Aurora Toolset - Application Outside of Fantasy Gaming

Application Outside of Fantasy Gaming

The Education Arcade, which began as a collaboration between Microsoft and MIT's Comparative Media Studies program, has used the Aurora toolset combined with custom content to convert the game into a teaching tool, simulating the environment and setting of Colonial America during the American Revolution. A city in Virginia circa 1773 was recreated, providing a stage for teaching grade school students about the life, culture, and history of Colonial America.

A group of graduate students working in the Computer Writing and Research Lab at the University of Texas at Austin used the toolkit to develop a prototype version of a game to be used in undergraduate rhetoric courses. The game, whose working title is "Rhetorical Peaks," asks players to come up with an argument that explains the mysterious death of a rhetoric professor. To gather evidence for their argument, players explore the virtual environment and interact with non-player characters in order to gather testimony and other clues. The game builds on case-based pedagogy, which was first elaborated by Lynn Troyka and currently being pursued by a group of researchers and teachers at the Iowa State University.