PlayEduc XP: uma metodologia para potencializar a experiência dos jogos educacionais digitais

Abstract

With the constant growth of the game industry in Brazil and in the world, digital games seems to be one of the most used technologies, being part of the student's routine. Digital educational games, particularly, are already considered as a promising strategy in the process of teaching and learning. However, many of these games are considered as boring, because they are too focused on the pedagogical context, neglecting the emotional context that makes them interesting for the players. Therefore, there is a need to provide better quality to these games since their conception, aligning entertainment within education. In order to contribute in this sense, some methodological initiatives, well adapted to the development of digital educational games, have been proposed in recent years. In face of this need, there are conceptual frameworks that assist in the design and development of digital educational games. The PlayEduc framework presents as one of these instruments, assisting designers, developers and researchers in the design of digital educational games that aggregate essential elements of entertainment (design), gameplay (psychology) and learning (pedagogy). However, results of the application of the framework PlayEduc in a study case presents some limitations regarding the instrument and its use, not presenting an application methodology. So, the objective of this research is to to obtain improvements in PlayEduc and also develop and evaluate a methodology, named PlayEduc XP, to assist in the design of digital educational games. This methodology is composed of a framework that presents the essential elements to the design of digital educational games, instruments to its use and a guide defining the steps needed to its application based on the design thinking for educators. The methodology was evaluated through an extension course, with primary teachers and undergraduate students from different areas of expertise. The results obtained are very positive, indicating that the methodology is easy to comprehend, its elements are important in the game planning, and the games proposals developed through its use are more apt to achieve their motivational and learning objectives. Thus, the PlayEduc XP methodology presents well adapted to the design of digital educational games, it can be used by developers team to potencialize the students experience.