Slashdot Mirror
Teaching History In Schools With Video Games
Joe writes "There's a story about a Massachusetts company, Muzzy Lane Software, creating a Civ-style simulation computer game to teach history to high school and college students. 'Our view isn't that you take the right video game, stick it in a classroom and everything gets better,' Mr. McCool said. 'But with the right tools, this can significantly enhance learning.'"
When I was younger, I had a few of such games. The math ones were super fun, but the ones about history was seriously boring. It was just pictures with some added sound, and then a quiz to "test your knowledge". That wasn't fun.
I really miss playing Oregon Trail on the apple II we had in our classroom.
Douglas P. Price
Beings aspergers AND pulling chicks... I enjoy the challenge!
So, like, the Nazis really made zombie monsters?
Does anyone else remember playing "Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?". I loved that game, and I think its probably one of the biggest reasons for my love of history and computers! I can see good high quality video games easily making people love History and Geography! As a side note there were tons of spin offs from the "Carmen Sandiego" series. There was a "Where in Time" and there was even a TV Show/Gameshow!
I'm thinking that this could be great if they can combine all the best parts of Civ and HL.
Food not Bombs is a nice platitude but it breaks down when you notice that the Bombees are usually well fed
Fuck that noise. I want a new, Doom 3 engine based, Odell Lake. Now that was an educational game.
--saint
Oregan Trail was the first computer game I ever remember playing in school. If I remember correctly, that had a history lesson built into it.
--
New deal processing engine online: http://www.dealsites.net/livedeals.html
I learned (and still remember) more about history from all the historical fiction books I've read than I ever will from history classes. If they can keep the level of gamer involvement high, this makes great sense.
Imagine playing as Alexander the Great, Julius Cesar, Attilla the Hun, or any other historical figure trying to build an empire. That could be interesting.
I was taking one day at a time, but then several days got together and ambushed me. (from a Rhymes with Orange comic)
I would love to have learned more about history and civilizations through playing Civilization than just listening to Social Studies teachers drone on and on about City/States between the Tigris and Euphrates. I cared so little, I can not even remember it now, even though U.S. troops are fighting over that same ground.
Have you Meta Moderated t
"Okay class, if you'll click on the GTA3 icon on your desktop, we'll begin."
I learned a lot about European history from that game -- not just facts, but also the understanding that there used to be so much in the eastern half of Europe until the mongols and turks flattened it -- what we tend to think of as Europe now is really just the western 2/5 or so.
Darn those turks, with their fiendishly juicy kebabs!
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
... Civ-style simulation ...
- So, Johnny, what did you learn in school today?
- I learned that it is always good to back up your words with nuclear weapons, dad!
I hear there's rumors on the Slashdots
I have an OT question. Does Rob sit at the slashdot headquarters on Wednesday and say "It compiles... must be ok to push straight to production!" And then spend all day Thursday trying to fix all the mistakes that simple user testing would have found in a heartbeat? Do you have unit tests? Do you think the users enjoy playing tester Thursdays?
Seriously, there should be AT LEAST a development server, integration server, and staging server before hitting the production server. Its pathetic how unprofessional this 'popular' site is.
Now, to remain on topic, games like Civ3 and stuff teach history to a point, but specifics still need to be taught through books and lectures.
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
-=D34tH_fruM_4B0v3=- just carved up FRANZ_FERDINAND with his green shaft....
:)
World History UT2004.
+5:offtopic,but anti-American
this is utterly useless for history lessons. for math, where each problem has a definite solution, pre-determined format of learning like programmed game may work. (i'm skeptical, though. it always sounds like gimmick to me. nothing beats repeated work with pencil and paper...)
history, there is often no correct answer. even if it's as simple as identifying a person or a date of a historical event, the point is to understand the event in context of others and foster discussions, not to just be able to identify the date or a key figure. i don't see how pre-determined program like games can foster discussions. students will just obsess over getting the right answer and nothing else.
Seems to me that the best value of this sort of simulation is if the class then discusses how and why the simulation differed from the real history.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
i know it would be difficult, but we need a game for math/calculus, many people find it quite boring, personally i kinda liked history and a game wouldn't have helped me much
(btw, i'm not dissing math, i'm just saying what most people find)
Marge, get me your address book, 4 beers, and my conversation hat.
Civ-style simulation computer game to teach history to high school and college students...But with the right tools, this can significantly enhance learning...
*If* this were to be built in the manner mentioned ("Civ-style simulation computer game") and executed properly as in giving enough backround information/education to make this interesting and well-received it would be a major benefit to teaching and learning History.
