Contents |
siLang Serious Game Scenario
A backbone story drives the siLang game play. The siLang story follows a young professional as he applies for a job, goes through a job interview, gets hired, meets colleagues at the office, and participates in an international meeting. The user is introduced to each of the activities through an introductory scene; for example, the user is eased into a scene that unfolds in the corporate offices by an external image of the office building. The story applies a ‘foldback’ structure in which activities branch out to mutually exclusive activities that the user may select based on personal and professional interests. Eventually the branched out story lines fold back into the main story path. The story line is organized around 7 chapters. An overview of the story line flow appears below:
Chapter 1
In Chapter I the user searchers the web for job positions that are related to her professional and educational background. The user is presented with 4 options that span industries allowing her to tailor subsequent game activities to her professional interests and career development needs. The jobs that the user can apply for include ICT engineer, welding engineer, audio visual communication, and corporate trainer. These options have been purposefully selected to allow evaluation of the game learning value among diverse professional groups. The user is asked to write a letter in response to the job application of her choice and email it to the prospective employer. She undergoes an interview in which she replies to questions related to the job of interest and concludes the scene by signing a contract.
Chapter 2
In Chapter 2 the user is asked to find the offices of her new employer in a larger building. This is a listening comprehension exercise in which she interacts with a receptionist at the building entrance and is called to mark on a building map the location of the company offices based on her understanding of the receptionist’s description. Once into the company office space the user meets her international team of colleagues that speak with different pronunciations and introduce transfer effects into their verbal communication. She must interact with all colleagues, find out their role in the company, and receive information about the location of her desk. This is a listening comprehension exercise in which the user gets exposed to culturally influenced communication. She is asked to respond to questions about each of her colleagues’ position and mark on a map the location of her desk. Closing the scene, the user receives a phone call from the IT specialist who gives her a login account for the company on-line services. This is a spelling and typing exercise in which the user is asked to enter the correct password for logging into the company IT services.
Chapter 3
In Chapter 3 the user receives a phone call or email from her boss informing her that she must participate in an international project meeting. The different mediums of communication provide the user with the opportunity to practice written or oral communication skills. The user must understand information on the meeting location and date. She is asked to contact a travel agent and make travel arrangements based on the transferred travel information taking into account additional rules, for example pursuing the lowest possible cost. The user must apply her understanding of the information provided by her boss for correctly requesting the necessary bookings.
Chapter 4
Apart from what has mentioned so far, the activities are carried out in an on-going manner. In a way, this also allow us to adopt a holist view on learning outcomes; this is not to state that the focus in on factors of change or cognitive change but rather on documenting feedback useful for the technological and pedagogical de-sign. More precisely, the feedback that is being generated by internal or external evaluation activities affects directly the development of the siLang tools (i.e the siLang serious game, the learning activities, the educational material and resources and the learning design). Amendments or updates in the design may activate a new cycle of internal and external evaluation activities.
The siLang evaluation framework is designed for producing well rounded feed-back from project partners, representatives of stakeholder groups, and experts with the objective of best implementing the proposal work plan.
Chapter 5
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