Social Situational Language Learning through an Online 3D Game
Learning Facilitaton
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Culbertson, Gabriel
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Wang, Shiyu
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Jung, Malte
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Andersen, Erik
Proceedings of the ACM CHI'16 Conference on Human Factors in Computing
Systems
2016-05-07
v.1
p.957-968
© Copyright 2016 ACM
Summary: Learning a second language is challenging. Becoming fluent requires learning
contextual information about how language should be used as well as word
meanings and grammar. The majority of existing language learning applications
provide only thin context around content. In this paper, we present work in
Crystallize, a language learning game that combines traditional learning
approaches with a situated learning paradigm by integrating a spaced-repetition
system within a language learning roleplaying game. To facilitate long-term
engagement with the game, we added a new quest paradigm, "jobs," that allow a
small amount of design effort to generate a large set of highly-scaffolded
tasks that grow iteratively. A large-scale evaluation of the language learning
game "in the wild" with a diverse set of 186 people revealed that the game was
not only engaging players for extended amounts of time but that players learned
an average of 8.7 words in an average of 40.5 minutes.
Crystallize: An Immersive, Collaborative Game for Second Language Learning
Games
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Culbertson, Gabriel
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Andersen, Erik
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White, Walker
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Zhang, Daniel
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Jung, Malte
Proceedings of ACM CSCW 2016 Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative
Work and Social Computing
2016-02-27
v.1
p.636-647
© Copyright 2016 ACM
Summary: Learning a second language is challenging. Becoming fluent requires learning
contextual information about how language should be used as well as word
meanings and grammar. The majority of existing language learning applications
provide only thin context around content. In this paper, we present
Crystallize, a collaborative 3D game that provides rich context along with
scaffolded learning and engaging gameplay mechanics. Players collaborate
through joint tasks, or quests. We present a user study with 42 participants
that examined the impact of low and high levels of task interdependence on
language learning experience and outcomes. We found that requiring players to
help each other led to improved collaborative partner interactions, learning
outcomes, and gameplay. A detailed analysis of the chat-logs further revealed
that changes in task interdependence affected learning behaviors.
A Framework for Automatically Generating Interactive Instructional
Scaffolding
Interactive Video & Collaborative Annotations
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O'Rourke, Eleanor
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Andersen, Erik
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Gulwani, Sumit
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Popovic, Zoran
Proceedings of the ACM CHI'15 Conference on Human Factors in Computing
Systems
2015-04-18
v.1
p.1545-1554
© Copyright 2015 ACM
Summary: Interactive learning environments such as intelligent tutoring systems and
software tutorials often teach procedures with step-by-step demonstrations.
This instructional scaffolding is typically authored by hand, and little can be
reused across problem domains. In this work, we present a framework for
generating interactive tutorials from an algorithmic representation of the
problem-solving thought process. Given a set of mappings between programming
language constructs and user interface elements, we step through this algorithm
line-by-line to trigger visual explanations of each step. This approach allows
us to automatically generate tutorials for any example problem that can be
solved with this algorithm. We describe two prototype implementations in the
domains of K-12 mathematics and educational games, and present results from two
user studies showing that educational technologists can author thought-process
procedures and that generated tutorials can effectively teach a new procedure
to students.
Automatic Game Progression Design through Analysis of Solution Features
Experience Design for Games
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Butler, Eric
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Andersen, Erik
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Smith, Adam M.
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Gulwani, Sumit
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Popovic, Zoran
Proceedings of the ACM CHI'15 Conference on Human Factors in Computing
Systems
2015-04-18
v.1
p.2407-2416
© Copyright 2015 ACM
Summary: A long-term goal of game design research is to achieve end-to-end automation
of much of the design process, one aspect of which is creating effective level
progressions. A key difficulty is getting the player to practice with
interesting combinations of learned skills while maintaining their engagement.
Although recent work in task generation and sequencing has reduced this effort,
we still lack end-to-end automation of the entire content design process. We
approach this goal by incorporating ideas from intelligent tutoring systems and
proposing progression strategies that seek to achieve mastery of not only base
concepts but arbitrary combinations of these concepts. The input to our system
is a model of what the player needs to do to complete each level, expressed as
either an imperative procedure for producing solutions or a representation of
features common to all solutions. The output is a progression of levels that
can be adjusted by changing high-level parameters. We apply our framework to a
popular math puzzle game and present results from 2,377 players showing that
our automatic level progression is comparable to expert-crafted progression
after a few design iterations based on a key engagement metric.
A trace-based framework for analyzing and synthesizing educational
progressions
Papers: design for classrooms 1
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Andersen, Erik
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Gulwani, Sumit
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Popovic, Zoran
Proceedings of ACM CHI 2013 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
2013-04-27
v.1
p.773-782
© Copyright 2013 ACM
Summary: A key challenge in teaching a procedural skill is finding an effective
progression of example problems that the learner can solve in order to
internalize the procedure. In many learning domains, generation of such
problems is typically done by hand and there are few tools to help automate
this process. We reduce this effort by borrowing ideas from test input
generation in software engineering. We show how we can use execution traces as
a framework for abstracting the characteristics of a given procedure and
defining a partial ordering that reflects the relative difficulty of two
traces. We also show how we can use this framework to analyze the completeness
of expert-designed progressions and fill in holes. Furthermore, we demonstrate
how our framework can automatically synthesize new problems by generating large
sets of problems for elementary and middle school mathematics and synthesizing
hundreds of levels for a popular algebra-learning game. We present the results
of a user study with this game confirming that our partial ordering can predict
user evaluation of procedural difficulty better than baseline methods.
