HKU is a committed member of the UN campaign HeForShe. The overall goal of HeForShe is to spread awareness and spark actions on the responsibility that men and boys have in eliminating all forms of discrimination against women. TecHKU and TELI share the same vision. They mobilised a group of HKU students to organise a hands-on workshop “Girls4Tech” for secondary school girls in late February, and received enthusiastic support from our President Professor Peter Mathieson, “I’m particularly keen to see the University hosting this kind of event. This is exactly the kind of thing that the HeForShe campaign envisages. Starting at all ages – the idea of trying to improve gender equality. Technical careers are not just for boys, they’re for everybody.”
“Girls4Tech” aims to nurture computational thinking in secondary school girls and to inspire them on possibilities of developing a career in the tech sector. A detailed report on the event is available here.
Developing a learning game is not just about making the teaching materials an easier pill to swallow, but is also an attempt to create a resource so engaging that students will beg for more. In our Game Design Meetings, we figured that there are at least eight things to consider in gamification.
Balance between fun and education
Developing a learning game is different from preparing serious powerpoint presentations. While both aim at facilitating learning, the element of FUN is of particular importance in games.
Have a good understanding of both the educational topic and the game mechanism
To produce a game which is both fun and educational, it is of ultimate importance to figure out how to transform learning contents into gaming elements. Equally important is a good understanding of the type of game you intend to make, e.g., card game, collaborative multiplayer game, detective game, etc. The best way to familiarize yourself with a particular game mechanism is to try playing some related games.
Form a diverse team
It is important to have people with different expertise in your team to pool ideas and create a game for a diverse audience. Our Game Design Team comprises of instructional designers, multimedia experts, research associates, designers and programme developers.
While it is natural to include professional gamers in the development team, it is also crucial to invite laymen to join. Sometimes an uninformed opinion can be valuable in shaping the game.
Draw inspiration from existing games
Existing games are successful for a reason. Try them out and learn from them. For example, if you want to develop a strategic board game, recommended games include Kingdom Builder, Settlers of Catan, Carcassonne, Tickets to Ride, etc….
Copyright
When drawing inspirations from other games, be aware of copyright issues. Consult your local copyright office if necessary.
Document all ideas discussed
Take note of all crazy ideas in your discussions, whether they are related to the main theme, scoring mechanism, functions of a particular card, anything. A seemingly useless or silly idea may eventually become an important element of the final product. Keeping a log book of ideas also makes it easier to create ‘trailers’ and draft official documents such as game specifications in the future.
Test out your prototype – again and again
Once you have developed a prototype, try playing it. Does it work? Is it playable? Does it facilitate learning? Invite your colleagues and friends to try it out.
Ensure every player has an equal chance to win
Test the game repeatedly to see if every player has a fair chance to win. Unfair games may demotivate learners.
Developing an original educational game is challenging but fun. Contact us if you are interested in developing a learning game for your students at HKU. Have fun!
On February 27, 2016, more than 120 bright young ladies from 17 local secondary schools gathered at HKU for the student-led event “Girls4Tech” to learn about careers in the tech industry and attempt hands-on coding exercises. Both our undergraduate organizers and the junior participants were greatly inspired by the experience.
At the one-day workshop, participants were engaged in a series of activities involving computing concepts such as coding, encryption, and sorting. In his opening speech, our President Professor Peter Mathieson encouraged young girls to challenge stereotypes and embrace new opportunities that our society has to offer in traditionally male-dominated sectors, including research, technology and computer science. “Technology is fundamentally about problem solving, and there’s no gender-specific environment to that,” he said. A number of distinguished women tech leaders also shared their career development journeys. Starting from March, participants will also be visiting tech giants such as Lenovo, Microsoft (Hong Kong), IBM, and Google to gain a deeper understanding of the tech industry.
“Girls4Tech 2016” was organized by TecHKU, short for The HKU Journal of Technology, formed by a group of students from the Faculties of Engineering and Social Sciences. This annual event aims to nurture computational thinking in secondary school girls and to inspire them on possibilities of developing a career in the tech sector. “We noticed that most companies in the region were trying to bridge the gender equity gap in technology by organizing similar events for university students, but we believed that such interests would be best triggered at a younger age,” said Vikay Narayen, student founder and consultant of TecHKU. According to a feedback survey conducted by TecHKU, 86.9% of the 85 respondents said they became more interested in tech after the event; 11% more reflected they are now interested to study ICT for the HKDSEs after joining the event.
(Source: TecHKU)
TELI was in full support of this event because we recognise the need to provide a broad range of knowledge exchange opportunities for our next generation, and we see the great potential of having our students empower their younger fellows. We deeply appreciate TecHKU’s initiative, which might have created life-long impact in the girls’ lives.
More photos of the event can be found on our Facebook and Instagram.
Stay tuned for more reports on the event.
The Jurassic Park franchise has successfully made dinosaurs a popular Hollywood theme and merchandise. Yet, these striking giants are more than animated sculptures – they are a key factor in the evolutionary chain that deserves serious research effort. For this reason, Dr. Michael Pittman from the Department of Earth Sciences produced Hong Kong’s first Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) on geology, dinosaurs and evolution, starts on 8 February 2017 on edX.
One important reason for studying dinosaur is that their descendants might still be living among us. Dr. Pittman is devoted to proving that birds, the feathered animal we see day in day out, are a type of carnivorous dinosaur. If successful, it would be a breakthrough in our understanding of the physical evolution of birds, for example, how they make sounds and how they assemble their bodies to fly. The evolutionary links between dinosaurs and birds is also what enabled the Jurassic Park producers to simulate the sound of the dinosaurs in the film “because their larynx (vocal box) looks quite similar to their closest relatives – birds,” Dr. Pittman elaborated in an interview for timeout.com.hk.
Another purpose for producing a dinosaur MOOC in Hong Kong is to properly capture the dinosaur fever in the city. As a Hong Kong raised Londoner, Dr. Pittman finds it unfortunate that palaeontology is not a popular subject in Hong Kong despite people’s immense enthusiasm in dinosaurs. For instance, over a million people visited the Legends of the Giant Dinosaurs exhibition held at the Hong Kong Science Museum last year. As the only dinosaur expert in Hong Kong, Dr. Pittman feels that it is his responsibility to open up more channels for dinosaur enthusiasts in Hong Kong to explore the palaeontology field. Against this backdrop, Dr. Pittman teamed up with Professor Xu Xing of the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Beijing, to produce Hong Kong’s first ever MOOC on dinosaur.
To give MOOC takers a real taste of the environment that housed the Triceratops, Stegosaurus, Tyrannosaurus rex and others, many of the MOOC lectures were filmed in the Gobi Desert in northern China. The dinosaur hunters also examined samples of fossil and ancient rocks to reconstruct the ecosystem that nurtured dinosaurs. The key is to vividly present this ancient animal before viewers’ eyes. “It takes a lot of work to get the MOOC into an attractive video format, so having a strong inspiration for it was very important,” said Dr. Pittman.
Hopefully, with more palaeontology enthusiasts and new fossil discoveries, future Hollywood blockbusters on dinosaurs will bear a closer resemblance to what actually happened over 150 million years ago.
MOOC and on-campus teaching crossover has always been the ultimate goal for MOOC teachers and instructional designers. Recently, Dr. Masato Kajimoto has repurposed his MOOC Making Sense of News for teaching an Undergraduate course. We are happy to recount the experience and analyze students’ response via an edX blog. Learn more about his experience here.
Event video