Introductory C Programming Language Learning with Game-Based Digital Learning 229

Fig. 8. The ranking report generates from the component “Progress Evaluation”
3 Comparison
Our tool has some elements that are superior to other similar tools. According to this
approach, we address eight different aspects to compare to other tool:
(1) Interactive: There are interactive elements in the tool, for example, the tool will
accommodate some feedbacks with Students when learning time.
(2) Amusement: There are animations, games, music and other entertainment effects
in the tool, for example, user can create animations.
(3) Easy to use: There are obvious and plain buttons in the using environment.
(4) Using official program language: The tool is using the traditional program, for
example, C language.
(5) Evolutionary learning mode: The tool can offers learning step by step, for exam-
ple, differ degree of difficult course can be designed in the tool.
(6) Census analysis: The tool offers statistic and analyze Learning records when stu-
dents are learning than show by statistical chars, for example, ratio of students
passing through the test.
(7) Combine with teaching materials: There are some documents or teaching materi-
als integrates in the tool, for example, ppt files can be presented in the tool.
(8) Storyline: The tool combine the question of real life with material, for example,
designed the exercise that student need to count the correct fruit price.
Following these topics, we compare our developed tool to traditional tool and
Scratch [21] tool as show in Table1. The traditional tool is so called the IDE (Inte-
grated Development Environment) has a low degree of interactive and a low degree of
amusement because it lacks edutainment sectors. Otherwise, it is hard to use in virtue
of complicated editorial functions. We compare some programming tools, such as
Turbo C, Bloodshed Dev-C++, Microsoft Visual C++ and C++ Builder.
230 W C. Chang and Y M. Chou
On the contrary, our tool and Scratch tool have a high degree of interactive, a high
degree of amusement and a high degree of easy to using. Scratch is not designed for a

college student to studying because it is not using an official program language. Addi-
tionally, it has not offers teaching materials so that teachers need to prepare the mate-
rials by themselves. Our developed tool has two additional merits. One is the tool has
tree differ degree let student can learning in proper sequence and the other is that the
tool offers census analysis. Teachers can adjust teaching speed in terms of viewing
the statistical chart that provides some useful information.
Table 1. The comparison with other similar tools
Our
tool
Scratch
tool
Turbo
C
Dev
C++
Visual
C++
C++
Builder
Interactive High High Low Low Low Low
Amusement High High Low Low Low Low
Easy to use High High Low Low Low Low
Using official
program
language
Has Has Has Has Has Has
Combine with
teaching
materials
Has NONE NONE NONE NONE NONE

Evolutionary
learning mode
Has NONE NONE NONE NONE NONE
Census analysis Has NONE NONE NONE NONE NONE
Storyline Has NONE NONE NONE NONE NONE
4 Conclusions
In this paper, we provide a game-based teaching and learning platform for teaching in-
troductory C programming language. Bomberman game supports learning concept of C
programming language and teachers can build a meaningful game environment to specify
the sequence of topics for students to learn. Furthermore the difficulty of integrating the
real world learning topics into the Bomberman game has been addressed by “codes injec-
tion” and “dynamically class reloading”. We have shown an alternated path for educa-
tional practice with computer games for teaching C programming course.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank National Science Council and Chung Hua University. This
research was supported in part by a grant from NSC 96-2520-S-216-001 and CHU 96-
2520-S-216-001, Taiwan, Republic of China. This paper owes much to the thoughtful
and helpful comments of the reviewers. At last, we would like to thank Dr. Wai-Tak
Wong for his encouragement and guidance throughout this project.
Introductory C Programming Language Learning with Game-Based Digital Learning 231
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© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2008
Interactive Video Game Platform for Game-Based
Learning

Han-Bin Chang, Hui-Huang Hsu, and Louis R. Chao
Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering Tamkang University


Abstract. Interactive video technologies are developed for providing interac-
tions for users to get better interactivity in watching TV programs. Since receiv-
ing TV programs is a common affair for general users, many systems with
interactive TV technologies are implemented for educational or commercial
purposes. Learning by playing game is a hot topic in current distance learning
systems. Most of game-based learning systems designed by computer pro-
grammers and domain experts. Generating interactive game courses is hard for
content providers since they are not computer experts. The interactive game au-
thoring tool proposed in this paper provides a friendly interface to help users to
create their educational games easily. The students will be attracted in such

learning platform with entertaining elements.
Keywords: We would like to encourage you to list your keywords in this
section.
1 Introduction
There are many e-learning systems proposed in various field. Some game-based
learning systems have been also implemented in recent years for motivating the stu-
dents to enhance the learning performance. Video game is an effective factor to at-
tract the students’ attention. The traditional game-based learning systems integrate
learning materials into video games. There are many types of game implemented in
such game-based learning systems. Most of these systems require programmers and
specified domain experts to design games with adequate contents together. It is neces-
sary for developing a video game-based learning system with powerful content au-
thoring tools to help the content providers to generate gaming content for educational
purpose.
The purpose of this interactive video game-based learning system is to provide a
friendly interface such that the general users can produce their own video games with
educational elements. Comparing with the proposed game-based learning systems, the
interactive video system for game-based learning provides a flexible interface to gen-
erate interactive video games with unspecified contents. The content providers can
produce educational games without understanding details of computer graphics, video
and even flash technologies.
Interactive Video Game Platform for Game-Based Learning 233
2 Related Work
There are many systems about interactive TV proposed in recent years. Most of them
are PC-based systems; the developers implemented these systems by integrating net-
work, video encoding and transmission technologies. Various devices are adopted to
provide manipulation to audiences. Remote control, PDA, tablet, keyboard and mouse
are used for delivering the control made by users. Some game-based learning systems
are also implemented to help students in learning concepts in various domains. Most
of these systems are web-based; students can easily access these resources via net-

work. In the follow sections, interactive video and game-based learning issues will be
fully discussed.
2.1 Interactive Video Technologies
Technologies are widely applied to enhance the relationship between users and video.
There are many video systems including interactivity features proposed in recent
years. Hypervideo, interactive video and augmented video are used for naming such
systems and technologies. The basic idea of interactive video is to provide more com-
plex operations and feedback to users.
Video annotation systems using different techniques are introduced in some pro-
posed systems. Annotations composed of texts, images, audios can be added in video
segments. Video segmentation can be done by algorithms or human operations. With
tags or metadata informs of XML or html format, videos with interactive elements
can be presented to users. There are various scenarios generated by these authoring
systems. With adequate properties, users can easily handle video segments. They can
also retrieve target video scenes by filtering comments of segments. Such systems
have enhanced impression and interest of users. Users can acquire different experi-
ence by using such interactive systems.
Besides these proposed systems, there are also interactions defined in various stan-
dards like MPEG-4 and MHP (Multimedia Home Platform). In MPEG-4, everything is
considered as an object. By technologies of video tracking, objects can be separated
from frames in video. Video producers can arrange properties for these objects and try
to provide interactions to users. MHP is a middleware defined by DVB (Digital Video
Broadcasting). It is used for providing interactive functions to people who watch digital
TV programs. Applications and products implemented according to these standards
provide choices of interactions to users in different platforms. Whether in PC, TV or
other portable devices, users can access video materials with interactive operations.
2.2 Game-Based Learning Systems
Many game-based learning systems are implemented for helping the students to focus
on the learning material. The students can get experience from making interaction with
objects in the game-based learning platform. Comparing with the traditional e-learning

systems, game-based learning systems provide more attraction to the students.
Games can be classified into several categories: action, strategy, role play and ad-
venture games. There are different features and characteristics in such kinds of games.