Feb 8, 2010 |
Release: 2.0 (XNA V3.1) |
Kelvin Sung Computing and Software Systems University of Washington, Bothell ksung@u.washington.edu |
Michael Panitz Software Programming Cascadia Community College mpanitz@cascadia.ctc.edu |
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INTRODUCTION
XNA Game-Themed Assignments (XGA) are individual CS1/2 assignments modules designed specifically for selective and gradual adoption. By selective adoption we mean these assignment modules are completely independent from each other such that faculty members can pick and choose to adopt any of the assignments without considering the others. By gradual adoption we are referring to the fact that we have included a complete set of tutorials guiding interested faculty members to develop XGAs of their own. All materials are designed based on the assumption that the reader has no background in computer gaming or computer graphics.
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References: for more (technical details) about the following assignments, please refer to the following links:
Here is the link to the project website.
The following technical papers discuss the design of and results from using the XGA assignments:
K. Sung, M. Panitz, R. Rosenberg, R. Anderson, "Assessing Game-Themed Programming Assignments for CS1/2 Courses," in GDCSE¡¦08, Feb 2008.
K. Sung, M. Panitz, S. Wallace, R. Anderson, and J. Nordlinger, "Game-Themed Programming Assignments: The Faculty Perspective," in SIGCSE 2008, March 2008.
There are five sections in this document:
Download and Installation
Guide: You will need to download and install proper software API (XNA)
and IDE (C# Express) to work with the assignments. All the required software
systems are free of
charge.
The supporting library and
tutorials: We have
developed a simple library (XNACS1Lib) and a set of tutorials
to guide faculty members with no graphics or gaming background in building their own
XGAs.
Survey Forms: These are the survey forms we used to understand
and keep track of how students and ourselves feel about the assignments.
Assignment Schedule Map: An example syllabus showing how one
might organize the all the provided assignments.
The Assignments: Links to the assignment modules.
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Guide to download and configure for
the development environment
and the necessary API:
All XGAs are developed based on a simple library that hides the details of graphics and input devices. This library is the XNACS1Lib library. In addition, associated with each XGA is a detailed implementation guide designed to highlight interesting implementation features in the associated assignment. The following are links to the documentation of the XNACS1Lib library, and all the implementation guides.
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When using the XGAs in our own classes, we use the following survey forms to help us understand students' and our own (faculty) attitudes:
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For Students:
Pre-course survey: Survey of student attitude/expectation in the very beginning of the course. Survey form for CS1 course and CS2 course .
Per-Assignment survey: Survey of student attitude on each assignment.
Post-course survey: survey of students impression/attitude after taking the course.
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For Faculty we (the faculty) would fill out one of the following forms after each programming assignment. We inter-mix console-based and XGAs in our classes, and the corresponding survey form is filled out after each programming assignment.
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Here is a
syllabus guide for
mapping the XGAs to topics/schedule in a sample CS1/2 series.
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NOTE TO INSTRUCTORS: In order to make it easy for you to incorporate these assignments into your classes, material that is purely course-specific (e.g., the course name and number, the due dates, home submission procedures, etc) have been highlighted in red , so that you can quickly and easily find these, and replace them with your own information.
Note: there is a link to an assessment form (MS Word document) associated with each XGA module. If you have read this far (thank you) and/or if you are considering using any of the XGA modules please do consider taking a look at the assessment form and consider filling out the form. When filling out the form:
We sincerely thank you for looking at and/or filling out the corresponding assessment form(s) for these assignment(s).
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(Flashcard Quiz |
|
Assignment Specification |
Here is the link to the document that includes the objective, learning outcome, pre/post tests, FAQ, etc. |
Console Version (Flash card quiz) |
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For
students:
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For
instructors: |
XNA Version (Chameleon color change) |
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For
students:
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For
instructors: |
Please do fill out this form with
blue-color-fonts, save separately and email to
ksung@u.washington.edu |
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|
|
Assignment Specification |
Here is the link to the document that includes the objective, learning outcome, pre/post tests, FAQ, etc. |
Console Version (Monte Carlo Integration) |
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For
students: ¡P
For
instructors: |
XNA Version |
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For
students: ¡P
For
instructors: |
Please do fill out this form with
blue-color-fonts, save separately and email to
ksung@u.washington.edu |
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XGA-300: Object References, Arrays (Periodic Table; Snake & Ladder) |
|
Assignment Specification |
Here is the link to the document that includes the objective, learning outcome, pre/post tests, FAQ, etc. |
Console Version (Periodic Table) |
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For
students:
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For
instructors: |
XNA Version (Snake and Ladder) |
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For
students:
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For
instructors: |
Please do fill out this form with
blue-color-fonts, save separately and email to
ksung@u.washington.edu |
XGA-400: 2D Arrays (Othello |
|
Assignment Specification |
Here is the link to the document that includes the objective, learning outcome, pre/post tests, FAQ, etc. |
Console Version (Othello) |
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For
students:
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For
instructors: |
XNA Version (Othello) |
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For
students:
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For
instructors: |
Please do fill out this form with
blue-color-fonts, save separately and email to ksung@u.washington.edu |
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XGA-500: Class Hierarchy
(Burst A Bubble |
|
Assignment Specification |
Here is the link to the document that includes the objective, learning outcome, pre/post tests, FAQ, etc. |
Console Version (Burst A Bubble) |
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For
students:
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For
instructors: |
XNA Version (Burst A Bubble) |
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For
students:
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For
instructors: |
Please do fill out this form with
blue-color-fonts, save separately and email to
ksung@u.washington.edu |
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XGA-600: Linked Lists and Queues (Helpdesk; Catch A Falling Toy) |
|
Assignment Specification |
Here is the link to the document that includes the objective, learning outcome, pre/post tests, FAQ, etc. |
Console Version (Help Desk) |
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For
students:
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For
instructors: |
XNA Version (Catch A Toy) |
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For
students:
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For
instructors: |
Please do fill out this form with blue-color-fonts,
save separately and email to
ksung@u.washington.edu |
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XGA-700: Binary Search Trees (BST Implementation; Alphabet Hero) |
|
Assignment Specification |
Here is the link to the document that includes the objective, learning outcome, pre/post tests, FAQ, etc. |
Console Version (Simple BST Unit Test) |
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For
students:
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For
instructors: |
XNA Version (Alphabet Hero) |
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For
students:
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For
instructors: |
Please do fill out this form with
blue-color-fonts, save separately and email to
ksung@u.washington.edu |
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This document and the related materials
are developed with support from Microsoft Research Computer Gaming Initiative
under the Computer Gaming Curriculum in Computer Science RFP, Award Number
15871.