CyGaMEs Senior Application Developer Robert E. Kosko
Date Posted: Sept 16, 2014
Senior Application Developer and Mining Engineer
Robert Kosko, the Senior Application Developer at the Center for Educational Technologies, is essential to the functionality of Selene: A Lunar Construction GaME and responsible for maintaining the game to its high standards. Kosko’s work for Selene has been vital to strengthen and expand the game. He revised the Flash Selene game to run independent phases to allow Selene to be submitted to the 2012 NSF International Science & Engineering Visualization Challenge where Selene was awarded an Honorary Mention for Games & Applications. See http://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/scivis/winners_2012.jsp.
A B.S. graduate of Penn State University’s Mining Engineering program with 12 years of experience in software industry, Kosko has strong experience in design, development, coding and testing of applications using ASP.NET 4.0-1.0, C#, Flash AS3, VB.NET, ADO.NET, LINQ, XML, HTML and VB 6.0. The Selene environment requires PHP, MS-SQL, and SPSS. Selene is a Flash/Flex application with a PHP middleware connecting to a MS-SQL database. Students play the game and every gesture is stored in the database for analysis. A PHP player log application retrieves data from the database to construct individual players. SPSS is used for statistical analysis on specific groups of player logs. Kosko was responsible for translating Reese’s algorithm for linear and quadratic learning trajectories in instruction video games (Learning Dynamics) into an SPSS syntax that automated all calculations and data manipulations.
Some of Kosko’s CyGaMEs greatest accomplishments include sites that he solely created and maintained:
- Bilingual Selene offers the game in English and Spanish. Kosko is most proud of his work to code in another language in order to create Spanish Selene, bringing the educational opportunity Selene provides across borders and meeting the needs of Spanish-native learners emerging as bilingual speakers.
- The Data Management Site (http://dms.wju.edu/) is a dataset repository. It stores Wheeling Jesuit University research datasets and administrates procedures that make them accessible to researchers and the public.
- The Selene Reporting System (http://Selene.cet.edu/SeleneReportingSystem/) provides administrative services and translates data from the database and subsequent analyses into actionable information for team members, researchers, educators, and players. For example, educators use the Reporting system to register players and to track their learning through a gradebook. The reporting system provides a real-time dashboard that translates player logs with clickstream data into visualizations players, educators can understand.
- The Selene Badge site (http://Selenebadge.cet.edu/) administrates the CyGaMEs Lunar Geology series within Badges for NASA Activities, part of the Mozilla Badges program. Selene players access Badging to retrieve their badges and certificates.
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