1. Educational Gaming for the Rest of Us WYSIWYG Production of Scalable, Beautiful, Web-based RPGs Jude Higdon, Ed.D. Director of Innovative Learning and Academic Technology College of Pharmacy, University of Minnesota

2. A Brief Intro to "Behind the Message"

3. Why Educational RPGs? *Can* provide instructional environments that blend elements of authentic assessment, discovery learning, and structured pedagogy. Has the potential to provide enhanced learning and motivational outcomes for students. (Some) instructors love it, and would like to be able to power pedagogy through games.

4. Why *Not* Educational RPGs? Build model –Monetarily and time intensive –Boutique expertise –Examples: River City Games+Learning+Society Croquetlandia Buy model: Offerings often fall short of pedagogical goals –Bottom line: Not yet…

5. NOT SO FAST -- Maybe we can? Thinking Worlds: –Inexpensive development licenses –WYSIWYG development environment –Web-based delivery –Ready-to-use libraries of scenes, objects, and characters –Development environment scaffolds the process of game development

6. Can we? Our Goal: See if we could create an online RPG game in a sustainable way: –Using only student producer resources –In a short development time cycle –With little to no training for developers

7. YES WE CAN! (So far, at least...) Pilot project: Behind the Message School of Journalism and Mass Communication Game (Nora Paul and Kathy Hanson) Game to teach basic reporting techniques including: –Story angle instincts –Research protocols –Interview skills

8. The WYSIWYG Dev Environment

10. Conclusions GOALSUCCESS? Use only student producers? Yes! Short development cycle? Sort of...game play in a year, with one part-time UG worker. Little to no training for developers Yes!

11. Next Steps Augmented reality versions of this and other games Expand the pilot –Work with the AHC Simulation Center –NIH funding for some simulation evaluation projects

12. Thoughts and comments? Let's have a (virtual) coffee! jhigdon@umn.edu