Towards democratizing computer science education through social game design

ABSTRACTComputer science and software engineering education are limited to formal courses that are being taught in the school. Those who do not have access to the educational courses miss the learning context, even if educational tools are accessible for free. Computer game design has been employed as an engaging medium for practicing software engineering and computer programming skills. However, collaborative work is not supported by educational game design environments and peer learning is limited to face-to-face communication in the classroom. In this paper, we suggest democratizing computer science education by incorporating social learning into the educational game design using existing Web 2.0 mechanisms. Consequently, online users will benefit from situated learning in the game design activities that take place in their social networking space. We present AgentWeb, a Web-based game design environment as the steppingstone to enable social game design activities, and explore the challenges in fostering social learning in online game design practices.