Serious Gordon: Using Serious Games To Teach Kitchen Food Safety

Brian Mac Namee, Pauline Rooney, Patrick Lindstrom, Andrew Ritchie, Frances Boylan & Greg Burke Serious Gordon:Using Serious Games To Teach Kitchen Food Safety

Contents • Presentation outline: • Serious games & digital game based learning • Food safety in the kitchen • The development of Serious Gordon • Serious Gordon demo • Evaluation • Where next?

Hazmat Hotzone America’s Army Serious Games & Digital Game-Based Learning “…the key isnot to privilege one arena over the other but to find the synergy between pedagogy and engagement…” -Robert van Eck

The Food Safety Authority • EU regulations on food hygiene now state: • “…that food handlers are supervised and instructed and or trained in food hygiene matters commensurate with their work activity.” • “Guide to Food Safety Training: Level 1 - Induction Skills and Level 2 - Additional Skills for Food and Non-Food Handlers (Food Service, Retail and Manufacturing Sectors)”, Food Safety Authority of Ireland. (2006)

Kitchen Food Safety Competencies • Wear and maintain uniform/protective clothing hygienically • Maintain a high standard of hand-washing • Maintain a high standard of personal hygiene • Demonstrate correct hygiene practice if suffering from ailments/illnesses that may affect the safety of food • Avoid unhygienic practices in a food operation • Demonstrate safe food handling practices • Maintain staff facilities in a hygienic condition • Obey food safety signs • Keep work areas clean

Developing Serious Gordon • Key features of the development of Serious Gordon: • A multi-disciplinary team • The expected learning outcomes for the game matched the competencies outlined by the food safety authority • A storyboard was developed to map out how the game would proceed • Developers built proof of concept demos for each game sequence • A script editor and a voice actor were hired

The Source Engine • The Source engine provides a comprehensive suite of tools • Additional functionality was added to the engine

DEMO

Screenshots

Screenshots (cont…)

Evaluation • Informal evaluations have taken place • Participants were quizzed on kitchen food safety before and after playing Serious Gordon • People who took part in the experiment tended to fare better in the second quiz than the first • We need to do much better!

Lessons Learned • There were some interesting lessons learned over the course of the project: • Artists are required for a serious game development project • Professional voice actors and script writers are worth the expense • Proof of concept demos are invaluable • Expected learning outcomes should be defined in detail as early as possible

Future Work & Questions Raised • There are some obvious pieces of work that need to be done now: • Improve the look of the game • Get Faceposer to work • Undertake a rigorous evaluation • There are also a number of interesting questions that arose from the project: • Is some kind of NPC AI editor required to make this serious game development viable? • How does fun versus learning balance? • Single player or multi-player?

Questions • ?

Serious Gordon: Using Serious Games To Teach Kitchen Food Safety