Non-Degree / Dates: 18-22 January 2021
The Digital Learning Games international Master’s programme is offering a one-week course on designing serious games.
Serious games are games designed for a purpose other than just entertainment. This purpose can relate to defense, education, science, health care, emergency management, urban planning, engineering, politics, and so on. In the Digital Learning Games programme, we combine game design with interaction design and educational psychology to create serious games for education. This short online course is based on some of the material used in the programme.
During this intensive course, participants will learn the essentials of designing serious and learning games. Students with different backgrounds from all over the world will form teams and design new serious games from idea to working prototype. Participation in the course does not require programming skills.
Course structure:
- The nature of serious games
- Examples of serious and learning games
- Game design process and roles
- Finding an idea and defining the goal for your serious game
- Gameplay: challenges and actions. Core mechanics
- Design of game assets
- Narrative design in games
- Game development environments
The language of instruction is English, and participants are expected to have a reasonable command of the language.
Why take this online course?
Timetable
The course will take place online using the Canvas Learning Management System and combines live video conferencing with pre-recorded video lectures, as well as individual and group work. Each day will be structured as follows:
10:00–11:30 Live online session (discussion and feedback)
12:00–13:30 Individual work (instructional videos and quiz)
14:00–17:00 Creative session (working in teams)
After 17:00 Feedback session (written comments given by the teachers, participants do not have to be online)
Time Zone: UTC/GMT +2 hours (Check the time difference with your location)
Please make sure you have a stable and reliable Internet connection, as well as access to a microphone so you can participate in the video conferencing sessions (a web camera is also recommended).
Teacher(s)
Digital Learning Games master’s programme faculty and students.
Mikhail Fiadotau is a lecturer in the School of Digital Technologies at Tallinn University, where he primarily teaches in the Digital Learning Games MSc programme. His research covers such areas as game production, serious games and game-based learning, games education, and the cultural heterogeneity of gaming communities and practices. Mikhail has also been a participant in European research and development projects focusing on serious games and gamification.
Ahmed El Shenawy is a freelance game designer and 3D modeller/visualizer. He is also a graduate student in the Digital Learning Games programme at Tallinn University. In addition to his studies, Ahmed has contributed to research and development activities at the university focusing on educational game creation.
Participants
This course is for teachers, educational technologists, designers, developers, writers, graphic designers, and everyone else who is interested in serious games and game design. Our goal is to form heterogeneous teams comprising participants with different backgrounds.
Credit points
Upon full participation and completion of course work students will be awarded 2 ECTS points and a certificate of completion.
Course fee
200 EUR
Contact
Carina, Germany
Design of Serious Games (Online edition)
Testimonials from Virtual Tallinn Summer School:
