virtual education: exploring the...

School of Computer Science

BSc (Hons) Computer Science with Industrial Experience

Virtual Education:

Exploring the Imaginarium

Final Year Project Report

Lora Lyudmilova Lovchalieva

Supervisor: Dr. David Rydeheard

May 3, 2016

University of Manchester

Contents

Abstract ................................................................................................................................. i

Acknowledgements .............................................................................................................. ii

Chapter 1 Introduction ........................................................................................................1

1.1. Motivation .................................................................................................................1

1.2. Computer Science for children .................................................................................4

Computing At School (CAS) ............................................................................................4

STEMNET .......................................................................................................................5

Code Club .......................................................................................................................5

cs4Fn ..............................................................................................................................5

1.3. Project Aims and Objectives .....................................................................................5

1.3.1. Aims ..................................................................................................................5

1.3.2. Objectives .........................................................................................................6

1.3.3. Educational Aims ..............................................................................................6

1.4. Deliverables .............................................................................................................7

Chapter 2 Background .........................................................................................................8

2.1. Educational Background ..........................................................................................8

2.1.1. Problems in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) ........................8

2.1.2. National Curriculum Reforms .......................................................................... 12

2.2. Technical Background ............................................................................................ 12

2.2.1. Virtual Reality .................................................................................................. 12

2.2.2. Game Engines ................................................................................................ 13

Chapter 3 Design and Implementation.............................................................................. 15

3.1. Theme selection ..................................................................................................... 15

3.2. Structure of the Workshop ...................................................................................... 17

3.3. The Talk ................................................................................................................. 18

3.4. The Imaginarium Game .......................................................................................... 19

3.4.1. Implementation................................................................................................ 19

3.4.2. Organisation .................................................................................................... 23

3.4.3. Difficulties ........................................................................................................ 23

Chapter 4 Results and Evaluation ..................................................................................... 24

4.1. Delivery of the Workshop ....................................................................................... 24

4.1.1. Discover Computer Science Day ..................................................................... 24

4.1.2. Explore Computer Science Day ...................................................................... 25

4.1.3. Fairfield High School for Girls .......................................................................... 26

4.1.4. Related Events ................................................................................................ 27

4.2. Feedback Collection ............................................................................................... 29

4.3. Evaluation of Feedback .......................................................................................... 29

4.3.1. Aims ................................................................................................................ 29

4.3.2. Objectives ....................................................................................................... 30

4.3.3. Changes Made Based on Feedback ............................................................... 31

Chapter 5 Conclusions ...................................................................................................... 32

5.1. Overview ................................................................................................................ 32

5.2. Achievements......................................................................................................... 32

5.3. Limitations and Future Work ................................................................................... 32

References .......................................................................................................................... 34

Appendix A: Supporting Materials .................................................................................... 39

Appendix B: List of Schools Involved in Activities .......................................................... 48

Discover Computer Science Day ...................................................................................... 48

Explore Computer Science Day ........................................................................................ 48

School Visit ....................................................................................................................... 48

Appendix C: Feedback from the Workshops.................................................................... 49

List of Figures

Figure 1. Children playing the virtual reality game at ScienceX [28]. ......................................1

Figure 2. Changes in the number of jobs in the UK between December 2014 and December

2015, seasonally adjusted [8]. ................................................................................................2

Figure 3. IT specialists in the UK by gender, 2004-2014 [12]. .................................................3

Figure 4. Students attending a workshop at the Discover Day 2015 [2]. .................................4

Figure 5. Student Impression of What CS Majors Learn [20]. .................................................8

Figure 6. Grade A* outcomes compared to grade A outcomes 2015 [21]. ..............................9

Figure 7. Difference between male and female A-level subject choices [21]. ........................ 10

Figure 8. Percentages of teachers teaching ICT not classified by the Department as

‘qualified’ in the subject, by Government office region (England, 2010) [24]. ........................ 11

Figure 9. Introduction to data structures using the game at ScienceX [29]............................ 11

Figure 10. Suggested terminology reform [24]. ..................................................................... 12

Figure 11. A child using Oculus Rift DK2 headset at Science Spectacular 2015 [6]. ............. 13

Figure 12. The activity opened in Unity Game Engine. ......................................................... 14

Figure 13. Playing with Oculus Rift at Science Spectacular 2015 [6]. ................................... 15

Figure 14. Testing the ‘Homuncular Flexibility’ project at the University of Stanford [44]. ...... 16

Figure 15. Video game audience by age [45]. ...................................................................... 17

Figure 16. Favourite video game genre [45]. ........................................................................ 17

Figure 17. An example of good(left) and bad(right) designs. ................................................ 19

Figure 18. Initial version of The Imaginarium game. ............................................................. 20

Figure 19. Room 1 - a stack data structure represented as a ball container. ........................ 21

Figure 20. Questions and answers grouped as a decision tree. ............................................ 21

Figure 21. A level demonstrating binary search. ................................................................... 21

Figure 22. Words and acronyms related to Computer Science hidden in the room. .............. 22

Figure 23. The Main Menu where the next level can be selected. ........................................ 22

Figure 24. An 'unplugged' activity teaching linked list at the Discover Day [2]. ...................... 24

Figure 25. Children testing the Oculus Rift at Explore Day [3] .............................................. 25

Figure 26. Student playing the game (front) and Google Cardboard (back) at Explore Day [3].

