Serious Games for the Classroom

The University of Oklahoma’s K20 Center shares the process of developing a massive multiplayer online game. This chapter identifies the process used to meet the challenge for the design, prototype, development, and beta test of a digital game-based learning environment. The project’s goal was to develop a self-regulated constructivist learning environment where students work in groups to solve a series of complex, ill-structured problems. The multiuser game provides an interactive learning experience which allows students to experience authentic intellectual work in a virtual representation of a real-world context. Students are challenged through their participation in an interdisciplinary environment that leverages a real-world problem to utilize the different perspectives of the four major disciplines. The authors provide a description of the project’s efforts to develop a shared learning space that creates scaffolding of social support of other students and a gaming environment that emulates successful elements of commercial video games to ensure an engaging learning experience for all students.