Educational Use of Cooperatively-Controlled Drawing Games
by
Kyle McClellan
The Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington has developed a system called INFACT that makes it easy to log the activities of computer users who engage in various collaborative activities. One of the many applications of this is in the field of education. Educational programs written for the system record data about the actions the user takes while interacting with the program. This information can be analyzed and examined for trends. The results can be used for assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the user's understanding in the given field.
The main drive of my research is to augment the sparse library of cooperatively- controlled games based around the INFACT system. I have developed a drawing game that could be used as a tool to teach coordinate systems. In it, groups of users are required to draw something specific, usually a geometric shape. Each member of the group controls a single axis, so all must cooperate to produce the final result. Each member is then given a score based on time, the accuracy of their drawing, and other indicators of their understanding of coordinate systems, such as actions they may make to compensate for mistakes previously made by other group members.
Advised by Steve Tanimoto
EE1 037
Wednesday
May 5, 2004
3:30 - 4:20 pm