Collaborative Authoring of Serious Games for Language and Culture

This paper describes progress toward developing a set of collaborative authoring tools that support the rapid construction and adaptation of game-based courses for learning foreign language and culture. Earlier versions of these tools were used to create Tactical Iraqi, a highly successful serious game for learning Iraqi Arabic language and culture, which is being used by tens of thousands of trainees in the U.S. military. They have since been extended to support the creation of multiple courses for different languages and user groups, and the adaptation of existing courses. On one extreme, these courses are designed to support distributed multidisciplinary teams in the creation of entirely new courses. On the other extreme, our goal is to enable individual instructors to configure and adapt courses to meet their particular needs. They must support the creation of simulation-based practice scenarios as well as lesson and exercise materials that prepare learners to engage in those practice scenarios. Finally, they must support the delivery of content on a range of platforms, from networked videogame PCs to iPods and other handheld devices. These authoring tools have been used on a range of authoring projects, e.g., to adapt Tactical Iraqi and Tactical Pashto for use by the Australian Defense Forces, to create a study supplement for Tactical Iraqi on iPods, and to create a pilot game to help preserve the Cherokee language and culture.