An educational video game approach for teaching networking data planes

Computer networking has long been considered one of the most important, yet complex, areas to learn within the discipline of Computer Science. Due to its long history of development and extensive usage in different areas, computer networking forms a huge and intricate body of knowledge. The complexity of the subdiscipline makes it challenging to be taught in college education. As a result, innovation in computer networking education is urgently needed. At the same time, today’s students have extensive video game experience, which inspires both researchers and game developers to design video game-based curriculums to help students better understand the course material. In this thesis, an approach to using a video game to teach networking data planes is presented. The core of this approach is to transform data plane concepts to representational video game elements to motivate students to learn computer networking. In particular, we provide a methodology where data packets are represented as physical objects, and the user can perform actions on them (e.g., dropping, de-encapsulating, queuing) in a manner that corresponds to gameplay. Based on this proposed approach, we construct a proof-of-concept implementation in Unity 3D and C# and release the game on the Windows and MacOS platform. To evaluate our approach, the game was released as a lab assignment to students taking CS 437: Internet of Things at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Data was collected in the form of quizzes, surveys, and analytics collected from live gameplay to analyze the effectiveness of learning networking data plane concepts in a video game. The results indicate that students are not only able to learn concepts from the game but also derive enjoyment from the process. We hope our work may serve as a foundation to teach similar concepts in other disciplines of computer science.

Name thesis:degree_name

M.S.

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Electrical & Computer Engr

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2022

Author dc:creator

• Liu, Jiaxuan

Contributors dc:contributor

• Caesar, Matthew

• Computer Networking
• Education
• Game-based Learning

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2022 Jiaxuan Liu

Language dc:language

en, eng

Handle dc:identifier

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/116028

OAI record oai:identifier

https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=etdms&identifier=oai%3Awww.ideals.illinois.edu%3A2142%2F116028