............................................................................................................................................. 26

Figure 27. Children playing the VR game during school visit [5]. .......................................... 27

Figure 28. A child exploring virtual reality for a first time at Science Spectacular [6]. ............ 27

Figure 29. Virtual reality demo in Otetz Paisii Secondary School, Smolyan, Bulgaria [58]. ... 28

Figure 30. Demonstrating the project to a PhD student at the DigiLab [59]. .......................... 28

Figure 31. Results of an official Explore Day feedback form [3]. ........................................... 30

i

Abstract

One way of inspiring schoolchildren to study Computer Science is to introduce them to a new

and innovative method of teaching computing. This report presents an overview of an

outreach project that aims to teach schoolchildren fundamental concepts of Computer Science

by applying gamification [1]. А flexible workshop suitable for children from various age

groups, genders and abilities has been developed. The target group is children between the

ages of eleven and seventeen (KS3 and KS4). An educational virtual reality game and a

workshop with supporting materials have been developed.

One of the aims of the project is to convince people that programming is for everyone. By

grouping the children in teams of up to five members, the workshop attempts to develop soft

skills such as teamwork and communication skills. The project has a special focus on

attracting girls into Computer Science.

The activity was successfully delivered to a number of outreach events involving

schoolchildren during this academic year including Discover Computer Science Day [2],

Explore Computer Science Day [3] and British Science Week [4]. The latest school visit at

Fairfield High School for Girls [5] was focused on gender balance and aimed to attract more

female school students to computing. Supporting materials were developed in order to allow

future delivery of the project. The feedback was overall positive and constructive comments

were taken into consideration when developing the workshop.

Keywords: outreach, gamification, virtual reality, schools

ii

Acknowledgements

I would like to take this opportunity to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Dr.

David Rydeheard, for his help and the support throughout this project and for his dedication

to the school outreach as a whole.

I would like to thank my parents for their constant support and for the opportunity they gave

me to follow my dreams. Without them I would not have been able to undertake this degree.

I am also grateful to the schools, their students and the teachers who attended my workshops,

for being enthusiastic, curious and great in providing valuable feedback. Alongside this, I

would like to thank those who helped me in the outreach events. In particular, Teo Taylor, for

being someone to run ideas by, George Vanburgh, for the support during all of the events we

attended, Yasen Lilov who helped me during the school visit in Bulgaria and Jeremy Lloyd,

for the help and the opportunities to demonstrate my project he gave me.

Last, but not least, I would like to thank to my dearest friend Kristina Georgieva for her help

in the design of The Imaginarium and for her valuable advices throughout this project and

Dimitar Kisyov for his patience and his invaluable support during my exciting journey in

Manchester.

1

Chapter 1

Introduction

This chapter introduces the motivation and the aims of the project. In addition, it discusses

organisations and web sites related to the topic of the project.

1.1. Motivation

The main goal of this project is to attract school students to study Computer Science and teach

them fundamental concepts of the subject. In this chapter we discuss problems related to

Computer Science education.

Children are naturally curious and start exploring the world since they are babies. There are

various software applications developed specifically for babies. Some of the top ten

applications for babies and toddlers according to Parents website [6] are Learn to Talk First

Words [7], Kidzongs [8] and Peekaboo Barn [9] which teach toddlers new words, songs and

animals. In order to maintain children’s curiosity, an encouragement of understanding

technology is vital.

The goal of this project is to deliver workshops to school students in order to introduce them

to fundamental principles of Computer Science. In addition, it allows them to work with

innovative equipment, which the schools are not able to provide, and demonstrate its real

world application and the benefits of the technology to the society.

Figure 1. Children playing the virtual reality game at ScienceX [29].

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Technology has a tremendous effect on the social and economic progress of the modern

society. Its impact has been experienced in many areas such as change of modes of transport,

replacement of dangerous manual work such as mining and space exploration, automation of

the industry, improvement of the communication and innovation in the health care [10]. In

order to continue the process of innovation today, an educated society, which is able to

maintain and further develop the state of the technology, is needed.

Figure 2. Changes in the number of jobs in the UK between December 2014 and December 2015, seasonally adjusted [11].

The digital revolution generated approximately 150 000 new technical and scientific job

positions between December 2014 and December 2015 in the UK (Figure 2), but the statistics

show that finding individuals to fill those positions is a challenge [12]. In fact, one of the

biggest challenges for companies to sustain their competitive advantage is the lack of

qualified candidates to take positions on offer [13]. The problem starts in schools with the A-

levels subject choices UK students do. Over the past decade Science, Technology,

Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) subjects are the ones least appealing to the students.

Among them, the Computing is having the lowest percentage (Table 1) [14].

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Table 1. Percentage of A level students entering for mathematics and science A levels by gender [14].

Another major problem is the gender balance. Only 17% of the IT (Information Technology)

specialists who worked in the UK in 2014 were women and approximately 27% of the

students taking IT related GCE (General Certificate of Education) in 2014 were females

(Figure 3) [15]. According to researchers, developing projects and activities that encourage

young students to choose Computer Science as a subject at school and follow it as a career

path is desirable in order to maintain the current level of innovation in the area of technology

[16]. This belief is also a major motivator for the research undertaken by this project.

Figure 3. IT specialists in the UK by gender, 2004-2014 [15].

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1.2. Computer Science for children

Efforts to introduce the field of Computer Science to schoolchildren are substantial. Websites

and organisations have been established aiming at delivering workshops and online courses

and bring professionals from different industrial sectors into the schools to inspire the

students. This study provides a brief survey of organisations involved in supporting schools

and schoolchildren in computing.

The first organisation provides workshops, conferences and visits to local schools. The second

one aims to connect schoolchildren with professionals in order to fill the gap between schools

and the industry and show the opportunities that the STEM related jobs offer. The last two

organisations promotes computing by volunteer-led out of school workshops (Code Club

[17]) and web site and magazine (Computer Science for Fun [18]).

