Secondary School Education through the use of video games

In a country like France, over 140 000 secondary school students drop out every year with no qualifications whatsoever. The annual cost of this academic failure is estimated at about 24 billion Euros. The main reason behind this dropout is the passage from primary school, where the children tend to be closely accompanied to secondary school where students are more or less left to their own devices. The main role of the secondary school teacher is to simply transmit knowledge, without resorting to a personalized educational approach. This teaching method, based on a grade system, often prevents children from progressing and tends to dishearten the weaker ones. Unfortunately this is the case in many European countries

The use of a serious game can be extremely beneficial at this level. Traditional teaching methods that are considered to be unattainable by many may be rendered appealing through the use of an interactive scenario with objectives. Furthermore replacing a chore by a more leisurely activity facilitates the memorization process as it is takes place in a pleasant environment with a touch of humour. The fact that the player becomes an actor in the learning process, his interest and curiosity are aroused. No question of punishment here through bad grades. The Serious Game implies experimentation on the players behalf followed by a debriefing. So even if the test itself is short and easily forgotten, the debriefing constitutes a more personal exchange, an instructive approach whereby the player can learn through his mistakes

To ensure the efficiency of a video game in this given context a number of key points with regards the narration must be respected. The following recommendations were given by Playsoft and Geomotion Games for the BEACONING project :

• Must present a long term mission/Thrill to hold interest on the long term.
• The long term thrill/objective should not be self centered
• The narrative must allow to split the story into quests/missions
• It is better to represent the learner inserted in a group rather than acting alone – social aspect of the narrative/learning
• A mentor (virtual) must accompany the learner (the mentor feedback should be editable by the teachers).
• The narratives must insert STEM topics in a natural way
• Learning under pressure is not efficient: must present learning as a development (of oneself or the other): learning as a pleasure not as a constraint.
• The narrative should address directly to the learner as the player rather than differentiating player and hero character.
• The narrative should set the learner with responsible situations