Culturally Sensitive Computer Support for Creative Co-authorship of a Sex Education Game

The authors describe a computer-supported game authoring system that lets educators co-author a web quiz game, "What is it?", for teaching sex education. The system draws on the OMCS-Br (Open Mind Common Sense - Brazil) database of common sense statements gathered from the Brazilian general public, offering teachers vocabulary, secret words and clue suggestions. The approach was studied through a case study in two classrooms, with six teachers and nine students, using questionnaires, video recording, screen capture and direct observation. The first classroom had four students around age 11 playing the sexual education theme, and the second had five students aged 12 to 15 playing the health care theme. Teachers spent about 40 minutes creating game instances, and each student played for about 50 minutes.

In the post-session questionnaire, four of five rated the creation process as easy, while one teacher found it hard and called the clue list unproductive. Almost all teachers used part of the suggested clues when writing their own. The authors report that the teachers felt empowered by co-authoring the game and would use it again. They also note that it is premature to determine whether cultural knowledge components will be accepted as part of the methodology for creating culturally sensitive games.