gms | German Medical Science

Jahrestagung der Gesellschaft für Medizinische Ausbildung (GMA)

10.11. bis 12.11.2006, Köln

Article

Send article

Top of your class (TYC): a game based e-learning environment

Vortrag

Search Medline for

  • corresponding author Barbara Spellerberg - Universität Ulm, Institut für Medizinische Mikrobiolgie und Hygiene, Arbeitsgruppe Streptokokken, Ulm, Deutschland
  • author Tim Pietzcker - Universität Ulm, Institut für Medizinnische Mikrobiolgie und Hygiene, Ulm, Deutschland
  • Sandra Krammer - Universität Ulm, Ulm, Deutschland
  • Hoan Luu Duc - Universität Ulm, Ulm, Deutschland
  • Saskia Adam - University of Applied Sciences Ulm, Ulm, Germany
  • Nele Wellinghausen - University of Ulm, Ulm, Germany
  • Heike von Baum - University of Ulm, Ulm, Germany
  • Jochen Bernauer - University of Applied Sciences Ulm, Ulm, Germany

Jahrestagung der Gesellschaft für Medizinische Ausbildung - GMA. Köln, 10.-12.11.2006. Düsseldorf, Köln: German Medical Science; 2006. Doc06gma023

The electronic version of this article is the complete one and can be found online at: http://www.egms.de/en/meetings/gma2006/06gma023.shtml

Published: October 23, 2006

© 2006 Spellerberg et al.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/deed.en). You are free: to Share – to copy, distribute and transmit the work, provided the original author and source are credited.

Outline

Text

Based on one of the most popular game television shows (“Wer wird Millionär”, RTL) we developed a web-based learning quiz for Medical Microbiology. Students are asked to answer questions from the field of Medical Microbiology. For every question the student can choose between four answer options, only one of which is correct. With each correct answer the student is rewarded by advancing one level on a scale ranging from high school graduate to department head. While the starting questions are silly and cheerful and can be answered by common knowledge, the level of difficulty rises to more specific microbiological questions and ends with questions that are even challenging experts in the field. If a question cannot be answered the student can chose one of a total of three jokers for help. To enhance the learning process each question is coupled to a short comment explaining the correct answer in a few sentences. The application consists of a pool of questions where each contains the questions text, four possible answers and an explanation. Questions are categorized into one of five difficulty levels. For the implementation of the web based environment Flash MX, PHP and XML technologies were used. Medical Microbiology represents an ideal topic for this type of quiz because the students have to learn many different new microbial organisms and multiple facts about each of them. The platform can easily be adapted to other topics and offers a novel and very enjoyable e-learning experience.