Maximizing learning and guiding behavior in free play user generated content environments
Acey Boyce, Antoine Campbell, Shaun Pickford, Dustin Culler, Tiffany M. Barnes · 2012
Providing users the ability to create their own unique content in educational software and games can be highly effective at motivating the users to use and reuse the system. It is especially popular with students who self identify as creative or wanting to do their own thing rather than a prescribed activity. Due to the popularity of user generated content modes, some users may ignore other modes the software has to offer and only create new original content. Therefore it is important to maximize the learning potential and effectively guide user behavior in a constructivist free play environment. However, in doing so it is vital that we do not hamper the creative freedom of the user, the very reason users enjoy content creation. Here we present effective strategies for meeting these goals, provide an example implementation, and present results of a study using the example.