Tasks

• Have first supervisor meeting with Lloyd
• Research UK SRE curriculum
• Refine objectives into measurable goals
• Research game trends and popular games for inspiration

Summary

This week started with meeting with Lloyd for an initial meeting, we discussed potential directions for my project as well as suggestions to improve my proposal. Prior to the meeting I sent my proposal to Lloyd to look over and he responded with some suggestions and some ideas for me to consider.

We also discussed possibilities for testing my project; the ethics and requirements behind using school children for user testing mean my project would face some pretty major hurdles and would cause delays. The solution to this would be to conduct user testing with teachers instead, as well as fellow students (of age).

After the meeting, I collated the list of tasks for me to complete this week (listed above). I also will be consistantly working on my proposal over the next four weeks until the submission date. This week I will be looking at the suggestions Lloyd has made on my proposal as well as improving the research section of my proposal.

Firstly, I managed to refine and add to my learning objectives, and believe I have a variety of measurable objectives for my project, currently thay are as follows:

Project Objectives

• Produce an interactive learning experience to aid in sex education using gamified methods.
• Provide a safe and comfortable environment for secondary school children to learn about sex.
• Assess the levels of engagement offered by the application and methods used.

Research Objectives

• Research gamification and game-based learning methods and identify which should be used in the project.
• Research the current sex education curriculum and establish what elements can be included in the project.
• Identify tools and platforms that will support delivery of the project artefact.

Learning Objectives

• Learn about the effectiveness of gamification and game-based learning and how it can be used in education.
• Learn about modern gamification and game-based learning techniques and methods.
• Learn how to practically implement gamification and game-based learning.

I also added in some more research to my proposal regarding the number of young people who own and use a mobile phone, as well as statistics about how most young people own a mobile phone. This provides some context as to why mobile would be a good platform to target, since almost all secondary school children own a mobile phone and can access the internet. I got these facts and figures from Ofcom’s Online Nation report as well as the International Telecommunication Union’s Measuring digital development: Facts and figures 2020 report.

The image below shows the top 10 ten game genres on mobile ranked by revenue. While I’m not making my project to create revenue, it does give a good inducation on how popular certain mobile game genres are. From my research my initial idea is to create a Paper’s Please style game, which is a puzzle simulation indie game title. This would be a good idea since both Puzzle and Simulation are in the top 10 game genres shown in the below image.

I also looked on the govenment website to find the SRE curriculum for topics that I should could look to cover through my project. The main categories of the SRE curriculum are:

• Families
• Respectful Relationships
• Online and Media
• Being Safe
• Intimite and Sexual Relationships
• The Law

Next Steps

• Add to the risks and issues section of the proposal
• Research project management, testing, and development techniques
• Fill out the methods, techniques, tools and process sections of the proposal