors (10 to the -15th) have exhibits about subatomic particles. Puzzles in the game help students develop their abilities in estimating size in orders of magnitude, converting units, and using and defining nanotechnology terminology. The puzzles are generated dynamically and range from simple drill-style puzzles to more complicated story-based puzzles. Teachers can configure the game to focus on certain topics and styles of puzzles. Instructions developed in this paper are designed for Introduction to Nanotechnology course. This game can be potentially used in teaching courses related to sizes and scales. Procedures are designed for experiments conducted in a standard two hours laboratory time. Assessment is being done by survey of students who participated in this optional game experiment. Knowledge of students before and after game practice are measured and reported.
Kamali-Sarvestani, R., & Durney, B. (2018, June), Magnitude Museum: Game-based Learning for Nanosizes, Dimensions, and Nanotechnology Terminology Paper presented at 2018 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition , Salt Lake City, Utah. 10.18260/1-2--30781
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