Computing At School (CAS)

Computing at School [17] is a teacher-led organization with over 22000 members and over

190 local hubs that aims to educate, engage and encourage students, teachers and institutions

involved in the computing education in the schools. The newly announced North West CAS

Regional Centre (2015) [19] is run jointly by the University of Manchester (School of

Computer Science) and Edge Hill University and provides support to local primary and

secondary schools. It creates opportunities for schoolchildren and their teachers to explore

Computer Science by organising and hosting events and delivering workshops to schools such

as the workshop developed in this project.

Figure 4. Students attending a workshop at the Discover Day 2015 [2].

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STEMNET

STEMNET [20] is a UK Government run organisation that strives to create opportunities for

the schoolchildren from different backgrounds and abilities to meet inspiring role models and

to find out more about the real application of STEM subjects.

Code Club

Code Club [17] is a nationwide network project of volunteer-led after-school coding clubs. Its

focus is on younger audience, children aged between nine and eleven. According to the Code

Club statistics, currently there are 4164 clubs and a total number of 58000 children

participating in them.

cs4Fn

Computer Science for Fun [18] is a project which provides materials related to Computer

Science on the web or in print as a magazine produced at Queen Mary and Westfield College.

Cs4fn demonstrates the fun side of the Computer Science by introducing games and

interesting facts about the science such as an article discussing problems that even a computer

is not able to solve, or a puzzle explaining the aim of compression algorithms.

1.3. Project Aims and Objectives

The main purpose of the project is to show how exciting computing is and encourage more

schoolchildren to choose those qualifications at school and at university and as future career

path.

1.3.1. Aims

The aims of the project are:

To inspire school students between the ages eleven and seventeen and give them

an opportunity to understand fundamental concepts in Computer Science,

To attract students different in age, abilities and gender, especially focusing on

gender balance,

To create a flexible workshop with independent parts and supporting materials

which can be used by students, university staff and teachers for future outreach

events.

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1.3.2. Objectives

In order to achieve and later evaluate the success of the project, we give a detailed list of its

objectives:

Excitement – the activity should show the possibilities that computing offers as well as

the excitement brought by its application,

Understanding – the participants should be able to understand how the equipment

would be involved in the activity work,

Science – computing involves fundamental concepts and principles that should be

presented to the participants. We should ensure that after the activity they feel

confident to use them and find them in the real world,

Applications – to show the broad range of application of computing in the world

around us. Computing is used everywhere, in different areas such as medicine, life

sciences, arts and in different places such as at school, in the local shop, in the car, on

the road, in the cinema,

Gamification and Competition – how the activity can be a game or a competition

between the students in a class, in a school or in many schools,

Cater for all abilities – the activity should be suitable for children between age of

eleven and seventeen. The workshop should aim to have an output recognisable by the

average student as well as be challenging enough for the high achievers,

Gender Diversity – the activity should work toward improving gender balance and

demonstrating that Computer Science is for everyone.

1.3.3. Educational Aims

The following aspects of Computer Science have been carefully selected to give an

introduction to new technology, teach school students fundamental principles and demonstrate

visual representation of content as a way to attract artistic children:

The concept of virtual reality and its application in the real world,

Data structures, operations and algorithms related to data structures,

Human-computer interaction.

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1.4. Deliverables

The following materials were developed:

A virtual reality game, a software application developed in Unity Game Engine [21]

integrating Oculus Rift headset [22] which introduces school students to virtual reality

and data structures,

A flexible workshop that can fit between one hour and one hour and a half,

An introductory talk and supporting materials which can be used by the supervisor of

the activity,

Answer sheets to support children’s learning,

A discussion regarding important aspects of secondary school teaching of Computer

Science.

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Chapter 2

Background

In this chapter, a discussion of the educational and the technical background of the project is

provided. Furthermore, it includes an analysis of the current state of teaching computing in

schools in the UK, and the equipment required for the project.

2.1. Educational Background

We now discuss problems related to the computing in schools and the reforms undertaken by

the UK Government in order to improve the National Curriculum.

2.1.1. Problems in Information and Communication Technology (ICT)

There are several problems within the ICT area which lead to a decrease in the number of

students choosing Computer Science as a subject at school and at university and as a career

path. According to the statistics there is a fall of 33% in only three years of students taking

General Certificate of Secondary Education(GCSE) in ICT and 33% in six years of students

taking A-levels ICT subjects and over the period of 2001-2009 the total number of students

taking A-level Computing felt by 57% [23]. A survey in the US found that 80% of the

schoolchildren do not know what the Computer Science majors learn (Figure 5) [24].

Figure 5. Student Impression of What CS Majors Learn [24].

9

2.1.1.1. Demotivating material

We now discuss some of the reasons for the relationship between the school education and the

popularity of the subject and the lack of motivation for schoolchildren to study.

ICT teaches digital literacy and focuses on the application of the computer systems such as

word processing. However, Computer Science is a discipline that explores the world around

us, it enables students to understand the design and the principles used in developing

computer software and hardware. As a result of the confusion between Computer Science and

ICT, the students lose their motivation for studying Computer Science and therefore, do not

perform well in ICT and Computing subjects. Comparison of A and A* grades of A level

examination in 2015 are illustrated below (Figure 6) [25]. Note that Computing and ICT are

one of the worst performed subjects.

Figure 6. Grade A* outcomes compared to grade A outcomes 2015 [25].

2.1.1.2. Gender Imbalance

Another problem that the society is facing is that there are less female students in the subject

than the male students. According to teachers that took part in a research about female

students’ experience in studying ICT, Computer Science subject is still seen as a ‘geeky’ and

the classroom atmosphere has influence on the girls - they do not feel competent in coding

and feel in isolation in the Computing classes [26]. As a result, there is a significant difference

between the number of female and male students taking computing courses. In fact, the least

10

number of girls have selected Computing as an A level subject [25] as opposed to Sociology

and Psychology where the majority of the school students are female (Figure 7).

