EduFrag: Educational Gaming

Quinn's Thesis, Tom Kooij and LaTeX

2007-02-26T08:36:00.000-05:00

Update: Quinn has provided her Perl Code.

Tom Kooij just sent me a message about his continuing project on using UT. He has developed some code using LaTeX to simplify the creation of the 256x256 pixel bitmaps required by the EduFrag template.

This reminded me that I still had not uploaded Quinn Thomas' senior design thesis on comparing the use of the Educational version of UT vs. a standard web interface to deliver quizzes to high school students. She showed that there was not much of an advantage but her conditions did not allow for actual game play, such as the race format that we typically use.

The reason Tom's message reminded me of Quinn's work was that she used LaTeX as well to generate her physics bitmaps.

December 1 2006 Race

2006-12-01T05:45:00.000-05:00

Here is the 20 room maze for CHEM 241 covering Fisher projections, chirality, Newman projections and Lewis structures and E-1, E-2, SN1, SN2 mechanisms.

Friday Nov 3 2006 Race

2006-11-03T04:14:00.000-05:00

Here is today's race in CHEM 241.

Topics covered: Lewis structures, curly arrows, Newman and Fisher projections.

Friday Oct 13 2006 Race

2006-10-13T08:59:00.000-04:00

Here is this morning's race in CHEM241. The material covered is mainly Lewis structures with some Newman projections. There are also many doors on curly arrows interconverting resonance hybrids.

LVAIC EduFrag Screencast

2006-08-09T00:06:00.000-04:00

This is the screencast from the gaming presentation I gave at the Lehigh Valley Association of Independent College's Summer Teaching with Technology Symposium.

Gaming in English

2006-08-01T12:41:00.000-04:00

I am giving a talk on Wednesday, August 3rd, at the Lehigh Valley Association of Independent College's Summer Teaching with Technology Symposium. I will be talking about the EduFrag project and how it can be adapted to any academic discipline.

Here is the PPT I will be using. I will post up the screencast after the conference.

Running UT2004 as server

2006-05-28T06:30:00.000-04:00

We have been having trouble hosting UT2004 for playing our maps online. It looks like this is a Windows Firewall issue and Mike suggests the following to get this working:

1. Click the start button
2. GOTO Control Panel and then "Windows Firewall"
3. Notice three tabs at the top of the firewall settings window. SELECT the "Exceptions" tab.
4. Click "ADD PROGRAM" (lower left of screen)
5. Browse/Scroll to find Unreal Tournament or UT2004
6. Click OK and make sure the new program is CHECKED.
7. Lastly, click OK to exit the firewall window
8. Start the unreal tournament listen server in death match mode.

May 26 2006 Race

2006-05-26T09:05:00.000-04:00

Here is the 20 room maze for CHEM 241 covering Fisher projections, chirality, Newman projections and Lewis structures and E-1, E-2, SN1, SN2 mechanisms.

May 19 2006 Race

2006-05-19T08:57:00.000-04:00

Here is the 20 room maze for CHEM 241 covering Fisher projections, chirality, Newman projections and Lewis structure.

Edufrag...with weapons!

2006-05-09T23:33:00.000-04:00

We have created a map template that is playable in the commercial version of Unreal Tournament 2004...this means players will compete with weapons as they answer questions. Players will compete in a deathmatch style of gameplay...but in order to get more kills, you have to pickup more powerful weapons by answering questions correctly.

Download the 20 question map here: [DM-Edufrag010Aquino.ut2]

Associated texture files:

[Organic Chemistry] or [Comma Game]

Iliafar maze

2006-04-18T14:27:00.000-04:00

Here is Sara Iliafar's 10 room maze on all kinds of material related to Newman projections, Lewis structures, polarity, nomenclature, cis/trans and more. With that she completed both extra credit options with full marks.

I will include some of these doors in Friday's race in CHEM241 so feel free to use them to practice.

April 14 2006 meeting

2006-04-16T06:41:00.000-04:00

Beth Ritter-Guth, Mike Aquino and Jay Bhatt were present as our last EduFrag meeting. Beth has just completed a maze testing grammar and I thought it would be good for her to talk with Jay again because the text-based nature of her true/false doors is similar to Jay's on teaching information retrieval for the library.

Mike has been working on modding an existing popular map in the commercial verion of Unreal Tournament 2004 with our EduFrag true/false door system. We have a very simple design for this and Mike estimates being done in about a week. I know that, out of the 13 students who ran the organic chem race earlier that morning, several were eager to play around with the full weapons-enabled version online. I look forward to playing as well.

