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MazeStar: a platform for studying virtual identity and computer science education

Authors:

D. Fox HarrellAuthors Info & Claims

FDG '17: Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games

Article No.: 61, Pages 1 - 6

https://doi.org/10.1145/3102071.3116221

Published: 14 August 2017 Publication History

Abstract

This paper presents an overview of the MazeStar platform for Computer Science education. MazeStar is both a game (Mazzy) that teaches programming concepts like loops and conditionals, and a game editor which allows players to create and share their own game levels. By playing and creating, players are using computing concepts (e.g., block structuring, parallelism, etc.) and computing practices (e.g., debugging, iterative prototyping, etc.). To date the MazeStar platform has been used in controlled user studies involving > 10,000 participants. Here, our goal is to detail the different components of the MazeStar platform, and how we have/are leveraging these components to study the interplay of education, games/game-making, and virtual identity.

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Cited By

Kao DMubarrat SJoshi APandita SMousas CLiang HRatan R(2024)Exploring how gender-anonymous voice avatars influence women’s performance in online computing group workInternational Journal of Human-Computer Studies10.1016/j.ijhcs.2023.103146181:COnline publication date: 1-Jan-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1016/j.ijhcs.2023.103146
Sajadieh SWolfe H(2023)Designing Interrogative Robot Theater: A Robot Who Won’t Take No for an AnswerCreating Digitally10.1007/978-3-031-31360-8_7(183-211)Online publication date: 3-Dec-2023
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-31360-8_7
Joshi AMousas CHarrell DKao D(2022)Exploring the Influence of Demographic Factors on Progression and Playtime in Educational GamesProceedings of the 17th International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games10.1145/3555858.3555873(1-15)Online publication date: 5-Sep-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3555858.3555873
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

MazeStar: a platform for studying virtual identity and computer science education
1. Applied computing
  1. Education
2. Human-centered computing
  1. Human computer interaction (HCI)

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cover image ACM Other conferences

FDG '17: Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games

August 2017

545 pages

ISBN:9781450353199

DOI:10.1145/3102071

Conference Chair:
Sebastian Deterding
University of York
,
General Chairs:
Alessandro Canossa
Massive, Northeastern University
,
Casper Harteveld
Northeastern University
,
Program Chairs:
Jichen Zhu
Drexel University
,
Miguel Sicart
ITU Copenhagen

Copyright © 2017 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected].

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Published: 14 August 2017

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FDG'17

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Microsoft
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FDG'17: International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games 2017

August 14 - 17, 2017

Massachusetts, Hyannis

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FDG '17 Paper Acceptance Rate 36 of 89 submissions, 40%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 152 of 415 submissions, 37%

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Cited By

Kao DMubarrat SJoshi APandita SMousas CLiang HRatan R(2024)Exploring how gender-anonymous voice avatars influence women’s performance in online computing group workInternational Journal of Human-Computer Studies10.1016/j.ijhcs.2023.103146181:COnline publication date: 1-Jan-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1016/j.ijhcs.2023.103146
Sajadieh SWolfe H(2023)Designing Interrogative Robot Theater: A Robot Who Won’t Take No for an AnswerCreating Digitally10.1007/978-3-031-31360-8_7(183-211)Online publication date: 3-Dec-2023
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-31360-8_7
Joshi AMousas CHarrell DKao D(2022)Exploring the Influence of Demographic Factors on Progression and Playtime in Educational GamesProceedings of the 17th International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games10.1145/3555858.3555873(1-15)Online publication date: 5-Sep-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3555858.3555873
Kao DJoshi AMousas CPeddireddy AKramadhati Gopi ALi JSpringer JMcGowan BReed J(2021)Fighting COVID-19 at Purdue University: Design and Evaluation of a Game for Teaching COVID-19 Hygienic Best PracticesProceedings of the 16th International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games10.1145/3472538.3472552(1-23)Online publication date: 3-Aug-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3472538.3472552
Olson DSoliman NWang APrice MSahu RHarrell DBernhaupt RMueller FVerweij DAndres JMcGrenere JCockburn AAvellino IGoguey ABjørn PZhao SSamson BKocielnik R(2020)Breakbeat Narratives: A Personalized, Conversational Interactive Storytelling System for Museum EducationExtended Abstracts of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3334480.3382974(1-8)Online publication date: 25-Apr-2020
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3334480.3382974
Ocana JMorales-Urrutia EPerez-Marin DPizarro C(2020)Can a Learning Companion Be Used to Continue Teaching Programming to Children Even During the COVID-19 Pandemic?IEEE Access10.1109/ACCESS.2020.30200078(157840-157861)Online publication date: 2020
https://doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2020.3020007
Zhao RShelton CHetzel-Riggin MLaRiccia JLouchart GMeanor ARisser HDeterding SKhosmood FPirker JApperley T(2019)Knowledge assessmentProceedings of the 14th International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games10.1145/3337722.3337747(1-7)Online publication date: 26-Aug-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3337722.3337747

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