Figure 7. Difference between male and female A-level subject choices [25].

According to Pete Marshman, a teacher and speaker in the CAS Conference in 2015 there are

many reasons why girls are not as interested in Computing as boys [27]. Here is a list of a few

of the reasons:

Girls feel less confident about their CS abilities,

Girls prefer to use the computer for social interactions,

Girls need to experience creativity and communication and problem solving relevant

to problems that are society-relevant,

Girls need to feel supported and valued,

Girls enjoy a collaborative and comfortable working environment.

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2.1.1.3. Teacher Training

Teachers require training as most of them are not specifically qualified to teach this subject. A

way of developing teacher’s knowledge is necessary because the 20th century’s methodology

is no longer compatible with the technology revolution in 21st century. Figure 6 shows that a

big proportion of teachers are ‘unqualified’, which in some cases might mean that the students

are as good or better than their teachers (Figure 8) [28].

Figure 8. Percentages of teachers teaching ICT not classified by the Department as ‘qualified’ in the subject, by Government office region (England, 2010) [28].

Moreover, this activity has been demonstrated to teachers in different events including the

British Science Week and the Science Extravaganza [29] and received positive feedback. It is

going to be available for teachers who seek help in engaging the schoolchildren in the

Outreach projects website [30]. The deliverables of this project include presentation that can

be used in the class and the required equipment is available as well so the workshop can be

reused. There is a list of Computer Science topics and terms discussed in the activity, so the

teacher can prepare before the workshop.

Figure 9. Introduction to data structures using the game at ScienceX [29].

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2.1.2. National Curriculum Reforms

In 2012 The Royal Society [31] developed a curriculum to replace the old ICT one. Key

points in the “Shut down or Restart?” [28] project are providing support and development to

the teachers and improve the understanding of the schools for the scope of the computing. In

order to achieve this ICT terminology was replaced by:

Digital Literacy – “the basic skill or ability to use a computer confidently, safely and

effectively”,

Computer Science – “the scientific discipline of Computer Science, covering

principles such as algorithms, data structures, programming, systems architecture,

design, problem solving etc.”,

Information Technology – “the assembly, deployment, and configuration of digital

systems to meet user needs for particular purposes”.

Figure 10. Suggested terminology reform [28].

2.2. Technical Background

In this chapter, we discuss the technology that is involved in the development of the project.

2.2.1. Virtual Reality

Virtual Reality is a computer-generated 3D environment that allows users to feel like they are

present in the environment. The users are able to “immerse” in artificial worlds or to explore a

complex data [32]. The first video device of virtual reality was patented in 1962 by Morton

Heilig [33], but it did not get much popularity until 2010 when the Oculus VR company was

formed and created the Oculus Rift headset [22].

13

2.2.1.1. Oculus Rift

The Oculus Rift is a virtual reality headset, the first available in the consumer market. There

are previous versions of the headset which are only for developers and this project is

developed using Development Kit 2. It has two organic light-emitting diode (OLED) displays

for each eye. When the image of the two displays is combined the user gets a feeling of

presence in the generated world. There is a positional tracker using infrared light and a

gyroscope to capture the movement of the user and translate it to the virtual world.

Figure 11. A child using Oculus Rift DK2 headset at Science Spectacular 2015 [34].

2.2.1.2. Alternatives

Other devices that offer the virtual reality functionality are Gear VR [35] and a cheap virtual

reality simulator – Google Cardboard [36]. They make use of a smart phone attached to the

front part of a device so that it acts as a screen. HTC Vive [37] and PlayStation VR [38] are

other devices that are designed for use in virtual reality simulations but their release dates are

in February and October 2016 respectively so were not considered for use in this project.

There exists a virtual environment called CAVE [39] where the user is fully immersed within

the virtual world. However, more time is required for a setup from logistics point of view and

it is not effective for teaching students for a workshop.

2.2.2. Game Engines

The game engines are platforms used by developers to create games. They provide a platform

abstraction, so the same game can be played on various platforms [40]. The core functionality

the game engine provides is a rendering engine, a physics engine and collision engine [41].

14

The user is concentrated on creating better games rather than thinking about details, there is

also an Asset store where developers could reuse existing objects or import ones generated by

other 3D modeling applications.

2.2.2.1. Unity Game Engine

The game engine used in the project is Unity Game Engine [42]. It provides all facilities

needed for virtual reality development and is compatible with the Oculus Rift. The engine is

free for commercial use [43] and supports the majority of the popular game platforms.

Figure 12. The activity opened in Unity Game Engine.

2.2.2.2. Alternatives

The Unreal Engine [21] is another game engine. It is built using C++. The Unity Engine was

selected for building the game because it provides all facilities for the developer to use C#

programming language to develop the game. C# allows quicker development as it is a high-

level language. Moreover, Unity Game Engine is preferable choice for beginners because it is

easier to use and the community forum provides support [44].

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Chapter 3

Design and Implementation

When designing the workshop, there are several decisions made regarding the theme and the

scope of the project. In this chapter a description of the design and implementation of the

activity is presented.

