XML Application for Educative Games

Abstract

New technologies are providing us with different alternatives to transfer knowledge on a daily basis. Educative games, as a form of active knowledge transfer, show great potential. There are several approaches to the development of educative games. Usually, which ever approach do you choose, the process of creating an educative game automatically implies a strong communication bond between the game designer and the expert for the area from which the knowledge is integrated in to the game. The goal of this paper is to suggest a new approach to educative game defining that would result in separation of these two roles, thus giving the opportunity to both actors to perform only the activities within their own specialty. By creating two separate software modules, it became possible to resolve the communication conflict between the game designer and the knowledge: expert. As a result of such game defining, we create a specially structured XML document that contains game objectives, description, assignments, and reference to graphical environment, as well as knowledge inserted from our knowledge repository. Also by the use of XML document we can create different game types simply by following a specific XML schema. By applying a plug in pattern we can make our game engine expandable with a variety of game types. This gives us the opportunity to create many different games, created specifically for a certain knowledge topic, that incorporate the graphical environment that correlates to it. The process of game creation is simplified in that way, made more efficient, and in the end, more interesting. As proof of our concept, we developed complete software, which enables the game designer to create and define an adventure game, the educator to create specific learning objects for the specific domain of knowledge and the student to be involved in an educative game via Internet. By the use of this software, we hope to encourage teachers Find different types of educators to use games as a tool in knowledge transfer. This will provide students another alternative instead of the traditional form of learning, which is much more interesting and more motivating.