Orgo Maze April 14 2006

2006-04-14T09:04:00.000-04:00

Here is the race for Organic Chemistry (CHEM241).

Topic: Lewis Structures and Newman Projections.

Out of 13 players, Adam won in 4 minutes. He drew the chemistry book prize.

Comma Game

2006-04-12T22:22:00.000-04:00

Teaching comma usage is a daunting task for most developmental English professors. This game is used to teach the four primary comma rules (FANBOYS, introductory clauses, non-essential clauses, and items in a series). Please feel free to share and suggest improvements.

Please upload the game here:

http://showme.physics.drexel.edu/share/CommasGame.zip

Screenshot:

Independent/Dependent Clause Game

2006-04-04T11:51:00.000-04:00

Below is a link to a grammar race created for developmental/ESL English students at LCCC. The game was created in response to the increasing need to teach the concepts of independent and dependent clauses. Presently, I play grammar frisbee to do this, but we can only play when the weather is nice. This game allows for us to work on these tasks at any time. Thanks, Jean-Claude, for your help in creating it :-) You are simply amazing.

http://showme.physics.drexel.edu/share/Grammar02.zip

Chemistry FPS game?

2006-04-01T13:07:00.000-05:00

There is a report in Nature about a chemistry-based first person shooter game (Critical Mass) being built at Purdue. It is unclear from the video of the demo exactly where the chemistry fits in. We'll have to wait and see when it is released.

Thanks to Sundar for the link.

March 17 2006 Race

2006-03-17T08:42:00.000-05:00

Here is the 20 room maze.

The topic includes mainly NMR, IR, MS, cycloadditions and aromaticity CHEM241 and CHEM 242.

March 10 2006 Race

2006-03-10T08:43:00.001-05:00

Here is the 20 room maze.

The topic includes mainly NMR and IR with some basic organic chemistry concepts from CHEM241 and CHEM 242.

March 6 2006 Race

2006-03-06T06:38:00.000-05:00

Here is the 20 room maze.

The topic includes mainly NMR with some basic organic chemistry concepts from CHEM241 and CHEM 242.

Drexel Student Web Space

2006-03-02T12:47:00.000-05:00

Here is a tip for any student who would like to publish web pages...students can host their web pages on the Drexel server. In addition, files can be uploaded to the server so that they may be downloaded by anyone on the web.

Directions from Drexel IRT:

Publishing a Personal Webpage

The variety of web services at Drexel can be overwhelming when all you want to do is create and publish a personal web page. All students and employees are granted up to 100 MB of space on our Academic Unix server, DUNX1. It's the oldest host in continuous operation in IRT!

To get an account on DUNX1, which is the first requirement for publishing your web page, visit the Computer Accounts Management Service site at http://accounts.drexel.edu. See http://www.drexel.edu/IRT/support/pickup_dunx1.html for help.

Once you have your Academic Unix account, you can follow our online tutorial beginning at http://www.drexel.edu/IRT/support/webits/publish/ssh_index.html, to learn how to publish your site.

For more information on creating your webpage, see http://www.drexel.edu/IRT/support/webits/build/frontpage1.html.

Both the SSH Transfer client and Microsoft FrontPage (one of the HTML-authoring tools), are available for download to all students, faculty and staff from the IRT software site, http://www.drexel.edu/irt/services/comp_mark/software.html.

Questions? Email consult@drexel.edu or call 215-895-2698.

Feb 17 2006 race

2006-02-17T06:37:00.000-05:00

Here is the 20 room maze.
The topic includes any material from CHEM241 and up to test 1 of CHEM 242.

Feb 13 2006 Race

2006-02-13T08:45:00.000-05:00

Here is the 20 room maze.
The topic includes any material from CHEM241 and up to test 1 of CHEM 242.

Chem242: 5 Question Quiz (Alkynes & Alcohols)

2006-02-11T15:35:00.000-05:00

A 5 question quiz covering material from chapters 9, 10, & 11 of the Chem242 course at Drexel.
Study material is available online at the Chem242 Wiki. Also, this quiz features a new style of question room...download the map to see!

New EduFrag Race (3 of 3)

2006-01-06T15:13:00.000-05:00

Questions found in this map were submitted by Heather. The 5 questions pertain to material in Dr. Bradley's Chem241 course.

Download the new map files here. Unzip and follow the instructions found in the "readme" file.

New EduFrag Race (2 of 3)

2006-01-06T15:11:00.000-05:00

Questions found in this map were submitted by Tyler. The 5 questions pertain to material in Dr. Bradley's Chem241 course.

Download the new map files here. Unzip and follow the instructions found in the "readme" file.