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Article
Mapping and Simulation of Educational Games Using a State Transition Diagram and a Rules Base
Author(s)
Sandrerley Ramos Pires, Tobias Gonçalves Pires
Dulcinéia Gonçalves F. Pires
Full-Text PDF XML 349 Views
DOI:10.17265/2161-623X/2018.02.003
Affiliation(s)
Goiás Federal University, Goiânia, Brazil
Goiás Federal Institute, Anápolis, Brazil
ABSTRACT
When educators are planning
their classes, one of most challenge tasks is to awaken students’ interest for
the lesson content. The use of educational games may support teachers to reach
this goal. However, this strategy requires high investments. This paper
proposes that a formal model and a knowledge base
(KB) that can map all necessary details of an educational
game, allowing the simulation in a
computational environment. Also, this work shows a software able to interpret
that formal model and to understand the KB by use of an inference engine. With these resources,
the software simulates an educational game, offering students it on the Internet. The
first step for the game creation starts with the manufacture of the formal
model and the KB. This paper uses a
state transition diagram (STD), which can map all possible paths in a specific
game. This model mapped the dynamic of several educational games tested. Besides
the STD, we used a KB
to store rules used in the game control. After mapping the game, teachers must
submit the model to the built program. The program reads the model and
simulates the mapped game in a computational environment. It has an inference
engine that controls the games’ flow by the various states of the game. The
start stage is equivalent to the initial state of the STD. Users may pass to
the next stage only if they fulfill the game rules. The final state of the STD is equivalent to the
final stage of the game. To show a feasibility of the proposed approach, some
educational games were developed and used in practical classes. The game
creation is a hard task, and however, teachers
may improve it indefinitely. In addition, teachers may
exchange their games between them, creating a gaming base in their institution.
The work conclude that objectives were reached, due to
the proposed model can map all educational game figured
out by participating teachers and the software is able to simulate all the
games mapped in the proposed formal model.
KEYWORDS
educational games, expert systems, game simulation, process modeling
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