Creating Simple, Educational Gaming Activities for Online Delivery Matthew Bacz, M.A. Ed. Tech. Instructional Designer / Multimedia Training Developer Information Technology Services McGill University Montreal, Quebec E: matthew.bacz@mcgill.ca W: http://www.mcgill.ca/it

Agenda Montreal Quiz crossword demo Development prerequisites Creating the crossword Publishing the gaming activity Integrating the crossword into Desire2Learn LMS Edu-Games initiative overview (time permitting)

Montreal Quiz Crossword Demo Test your Montreal knowledge: Go to: http://nuwebmail.mcgill.ca/aace/ or http://scormaicc.com/aace/ Quiz Answers: Go to: http://nuwebmail.mcgill.ca/aace/answers.doc or http://scormaicc.com/aace/answers.doc

Development prerequisites What is needed to create and share the crossword? Download StudyMate Author 2.5 from respondus.com (a 30 day fully functional demo is available) Suggested Best Practice: Create a term/definitions table (http://scormaicc.com/aace/answers.doc) Access to Learning Management System or web server

Creating the crossword (1/7) Before opening the software, create a simple 3 column Qn/term/definition table :

Creating the crossword (2/7) Open StudyMate Author 2.5 Click on Create

Creating the crossword (3/7) Specify a file name, author and file description Click OK

Creating the crossword (4/7) Use the Term/Definition option to create your questions

Creating the crossword (5/7) Enter: Title of Item (corresponding to column 1 in your table), Term or Answer (column 2 in your table), Definition or Question (column 3 in your table); Click Add to End of List. Show live example

Creating the crossword (6/7) The record appears at the bottom on the screen in the Item List section. Repeat this step for all the elements in your table.

Question creation suggestions (1/2) Simplify questions in such a way as to minimize the number of terms per question (ideally keep it at one term). A “fill-in-the-blank” sentence structure can be used to achieve this. 20 questions is an optimal data set to work with.

Question creation suggestions (2/2) Consider converting.. Montreal is an _ _ _ _ _ _ on the St. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ . Terms: island Lawrence river ..to something simpler: Montreal is an _ _ _ _ _ _ on the St. Lawrence river. Terms: island

Creating the crossword (7/7) The final screen should resemble this (expanded view):

Publishing gaming activity (1/8) Navigate to the Preview & Publish tab Select the Publish option

Publishing gaming activity (2/8) Click on the Publish Wizard

Publishing gaming activity (3/8) Select Crosswords (requires 5 items) Click on Next

Publishing gaming activity (4/8) Select Export as Learning Object (Flash, SCORM) for manual upload Click on Next

Publishing gaming activity (5/8) Select the first option and click on Next

Publishing gaming activity (6/8) Enter text in required fields (specify name) Click on Finish

Publishing gaming activity (7/8) If you see the following confirmation message, you have successfully created your crossword activity.

Publishing gaming activity (8/8) You can test your crossword by: Double-clicking on the HTML file you have created Clicking on the crosswords link.

Importing gaming activity into Desire2Learn (LMS) The gaming activity can be integrated into a Desire2Learn course widget using a custom HTML <iframe> tag. The generated files must be uploaded using the Desire2Learn Manage Files function. A custom widget must then be created and configured via the widget’s HTML source code view.

Game integrated in LMS Clicking the Montreal Crossword widget Crosswords link will launch the gaming activity in a separate window.

StudyMate activities used in the Edu-Games initiative (1/2)

StudyMate activities used in Edu-Games initiative (2/2)

Creating Simple, Educational Gaming Activities for Online Delivery Matthew Bacz, M.A. Ed. Tech. Instructional Designer / Multimedia Training Developer Information Technology Services McGill University Montreal, Quebec E: matthew.bacz@mcgill.ca W: http://www.mcgill.ca/it