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Tutorial Feedback: Elementary and Middle School Students


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I had about 8 elementary school students, who were KSP first-timers, run the first three KSP tutorials today.

Short story: With the instructions up in front of them, the students kept asking me what to do next, because they were lost.

Long story: The tutorial dialogs are way too verbose - or in the case of my students: TLDR.

WHAT TO DO should be highly visible, and easily distinguished from descriptive or ancillary text.

I found having to set the parachute parameters on the first rocket you build to be unnecessary and confusing; my students couldn't figure it out at all.

I experienced this with both middle school students in the Endeavour Space Academy last year, and elementary students today. 

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Rocket science ain't simple. Even when it is simple like it is in KSP.

Tutorial text length and style is a fine balancing act, and very much like cooked carrots. But, unfortunately for some one word is too long to read.

Which isn't to say they don't need work.

For the you are describing though you may want to leave the tutorials completely. They are probably the right length for a game. For a teaching device... probably not the right tool. You may have to go with a cookbook set of lesson plans either with the sandbox or a hacked career save... with maybe a shortened parts list.

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If there was a way that could edit the tutorial section, or maybe add a new tutorial, that would be great. A mod that makes it more child friendly is what can help you. Yet i do not know if it has been made yet.

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@BalrogThere is an educational version of the game called KerbalEdu with discounts for educational institutions available per license.

http://kerbaledu.com/features

I don't have any experience with it, but according to the features page it appears to include a more step-by-step process to learn WHY changes to your craft affect its characteristics along with other design references. Maybe that's closer to what you need?

That being said, I do agree that the tutorials are not as clear as they should be. There are always people of all ages asking questions on these forums about having trouble with the tutorials.

Edited by HvP
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  • 4 weeks later...

I'm currently in lower sixth form, and I can recall that, even with the tutorial, figuring out how to rendezvous and dock took nine hours of hard work on the kind of computer a broke student's budget can buy. Eventually, I had to totally disregard the tutorial's instructions and figure out cancelling velocity and docking myself. A better - worded version of the tutorial would be a great idea, and one I would totally get behind.

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