The impact of tutorials on games of varying complexity
Game experiences
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Andersen, Erik
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O'Rourke, Eleanor
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Liu, Yun-En
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Snider, Rich
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Lowdermilk, Jeff
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Truong, David
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Cooper, Seth
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Popovic, Zoran
Proceedings of ACM CHI 2012 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
2012-05-05
v.1
p.59-68
© Copyright 2012 ACM
Summary: One of the key challenges of video game design is teaching new players how
to play. Although game developers frequently use tutorials to teach game
mechanics, little is known about how tutorials affect game learnability and
player engagement. Seeking to estimate this value, we implemented eight
tutorial designs in three video games of varying complexity and evaluated their
effects on player engagement and retention. The results of our multivariate
study of over 45,000 players show that the usefulness of tutorials depends
greatly on game complexity. Although tutorials increased play time by as much
as 29% in the most complex game, they did not significantly improve player
engagement in the two simpler games. Our results suggest that investment in
tutorials may not be justified for games with mechanics that can be discovered
through experimentation.
Placing a value on aesthetics in online casual games
Expression & perception
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Andersen, Erik
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Liu, Yun-En
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Snider, Rich
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Szeto, Roy
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Zoran Popovic, A
Proceedings of ACM CHI 2011 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
2011-05-07
v.1
p.1275-1278
© Copyright 2011 ACM
Summary: Game designers frequently invest in aesthetic improvements such as music,
sound effects, and animations. However, their exact value for attracting and
retaining players remains unclear. Seeking to estimate this value in two
popular Flash games, we conducted a series of large-scale A/B tests in which we
selectively removed aesthetic improvements and examined the effect of each
component on play time, progress, and return rate. We found that music and
sound effects had little or no effect on player retention in either game, while
animations caused users to play more. We also found, counterintuitively, that
optional rewards caused players to play less in both games. In one game, this
gameplay modification affected play time three times as much as the largest
aesthetic variation. Our methodology provides a way to determine where
resources may be best spent during the game design and development process.
Designing and evaluating Buster: an indexical mobile travel planner for
public transportation
Interaction design
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Kjeldskov, Jesper
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Andersen, Eva
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Hedegaard, Lars
Proceedings of OZCHI'07, the CHISIG Annual Conference on Human-Computer
Interaction
2007-11-28
p.25-28
© Copyright 2007 CHISIG and author(s)
Summary: This paper elaborates on previous research into the design and use of mobile
information systems for supporting the use of public transportation.
Contributing to this domain of HCI research, we describe the design and
evaluation of a mobile travel planner, Buster, for the public city bus system
of a large regional city in Denmark. Carrying on from on earlier research
activities, we did contextual interviews, acting out of future scenarios in
situ, and iterative paper prototyping to extend on previous design ideas and
explore further the principle of indexicality in interface design for
context-aware mobile systems. We then implemented a functional prototype
application and evaluated it in the field.
Real-time navigation of independent agents using adaptive roadmaps
Avatars, crowds & perceptions
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Sud, Avneesh
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Gayle, Russell
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Andersen, Erik
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Guy, Stephen
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Lin, Ming
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Manocha, Dinesh
Proceedings of the 2007 ACM Symposium on Virtual Reality Software and
Technology
2007-11-05
p.99-106
© Copyright 2007 ACM
Summary: We present a novel algorithm for navigating a large number of independent
agents in complex and dynamic environments. We compute adaptive roadmaps to
perform global path planning for each agent simultaneously. We take into
account dynamic obstacles and inter-agents interaction forces to continuously
update the roadmap by using a physically-based agent dynamics simulator. We
also introduce the notion of 'link bands' for resolving collisions among
multiple agents. We present efficient techniques to compute the guiding path
forces and perform lazy updates to the roadmap. In practice, our algorithm can
perform real-time navigation of hundreds and thousands of human agents in
indoor and outdoor scenes.
Surface distance maps
Shape
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Sud, Avneesh
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Govindaraju, Naga
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Gayle, Russell
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Andersen, Erik
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Manocha, Dinesh
Proceedings of the 2007 Conference on Graphics Interface
2007-05-28
p.35-42
© Copyright 2007 Canadian Information Processing Society
Summary: We present a new parameterized representation called surface distance maps
for distance computations on piecewise 2-manifold primitives. Given a set of
orientable 2-manifold primitives, the surface distance map represents the
(non-zero) signed distance-to-closest-primitive mapping at each point on a
2-manifold. The distance mapping is computed from each primitive to the set of
remaining primitives. We present an interactive algorithm for computing the
surface distance map of triangulated meshes using graphics hardware. We
precompute a surface parameterization and use the it to define an affine
transformation for each mesh primitive. Our algorithm efficiently computes the
distance field by applying this affine transformation to the distance functions
of the primitives and evaluating these functions using texture mapping
hardware. In practice, our algorithm can compute very high resolution surface
distance maps at interactive rates and provides tight error bounds on their
accuracy. We use surface distance maps for path planning and proximity query
computation among complex models in dynamic environments. Our approach can
perform planning and proximity queries in a dynamic environment with hundreds
of objects at interactive rates and offer significant speedups over prior
algorithms.
