Learning and game-play collide in Conspiracy Code, the first in a revolutionary new series of courses. An innovative, complete online class, Conspiracy Code engages students in interactive learning like no other course. All Conspiracy Code courses are teacher-supervised, academically-viable, complete classes that fuse the best of online gaming with proven pedagogical techniques and standards to produce a truly unique learning environment for high school students.

Jeramy Gatza and Jodi Marshall

http://360ed.com/

Download Conspiracy Code™ Demo

360Ed is a company that creates online games

Conspiracy Code - Course Overview

Learning and game-play collide in Conspiracy Code, the first in a revolutionary new series of courses. An innovative, complete online class, Conspiracy Code engages students in interactive learning while maintaining all the engagement of a high-quality entertainment product. All Conspiracy Code courses are teacher-supervised, academically-viable, complete classes that fuse the best of online gaming with proven pedagogical techniques and standards to produce a truly unique learning environment for high school students.

The first course in this series is American History.

The Premise
High School students will develop a deep understanding of American History as they control Eddie and Libby; fictional characters in an espionage-themed adventure set in the fictional, near-future metropolis of Coverton City. In the game – or course – students must build their knowledge of American History in order to stop a vast conspiracy that is threatening to erase and change the course of history. 

The Learning Process
As students collect clues, they are given many opportunities to process what they are learning at increasingly-higher levels. They strengthen higher-order thinking, written communication, problem-solving, and collaborative skills through:

1. 1.Playing engaging concept practice games
   

2. 2.Responding to a variety of question types
   

3. 3.Writing assignments and essays
   

4. 4.Completing authentic game-based assessments
   

5. 5.Participating in discussion-based assessments
   

Students test their knowledge during in-game challenges, engage in student-to-student collaborations and discussions, exchange information with peers (similar to group projects), and eventually use their knowledge to complete culminating mission assessments, each step eliciting a higher-order analysis of the material.

The Instructor’s Role
Instructors can proactively monitor, guide, and advise students by checking their clue archives, assessing projects, providing feedback, and conducting discussion-based assessments using a web-based communication interface. Culminating mission assessments, peer collaboration, teacher reviews, logbook checks, and more all serve to verify each student’s understanding of the course, ensuring their work is both varied and authentic.

Communication is key in any educational endeavor, and here, students and teachers interact through an intuitive web-based interface as well as e-mail, online conferencing, phone calls, and instant messaging. FLVS certified teachers keep students engaged, provide support, give feedback on course work and monitor student work for academic integrity.

The Research Base
Subject-matter experts from FLVS and academic scholars from the University of Central Florida were heavily involved in the development of this course. The 12 principles of brain-based learning set forth by the Caine Institute were settled upon as Conspiracy Code’s educational design foundation, influencing both pedagogical and entertainment decisions. In developing the curriculum, findings from Le Tellier’s work on how to strengthen/build long-term memory were also incorporated. The curriculum design team applied rigorous guidelines to ensure the academic integrity of Conspiracy Code, as well as integrate and balance the educational and entertaining aspects of the game in order to ensure it remained both effective and engaging.

UCF will continue to work with FLVS and 360Ed to study the effectiveness of learning through game-play.

Here is the trailer

Notes:

Cool way to do a session: Show a trailer, then have audience ask questions.

Then answer the questions.

Q1: Development: Designed to be a full credit of american history. designed to follow FL guidelines and FVS. No one had ever done it before. Full course, with teacher, in a game.

Began 2007- 2009  18 months of development time. Were able to reduce timeframes by for new ones to 6 months.

Cost: 1.7 million

50-50 share of licensing outside after developed

By second product: $300K

Q: Why games? Story line hooks students into the content There is no busy work. Everything has a reason. there is an emotional reason. PBL as a hook.

Lots of photo stories and video content Hit up the lessons several times

Move content that is in the game and they have to do something with it.

Each culminating activity is based on real world activities

Teacher controls the game

there are things for students with special needs ; audio, read along , etc.