I’m continuing to work through designing and developing a narrative game for learning for ISLT 7384. The GameStorming and Story Building and Narratology and Learning Objectives activities provided a foundation for thinking through the topic, plot, structure, and learning outcomes of my game story. After I thought through the story by responding to the prompts, it helped to use Miro to see how the pacing and structure of the plot would need to connect. While I would not change anything about the process itself, the iterative nature of writing and design take time—which can be a very limited resource.
Access: A Learning Story (The Narrative Game)
I named my narrative game Access: A Learning Story. As instructional designers (ID), we need to advocate for accessibility and inclusion for our learners. By choosing to infuse accessibility into the design process, we can improve the learning experience for a variety of permanent, temporary, and situational needs. However, it can be difficult for new instructional designers to navigate an organization’s expectations to promote a proactive accessibility culture. My game seeks to support ID who may experience this challenge in their workplace.
Learning Goals
After playing Access: A Learning Story, learners will:
- Examine the needs of the individual or group with an accessibility problem within two attempts of a challenge.
- Select the best practice to provide the best solutions for the accessibility need to reach the best game outcome.
As I discussed in my Narratology and Learning Objectives post, I chose learning goals from Analyze and Evaluate in Bloom’s taxonomy; instructional designers must use higher-level thinking to provide meaningful solutions based on the nuances of context (Larson & Lockee, 2020, p. 180).
Story Summary
In the game, you play as Lauren, a new instructional designer who just graduated with a Masters in Learning Technology and Design. As a recent graduate and the newest instructional designer on the eLearning team, Lauren feels a lot of pressure to learn to do her job quickly and efficiently. However, she soon finds some basic accessibility needs aren’t being met, she must design accessible learning solutions for a university while navigating an accommodations culture. Lauren encounters conflict with her boss’ expectations about workload, overwhelmed team members, and the wider reactive culture of the university. Lauren must listen to the needs of her team as well as faculty and students to build relationships. The game concludes with the university developing into a culture of proactive accessibility.
Story Branches
As I’ve worked on the story, I found a need to teach the player the accessibility practices they must understand. With Lauren being new, her training with the editor, media specialist, and other instructional designer provides a means to provide this information as well as build the main branches of the story (Image 1). After each scene with these characters, the player encounters an accessibility challenge.
Since we’re not developing all the branches, some interactions with students and stakeholders will not be pursued. However, this prototype could turn into a new project after the course ends.
Instructor and Peer Feedback
I valued my peer’s appreciation of the “designing for all” philosophy of the learning game. They also provided useful questions about the challenges undertaken by the player as well as what types of scenarios will foster the player’s evaluations. They mentioned the game may be of interest to instructional designers in a corporate setting, and I’m curious how much of it transfers to the context.
Our instructor encouraged me to find ways to include learning outcomes informed by Mager’s ABCD (Audience, Behavior, Condition, and Degree) method (1975). While challenging with a simplified version of the game design, I see where it could be measured with number of correct tries or achieving the best outcome. I found a couple of places where I can infuse the idea of trial by error. She also provided useful feedback about developing the beginning, middle, and end of the story. Most importantly, using a first-person perspective and building an emotional arc should help the player connect with how the choices they make impact the story as well as help them achieve the learning goals.
References
Larson, M. & Lockee, B. (2020). Streamlined ID: A practical guide to instructional design. Routledge.
Mager, R. F. (1975). Preparing instructional objectives. Feardon Publishers.
