CUSTOMISATION

 

The Got-A-Head®? system is designed to teach learning skills to children between 8 and 14 via the medium of a computer game and then support the application of their new skills into the real world, particularly their school life. In so doing, we wish to help improve the lives of both the child and their family.

​

All children are different, but we cannot offer a completely different product for each one. What we can do, though, is customise elements within it, introducing a degree of variation in how we teach and practise the curriculum, what situations Learners encounter in the game, and how we encourage the use of the skills they have learned in the outside world through the Family Zone. Using modern technology, we are aiming for something that is intuitive, adaptive and personalised.

​

To apply this variation, we need to know about our Learners and their parents.  From initial questionnaires to detailed records of when and how well the children play the game and learn the curriculum our knowledge of each Learner grows.

​

We combine the variation and our knowledge of the individual Learner to customise their experience.  Using machine learning, we will examine how Learners with certain preferences and characteristics performed in particular exercises and combinations.   Based upon this analysis, the next time someone who fits a given profile plays the game, the system will pick our best guess at which variation will be most appealing to the Learner concerned and will be most efficient at teaching him or her our curriculum.

​

The Got-A-Head®? game has a very important job: to keep Learners wanting to practise their skills.  To do this we want it to be as much fun as possible.  Our different Learners will have different tastes in fiction, so we plan to provide different “game worlds” representing different genres and different games representing different plot types.  

​

Beyond that, though, our Learners will have different appetites for action, tension, social interaction, speed of change, noise, brightness and absurdity.  We want to give our games lots of options for different situations that reflect these.  In a similar way to what we did with the curriculum, we want to select the best variation for each individual Learner to maximise enjoyment and their motivation to keep playing and so keep learning and practising.