Diseño participativo de un juego serio con alumnos de primaria

Abstract

Today teachers have in their hands learning resources, such as games, to engage primary school students in dry subjects. Nevertheless, many of these games have a mechanic very similar to in-class exercises, e.g. question -answer and match up images. Then, children end up boring. In this research we aim to design a game for and by children. We present results of two Participatory Design (PD) sessions performed with children of 6th grade of Primary School to jointly design a game about fractions. The experience has been very fruitful both for us and for children. On one hand, they had an exciting experience as game designers, enforced their learning about fractions, and contributed with numerous and diverse ideas. On the other hand, it was obtained a game design document, co-created with enthusiastic stakeholders. Additionally, this research constitutes a further step in the study of methodologies and techniques of participatory game design with children. As result of our experience I can say that participatory sessions with children should be very dynamic, with well-differentiated parts and using very different activities. It has been used individual brainstorming using post-its, brainstorming and discussion in groups. It has also organised written activities, which seem to be adequate, provided that children have templates to be filled with ideas related to elements and mechanics of the game. We observed they showed really concentrated in these writing activities. Those parts of the participatory design that required the use of computers were the most appealing for them. Moreover, teachers and designers should pay attention and give children positive reinforcement regularly in order to avoid distraction during the PD sessions. Once these participatory design sessions with the children, we have designed a game that takes place on an island, where the main character is a castaway, you need to resolve a series of challenges where you will get a series of objects to leave the island by boat awaits you at the shore.