3.1. Theme selection

The main goal of the project is to inspire school children and demonstrate that Computer

Science is interesting and tightly connected to the real world. In order to achieve this, it was

decided to use equipment which is not just a computer but something exciting that children

usually do not have access to. Several tools were tested including a brain sensing headband -

Muse [45], gesture recognition device – Leap Motion [46] and a virtual reality headset –

Oculus Rift. The Muse headband does not provide a particular pattern of the waveforms that

could be used, the Leap Motion device was considered interesting when demonstrated on a

CAS Regional Conference in 2015 [47] but the equipment that got most attention was the

Oculus Rift virtual reality headset tested at the CAS Regional Conference 2015 [47] and

Science Spectacular [34] and among the students at the university.

Figure 13. Playing with Oculus Rift at Science Spectacular 2015 [34].

After choosing the equipment, the theme of the project was selected. The workshop should

not just entertain the children but should be educational too. It should convince children that

16

Computer Science is important for the society and to demonstrate its applications in the real

world and allow children to learn new concepts.

Two possible themes were proposed: how to trick our mind and teaching fundamental

concepts of Computer Science. The first theme was inspired by a study by the Stanford

University where virtual reality avatar control by a person has been tested [48]. The initial

idea was to generate a 3D model of the room where the workshop was going to take place,

add virtual obstacles and ask the participants to walk in the virtual room. The activity was

going to explore person’s behavior in a virtual reality. However, this cannot be used for a

flexible workshop since it requires the same room every time the activity is done or

generation of different 3D models for each room, which is not efficient.

Figure 14. Testing the ‘Homuncular Flexibility’ project at the University of Stanford [48].

The second idea was more feasible. Using Oculus Rift was a prerequisite to introduce virtual

reality which was the first educational concept. The statistics show that schoolchildren are

struggling with computing (Figure 6) and that there is a gender diversity issue (Figure 7).

Finding a solution to those two problems is important in order to ensure that there would be

enough professionals working toward future innovations.

According to the IAB (Internet Advertising Bureau UK) more women are playing video

games today. Moreover, the highest percentage of users (22%) are people between the age of

eight and seventeen (project’s target age) and 99% of them have played a game over the last

six months (Figure 14), most of the players were interested in puzzle and word games (Figure

15) [49].

https://vhil.stanford.edu/projects/2015/homuncular-flexibility/

17

Figure 15. Video game audience by age [49].

Figure 16. Favourite video game genre [49].

The solution to the problems of Computer Science education and gender imbalance that is

proposed in this project is to create a virtual reality educational game that teaches

schoolchildren to fundamental concepts of Computer Science.

3.2. Structure of the Workshop

This project is delivered to schools in the form of a workshop with duration between one and

one and a half hours. The workshop caters for all abilities. Its structure can be adapted to the

age group and level of knowledge of the school students. The overall structure of the activity

is:

Introduction talk (10 – 15 minutes) – an overview of virtual reality and Oculus Rift

headset is given. The supporting slides can be seen in Appendix A,

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The Imaginarium (20 – 25) – playing the virtual reality game. A manual and answer

sheet are provided (see Appendix A),

Discussion (15 – 20 minutes) – definitions of data structures and searching algorithms

relating them to the levels of the game are given. In addition, a linked list unplugged

[50] activity is introduced. This is the final part of the workshop and we finish it by

introducing Human-computer interaction.

The workshop is flexible so the order of the talk and the game can be changed. We start the

activity with KS3 students with the game to ensure better understanding of the concepts by

firstly visualizing them using the game and later relate them to the different levels. During the

workshop with KS4 students we begin with the talk and discuss the educational content of the

project followed by the game where the schoolchildren apply the knowledge gained during

the talk.

3.3. The Talk

A talk is implemented in order to support the workshop and discuss the concepts related to the

educational aims presented in Section 1.3.3. The target audience of this workshop are students

in Key Stage 3 and 4.

According to the curriculum for school pupils [50] in those stages they should be familiar

with several key algorithms such as sorting and searching, data structures, be aware of the

efficiency of the algorithms and understand that computing is a problem-solving activity.

These are the concepts discussed in the talk. The game developed for the activity attempts to

demonstrate how those concepts are seen in the real world.

Furthermore, the workshop involves Kinesthetic learning techniques [51], because they make

the activities more dynamic and enjoyable for the students [52]. For example, successful

activities are used in the CS Unplugged project [53]. In this workshop an “unplugged” activity

related to linked list data structure is introduced.

In addition, another area of Computer Science is discussed – Human-computer interaction

(HCI) or understanding the relationship between the people and the computers. This is

illustrated by examples for good and bad design, in particular design of game levels, and will

hopefully attract more girls to the subject.

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Figure 17. An example of good (left) and bad (right) designs.

The slides of the presentation supporting the talk could be seen in Appendix A.

3.4. The Imaginarium Game

The Imaginarium is a game inspired by The Escape room [54] and similar games that have

become popular recently. The game develops players’ knowledge as well as their teamwork.

The game concept was confirmed by many studies ( [52], [55], [56]) and the following was

outlined:

Many teachers used words like “fun” and “excitement” (often together) when making their

suggestions, “Making computing fun!” was a typical comment [57].

This statement is the cornerstone of the work done by this project.

3.4.1. Implementation

The game is implemented using Unity Game engine discussed in section 2.2.2.1. The core

functionality and interaction with the objects is written in C#. The game engine provides

features for generating basic shapes such as cubes and spheres but in designing the rooms

more complex shapes were needed. Some of them have been generated using two 3D

modeling applications: Blender [58] used for objects in the rooms and Autodesk Maya 3D

[59] for the generation of the rooms, other have been downloaded from the Assets Store [60]

that Unity provides.

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3.4.1.1. Initial Version

The initial version of the game is accommodating all of the tasks on one plane. The levels are

designed as room separated by walls from each other (Figure 18). All players start from the

same room and the aim is to reach specific room.

Figure 18. Initial version of The Imaginarium game.

