Teaching with Bloxxgame

ByWalter Dettling

Bloxxgame offers a versatile toolbox for teachers to develop customised lesson plans. As there are no fixed lessons, teachers should first explore Bloxxgame to understand how it can best support their teaching, understand how it can best support their learning objectives and adapt to their students’ abilities. This article provides background information and practical tips on how to use Bloxxgame effectively in the classroom.

Serious games conference

In 2020, we presented Bloxxgame at the 8th “Games and Learning Alliance Conference” (GALA 2020 Laval), dedicated to the science and application of serious games. Due to Covid-19 restrictions, the conference was held entirely online that year. This was a valuable experience for us as educators, allowing us to learn extensively about remote teaching and immerse ourselves in a virtual conference environment.

Serious Games Conference

For this conference we submitted and published the paper “Bloxxgame – A Simulation Game for Teaching Blockchain,” detailing the development process and initial results from different teaching scenarios. Using a design-based research methodology, we analysed and evaluated our teaching experiments and conducted a literature review on gamification and blockchain teaching.

The paper included three teaching scenarios, demonstrating Bloxxgame’s application for different groups and student backgrounds. Here, we have updated these scenarios and added two more to represent the extended capabilities of Bloxxgame 3.

Five teaching scenarios with Bloxxgame

Teachers can support students using the Bloxxgame tool for the first time in different ways. For example, teachers can first use Bloxxgame as a demonstration tool before allowing students to explore it independently. In class, this can be done either in groups or with each student working on a separate node. It is recommended that teachers set the Game Box to ‘Read Only’ or ‘Demo’ mode while giving instructions. This will prevent students from prematurely publishing transactions or blocks, which can disrupt the class and constantly change the state of the blockchain.

In the first two scenarios, teachers primarily instruct on the principles but can also delve into in-depth theory about cryptographic functions. In addition to the creation of transactions and blocks, the most important topics are the verification of transactions in the mempool, the verification of blocks and the block confirmation process.

The different game levels of Bloxxgame support structured lessons with a variety of theory teaching and student practice. After experimenting, different topics can be reflected in class.

Scenario 1: Teaching the Basic Elements of Blockchain (Bloxxgame Levels 0-3)

At level 0-3, players can create and send transactions and view the blockchain and mempool. They do not have access to the mining view. Blocks must be mined by masters or mining bots.

  • Level 0: Use Bloxxgame to introduce students to wallets and transactions without requiring any knowledge of blockchain mechanisms.
  • Level 1: Demonstrate how transactions are secured using signatures and hashes, without needing to understand these functions in detail.
  • Level 2: Explain the use of private keys for signatures. Highlight the check functions that appear in several boxes. Students can view the blockchain, inspect published blocks and transactions, and use tags in the wallet to see where their transactions are recorded on the blockchain.
  • Level 3. Players must manually hash transactions and can see the mempool with all published transactions. Players interact with each other’s activities as broadcasted transactions appear in each player’s mempool box. Also the change of states of transactions in the mempool is visible until they vanish completely from the mempool once they are definitely confirmed.
Scenario 2: Building the blockchain (Bloxxgame Level 4 – 6)

It’s advisable not to advance to these levels too quickly unless students already have a solid understanding of blockchain concepts. At levels 4 – 6, the focus shifts to the mining view, with no further changes to the wallet and explorer views.

  • Level 4: The level 4 miner is simple and requires minimal knowledge to create new blocks. If the difficulty is low (3 or less), players can create new blocks very quickly.
  • Level 5: Introduces the hash puzzle (Proof of Work) in the miner view, presenting players with the computational challenge required for mining.
  • Level 6: Requires manual creation of the Merkle hash. This level may not be relevant for students not studying informatics and can be omitted without issues.
Scenario 3: Immerging into the blockchain (Bloxxgame Level 4 – 6)

Once students are familiar with Bloxxgame’s functions and operations, the next step is a scenario where the entire blockchain is reset, and all players start with a single transaction in their wallet from the Genesis block. Teachers can assign tasks such as sending coins to a specific address, creating a block with a certain number of transactions, or identifying inconsistent transactions in the mempool.

Since there is no fixed “finish line” in the game, it makes sense to limit either the number of blocks to be built or the time until the game ends. Earning coins through Coinbase transactions with each confirmed block creates high engagement among participants. A competition to see who has the most BLXC in their wallet after a certain period can also be introduced.

This scenario encourages a competitive and intense learning experience, especially when combined with tasks like sending transactions, signing data, or collaborating within groups. This approach supports both individual and group work, enhancing the overall learning experience.

Scenario 4: Self-study (Bloxxgame Level 3 – 6)

Once a game is started, students can access it as long as the master gives them permission. All tasks described in Scenario 3 can also be completed independently over a specific period. The level at which these tasks are played depends on the students’ knowledge. The game mode allows the teacher to control student activities or even lock everyone out completely.

With the robots add-on, the blockchain remains active over time without requiring active student participation. To motivate students to start tasks early, a schedule for increasing difficulty can be announced. This can be combined with a decrease in block rewards, illustrating Bitcoin’s halving mechanism.

Scenario 5: Practice Test. Bloxxgame Level 3 – 6

If announced at the beginning of a class, students are likely to appreciate a Bloxxgame exam. During the exam, students must perform several actions, such as hashing, signing, creating, and checking transactions, as well as creating their own branch with one or two blocks in the blockchain.

The max block height setting in Bloxxgame limits the number of valid blocks accepted, ensuring all students can create valid blocks without issues of dead blocks. The settings also include a statistics feature that displays all transactions, mined blocks (valid and invalid), and earned rewards for all nodes (players). This data can be exported to Excel by selecting, cutting and pasting.

Teachers can inspect wallets and transactions of all students using their node addresses if necessary for grading. Our experience with this grading method over many years has been consistently positive. It allows for a clear distinction between different levels of blockchain understanding, and students understand and accept the resulting grades.

Sources:
Dettling, W. and Schneider, B., 2020, December. Bloxxgame–A simulation game for teaching blockchain. In International Conference on Games and Learning Alliance (pp. 169-178). Cham: Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-63464-3_16 or
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/347238375_Bloxxgame_-A_Simulation_Game_for_Teaching_Blockchain

Gala Conference 2024: https://conf.seriousgamessociety.org