Project Information [English]

imsim-house-yellow-whitePlease note that this site is in English. It is intended to explain the instructional system behind the #pfefferhausen gamification project. It is not part of the public image of the virtual city of Pfefferhausen. You can find more background in this article.

Project Highlights

pfefferhausenPfefferhausen is an Imagined Community Simulation. Students from various German courses at Rhodes College have been and are creating a virtual city as part of their learning experience. Not all aspects of this simulation are publicly viewable here. Pfefferhausen.org is merely the city web site that is slowly growing. Other parts include, for example,
various narratives, tasks, and quests delivered through different channels, such as Rezzly or our course management system, social media, and in-class activities.

Key theoretical concepts for our simulation include agency, identity/identities work, transparency, play, access, sequencing and scaling.

rezzly_rgb_new_low-res-300x136Technologies and Platforms
The gamification engine we currently use is Rezzly.

wordpress-logo-hoz-rgbOur city page is a self-hosted 
wordpress site
.

Individual student sites mostly built with weebly

 

Alternative Technologies

We have tested several other promising technologies, such as Game On by the Mac Lab, Gradecraft, and ARIS. There are other technologies that get used in individual classes within this project, for example twitter and flipgrid. The main idea of Pfefferhausen is that it is flexible enough to accommodate changing technology platforms. In the future we are considering using Goosechase as our gamification platform.

For more information, please take a look at this short recently published article about the project: http://fltmag.com/gamified-imagined-community-simulations-imsims-language-learning/