Most of the levels in this version are simple and do not expose the whole capability of the

virtual reality. Some of them required interaction with the objects in the rooms and others

answering questions related to the concepts discussed in the talk before schoolchildren start

playing the game.

The game was firstly used at the Discover Computer Science Day at the University of

Manchester that took place in December. The feedback was reviewed and new design and

implementation decisions were made. Therefore, a new version of the game was released in

February 2016.

3.4.1.2. Final Version

The final version of the project provides a platform with four levels. Each level is related to a

different concept such as:

Stack – a data structure represented as a container of tennis balls (Figure 19),

Binary search – finding a box that contains specific number (Figure 20),

Decision tree – building a decision tree by answering questions (Figure 21).

21

Figure 19. Room 1 - a stack data structure represented as a ball container.

Figure 20. Questions and answers grouped as a decision tree.

Figure 21. A level demonstrating binary search.

22

Figure 22. Words and acronyms related to Computer Science hidden in the room.

There is a special level where the players are required to find words and acronyms in a room.

They should find their meaning in the talk in the second part of the workshop when types and

operations on data structures are discussed (Figure 22). The team which finds all of the

meanings wins a prize. This is the competition part of the game, which aims to use the

competitive attitude that schoolchildren have in order to entertain them.

The structure of the game in this version is changed. While in the initial version all of the

rooms are accommodated on one plane without almost any visual transition between the

levels, in this version a ‘middle state’ is developed. It is called ‘Main menu’ (Figure 23) and

aims to not only separate the levels but to give chance to the player to choose the next level.

The game is flexible as there is no limit on the levels that can be added in the future. It is also

adaptive because the new levels added can target any age group.

Figure 23. The Main Menu where the next level can be selected.

23

3.4.2. Organisation

The activity requires teamwork as the students are separated into teams. A student helper, is

provided for each team. In the choice of the student helpers, it is ensured that there are male

and female students showing schoolchildren that Computer Science is not only for boys. It

will, hopefully, break the stereotype where the STEM subjects are seen as subjects for

“geeks” because the workshop provides male and female role models [61].

Each team member plays in a single level. The players wear the headset. They describe

everything they see in the room, while the rest of the team try to guess the room the player is

located in and the task using the manual provided. Some of the rooms require students to fill

in an answer sheet given to each team. All groups go through the same rooms but in different

order so they need to keep track of the order in which they visit the rooms. The order is later

used to demonstrate decision tree data structure and following a path in a tree.

The supporting materials can be found in Appendix A.

3.4.3. Difficulties

The initial problem encountered is finding compatible versions of the software for Oculus Rift

DK2 and the Unity Engine. The two companies are releasing new versions every month and

at the end of last year they broke the compatibility between the two products. The new

versions have been released soon after the start of the project.

The image quality that Oculus Rift DK2 provides is bad and there is a delay between the head

movement and the displayed image. A settings change in the Unity editor and control of the

object rendering improved the quality. A new customer facing version of Oculus Rift was

released in the end of March 2016. It is expected to provide better image quality. The code

submission of the project was before the new release so the new version was not used.

A Unity bug has been found which was causing all rooms to become dark after transition

from the Main menu [62]. A way around it was found but the bug is not fixed yet so it should

be taken into consideration if new levels are developed.

24

Chapter 4

Results and Evaluation

In this chapter, we discuss the delivery of the project and provide an evaluation of the

feedback collected.

4.1. Delivery of the Workshop

The workshop is delivered to several events including science fairs organised by The

University of Manchester and a school visit in a local school. We now provide an overview of

the related events. Detailed list of the schools involved can be seen in Appendix B.

4.1.1. Discover Computer Science Day

The Discover Computer Science Day is for students who are interested in taking a Computer

Science degree [2]. The workshop was delivered in two sessions to 50 students from 18

different schools. The groups were a mix of Year 12 and 13 students.

Figure 24. An 'unplugged' activity teaching linked list at the Discover Day [2].

An introduction talk was given aiming to explain the fundamental concept of data structure

and an ‘unplugged’ activity explaining the concept of linked list was used followed by

introduction to the virtual reality. The schoolchildren were separated into five groups

25

supervised by student helpers. Children played the initial version of The Imaginarium game

for 15 minutes. Later, an introduction to Human-computer interaction was provided.

All students completed the levels and provided answers to the questions in the answer sheets

(see Appendix A). The workshop finished with a discussion on Human-computer interaction.

4.1.2. Explore Computer Science Day

The event [3] was attended by 15 students in Year 10 (14 and 15 years old) from The King

David High School [63]. The final version of the game was used in the workshop. The

activity started with introduction to virtual reality and testing the Oculus Rift headsets. The

teams had 20 minutes to play the game.

Figure 25. Children testing the Oculus Rift at Explore Day [3]

Once all teams completed the levels, a talk discussing each level and relating it to a concept of

Computer Science was given. The last 10 minutes of the workshop were used for answering

questions that schoolchildren had. Google Cardboard [36] was available for them to try and

compare with Oculus Rift, some children wanted to play the game again, others received a

quick lesson on how the Unity Game Engine [42] works and how the game is made.

26

Figure 26. Student playing the game (front) and Google Cardboard (back) at Explore Day [3].

4.1.3. Fairfield High School for Girls

The Fairfield High School for Girls is one of the best performing local schools [5]. The

workshop was attended by sixteen girls from Year 7 – the youngest group of the project’s

target audience. The school visit offered valuable insights in how girls interact with

unfamiliar equipment and approach problems related to Computer Science.

The students in this school started the game by looking at the manual and exploring the

navigation required for each level, which helped them easily go through the levels with

minimum stress and great concentration. In contrast, during the workshops at Explore and

Discover days when the groups were mixed – female and male students – the schoolchildren

did not read through the manual beforehand. As a result, they needed more time to complete

the levels and were impatient and disorganised.

An explanation of this behavior was discussed with the supervising teacher at a debrief - the

girls are better in planning and collaboration; they feel more comfortable when they have

steps to follow. Furthermore, according to Marshman [27] girls enjoy a comfortable and

collaborative working environment.

Surprisingly, some of the schoolchildren were afraid from the virtual reality, but once one of

their team mates tried it they all accepted to play the game. The fact that they have never seen

27

virtual reality before was impressive but they enjoyed the experience and were curious about

the technology.

Figure 27. Children playing the VR game during school visit [5].

4.1.4. Related Events

While choosing the equipment and selecting the theme of the workshop, two events were

attended: Science Spectacular [34] and CAS Regional Conference [47]. During the Science

Spectacular day virtual reality demos were offered to schoolchildren of different ages. The

target audience during CAS Regional Conference was primary and secondary school teachers.

People were generally more interested in the Oculus Rift headset.

Figure 28. A child exploring virtual reality for a first time at Science Spectacular [34].

Once the initial version of the project was released, a school visit in Otetz Paisii Secondary

School [64] in Bulgaria was organised. The aim of this school visit was to compare

28

schoolchildren’s reaction to a new technology in two different countries – a developed

country such as the United Kingdom and developing country such as Bulgaria. The result was

that in both cases the schoolchildren were excited, but only two Bulgarian students have heard

of virtual reality, as opposed to the UK where the majority of schoolchildren have seen virtual

reality before.

Figure 29. Virtual reality demo in Otetz Paisii Secondary School, Smolyan, Bulgaria [64].

The final version of the game was demonstrated at three events: DigiLab [65], British Science

Week [4] and Science Extravaganza [29]. Overall positive feedback and suggestions for

potential improvement of the project were provided by university staff and students,

schoolchildren and parents, and teachers.

Figure 30. Demonstrating the project to a PhD student at the DigiLab [65].

29

4.2. Feedback Collection

In order to further improve the contents of the activity, feedback was collected after each

workshop.

The approach used to get feedback from the schoolchildren is taken from the Agile

Methodology [66] – using post-it notes. After each session, schoolchildren were asked to

answer three questions using post-it notes:

- What did you like?

- What did you dislike?

- What can be improved?

There are several advantages of this approach. Firstly, this ensures that the answers are

anonymous. Secondly, most of the people see it as a game and this would potentially generate

more honest answers. Finally, having specific questions to answer gives a structure of the

answer and leaves less chance of writing information that is not relevant to the project.

Sample of the feedback received can be seen in Appendix C.

4.3. Evaluation of Feedback

In this chapter, an evaluation of the project aims and objectives and a discussion on the

changes made based on the feedback will be provided.

4.3.1. Aims

The workshop designed achieved the project aims - to inspire schoolchildren, focus on the

gender balance and deliver an activity that is suitable for school students of different ages,

abilities and genders. This was tested and proved at several outreach events including a school

visit in a girls-only school specifically selected to assess the influence of the project on female

school students.

Every game level was related to a concept in Computer Science and the talk provided

additional information. There were school student comments that particularly relate to the

educational aims of the project. Schoolchildren state in the feedback forms for the Explore

Day that they have learned data structures such as stack and queue, virtual reality and that

they have used Oculus Rift (see Appendix C) so it implies that the educational aims were met.

30

Figure 31 shows the results from the official feedback collected at the Explore Computer

Science Day. All participants of the workshop that submitted a feedback form agree that they

enjoyed the activity. Detailed feedback is provided in Appendix C.

Figure 31. Results of an official Explore Day feedback form [3].

4.3.2. Objectives

We now present an evaluation of the objectives set at the beginning of the project. Quotes

from the feedback notes are also included in the description of the feature.

Excitement – students state that the game was “Great fun” and that they “Loved it”,

Understanding – some of the students have used Oculus Rift before but they still

managed to gain new knowledge and said that the workshop was “Very informative,

easy to pick up”,

Science – Students commented that they liked the link between data structures and real

world, teachers said they will use the workshop as a reference in future lessons for

data structures,

Applications – examples of applications of virtual reality was given, by the end of the

workshop students knew that it is used not only for playing games, but in the military,

medicine, fashion and movies,

Gamification and Competition – students listed that they liked the activity because “it

wasn’t just a thing to look around, it was a game” and that they “liked working in a

team”,

31

Cater for all abilities – the workshop was delivered to schoolchildren between eleven

and seventeen years old, it was also demonstrated to university staff, teachers and

parents,

Gender Diversity – the activity was demonstrated in mixed groups and in girls-only

schools. All schoolchildren enjoyed the workshop and some commented that “it was

brilliant”.

4.3.3. Changes Made Based on Feedback

There were three major changes to the workshop according to the feedback. The first change

was that the “unplugged” activity was excluded. The activity was accepted well with positive

feedback overall but it was time consuming. Most of the negative feedback that the workshop

received was due to the short time spent with Oculus Rift. As a result, the time spent with the

virtual reality game was increased whereas the ‘unplugged’ activity was removed.

The second major change was related to the architecture of the game. The initial version did

not give enough confidence to the students that they have completed a level, so a ‘middle

land’ between the levels was introduced. In addition, harder levels were created as a few

students commented that the levels were easy for them.

The third major change was with regards to the order of the game and the talk. In a debrief

with the school teachers and the supervisor of this project was suggested to start the workshop

with the virtual reality game when the schoolchildren are in Year 7 – 10. In this way, they

have experience with the equipment and is easier for them to relate the levels to the Computer

Science concepts discussed later in the talk. However, starting with a talk is more suitable for

students in Year 11 – 13 as they have better understanding of the concepts, especially students

interested in Computer Science degree.

32

Chapter 5

Conclusions

This chapter presents an overview of the work presented in this report and discusses

achievements and areas of future work.

5.1. Overview

This report presented an outreach project that aims to inspire school students in different ages,

focus on gender balance and create flexible workshop that can be reused from teachers,

university staff and students to teach schoolchildren in KS3 and KS4 to fundamental concepts

of Computer Science.

In addition, it provides a discussion about the Computer Science education in the schools,

gives an overview of a few organisations that provide support to teachers and students and a

description of outreach events aiming to promote Computer Science among schoolchildren.

5.2. Achievements

The work in this project promoted Computer Science among school students in KS3 and KS4

and created an educational package of virtual reality game, a talk and supporting material

used to teach schoolchildren to data structures, binary search and introduced them to Human-

computer interaction. The structure of the workshop is flexible and adaptive depending on the

target audience.

Furthermore, one way of attracting school students to Computer Science is by introducing

them to a new technology that they do not have access to. The Imaginarium is a virtual reality

game played using Oculus Rift headset. It has only four complete levels so far but can be

easily expanded in future works.

5.3. Limitations and Future Work

There are two main limitations that should be addressed. The first limitation is the image

quality of the virtual reality. School students listed this as a main problem during the feedback

sessions. They were experiencing headache when wearing the headset for a long time, even

though they enjoyed the game. One way of solving this problem is to test other virtual reality

33

headsets released after the code submission of this project as they provide better resolution of

the screen. Oculus Rift DK2 used in this project is an experimental equipment, so it is used

for quick tests of the games developed. The latency and pixilation issues have been fixed in

the consumer version of the headset released in 2016 according to a recent review [67].

The second limitation is that the movement inside the virtual reality is restricted because the

controller used for the game allowed only movement forwards and backwards. The school

students commented that they would like to be able to use the whole body to interact with the

virtual environment. A solution to this limitation is to use a gesture recognition device such as

Leap Motion [46] or the HTC Vive [37] virtual reality equipment which provides cameras and

controllers to allow full immersion in the virtual reality. The Oculus Rift controllers that will

be available later this year are another alternative that should be considered [68].

34

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39

Appendix A: Supporting Materials

The following are slides used in the introduction talk, game manual and answer sheets used

by the school students to play the game.

42

Exploring

The Imaginarium

Manual

43

INSTRUCTIONS:

- keep track of the order in which you visit the rooms

- ask the player what does he/she see?

- read through the manual and try to guess which is the

current room

- help the player to solve the task using the hints in the

manual

FOR ALL ROOMS:

After you complete the task in the room you

will be presented with a menu with options

for the next room.

In order to select the option on the left-hand

side press BUTTON 3 (blue), to select the

option on the right-hand side press BUTTON

2 (red).

ROOMS

Words Inspector

Objects: A sofa, a table, chairs, a ball, boxes.

Aim: Find 8 words and acronyms and write them down in the answer

sheet.

When you find them or give up searching press Button B.

Guess what their meaning is. HINT: listen to my presentation

later.

Navigation: Button B - press it when you have finished searching the words.

Hints

Hints

Hints

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Divide and Conquer

Objects: Cardboard boxes

Aim: The boxes contain numbers. The boxes are ordered in

ascending order from left

to right.

You need to open the box in order to see the number.

Find the box containing number 81.

In the Answer sheet write down the number of opened boxes.

The team that has opened the least number of boxes will win a

prize.

Navigation:

Button A - Select a box. Click multiple times to go through the

boxes.

Button Y - Open the box. A number will be displayed above the

selected box.

Button B - Press the button to proceed to the next level.

Pop the ball

Objects: Container with balls.

Aim: Reach the pink ball in the container.

Navigation:

Button A - Select a ball. Click multiple times to iterate through the

balls.

Button Y - Move selected ball out of the container.

Button B - Press the button to proceed to the next level.

Hints

45

The tree of answers

Objects: Questions in rectangles.

Aim: Answer to the questions with the Left answer or the Right answer

(see Navigation section).

Start from the question that the red arrow points at.

When you complete the task press Button B to proceed to the

next level.

Navigation:

Button X - To answer with the “Left answer”

Button B - To answer with the “Right answer”

Hints

46

Scorecard

Order

Room Name

1

2

3

4

Divide and Conquer Room

Number of opened boxes: ………

Words Inspector

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

Answer Sheet

Team:

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Answer Sheet

Team:

48

Appendix B: List of Schools Involved in

Activities

Discover Computer Science Day

1. Altrincham Grammar School for Girls

2. Barnsley College

3. Bury College

4. Bury Grammar School (Boys)

5. Cardinal Langley Roman Catholic High School Rochdale

6. Darwen Aldridge Community Academy

7. Great Sankey High School

8. Lancaster Girls Grammar School

9. Loreto College

10. Nelson and Colne College

11. Parrs Wood High School (Parrs Wood Technology College)

12. Runshaw College

13. St Ambrose College

14. Stretford Grammar School

15. The Manchester Grammar School

16. Whalley Range 11-18 High School and Business and Enterprise College

17. Winstanley College

18. Xaverian College

Explore Computer Science Day

1. The King David High School

School Visit

1. Fairfield High School for Girls

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Appendix C: Feedback from the Workshops

Summary of the feedback provided after the workshops:

51

Explore Day – Official Feedback

Feedback from school students who attended the workshop:

virtual education: exploring the...

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