I have to add that as a Geek whose degree is in History, I would have Loved this game to learn all about the Pharohs of Egypt or the lines of Chinese Emporers.
I have a theory that the truth is never told during the nine-to-five hours. -- Hunter S. Thompson
I would love to get a hold of a game like this.
However, I see the problems inherent. It's interesting that they chose the 30s as a starting point.
One could make a case for other key critical periods in time, and other places. Say, for instance mid to late 18th century North America.
Or early 20th century Russia. Other lurking history scholars who aren't so Western Civ centric as I am might point out other good junctures and places to use.
Shucks I didn't make first post.
However, it may be teaching History at the expense of philosophy. Some in that camp have argued that, even if you could go back in time, you still couldn't change things destined from happening from happening.
--- Kyle Davis Rebel without a pause
The article makes the game sound a bit like a "Choose Your Own Adventure" type of scenario. I'm not sure what teaching value comes from a what-if lesson. I suppose the lessons are based upon where those turning points are? Still, I want a copy to play at my boring job. Maybe Canada will bomb Pearl Harbour this time ;)
In catolic School.Now thats some sick stuff.t m
http://diehardwolfers.areyep.com/bunker/noahark.h
By CHRIS LARSON
.muzzylane.com.
Published: May 27, 2004
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
IT'S the 1930's, and you have just been elected president of France on a promise to rebuild the French economy. But you learn that Germany is rapidly building its army, and your advisers are urging you to do the same. What will happen if you break your campaign pledge and divert resources and attention to building up the French military?
Or you're the British prime minister in 1938. Diplomats in Munich have reached a deal: Germany will be allowed to annex the Sudetenland if it promises that its expansion will go no further. What will the consequences be if you refuse to sign the agreement?
History is filled with such what-ifs, and a company called Muzzy Lane Software thinks they could help high school and college students learn about history and develop thinking skills. To that end, Muzzy Lane is getting ready to introduce schools to a technology that is already familiar to most of today's students: a video game, but one that is custom-designed for the classroom.
Making History is a multiplayer simulation that puts players in control of European governments before, during and after World War II. With a price tag somewhere between $25 and $40, the game is expected to be available in the fall from www
Computer games have been used in education for years, especially at the elementary level, where there are thousands of software titles. At the high school and college level, though, strategy games are generally limited to stock market and election simulations, experts and teachers say. Muzzy Lane aims to change that.
The challenge is to "integrate the learning without preaching to the player," said Dave McCool, the president of Muzzy Lane. "You want to create an environment where they're learning."
The game's designers took elements of entertainment simulations - the graphics, the realistic cause-and-effect, the variety of challenges - and adapted them for classroom use by making the game customizable for different learning levels, breaking it into timed sessions and adding a variety of supporting material for instructors.
Making History starts in the 1930's. Students take on the roles of various European leaders, making decisions on taxes and spending, trade policy, international treaties and military action. The simulation engine calculates the effects of each player's actions and moves the game forward, sometimes with results that differ strikingly from actual events.
Muzzy Lane's designers expect players to rely on their knowledge of history; the game is meant to help them add to it by delving deeper into their history textbooks or Web sites to improve their performance.
Making History is also intended to encourage problem-solving and the understanding of cause and effect. Such skills "are difficult to teach in a textbook-and-lecture format," said Nick deKanter, vice president of Muzzy Lane. He said that a 2002 study from the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars found that video game playing "builds on basic instincts for competition, interaction and imagination that are instinctive in so many people." The study recommended "combining these elements with instructive materials, or wrapping important content in a gaming package."
Some teachers have used popular games like SimCity and Civilization in classes, but education specialists say that such programs, while useful, ultimately fall short. "They're good games, but they're inherently weak on education," said Eric Klopfer, an assistant professor of science, education and educational technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "They can be harnessed for education, but they weren't designed from the ground up for education."
One of the biggest drawbacks is the games' lack of support materials to back up the content of the games. Making History will include comparisons to actual events, contextual commentaries and links to other history sources. The educational value of the game action increases when there is time to review and discuss what took place, Mr. McCool said. "We strongly believe that simulations require a good debriefing period."
...is Cartel$ and Cutthroat$ by Danni Bunten. Published back in 1985, it was such an entertaining and yet informative business simulation that it's still being used in schools, almost 20 years later. I wish somebody has remade that title...
... yup, that's my boy!
Hmmm.
I will never forget that Sri Lanka had a Lion on its flag. One of those facts that will never leave my brain...
Hit it Rockapella!
However, it should not replace teaching and additional supplementation with books (and perhaps Discovery Channel).
People say I'm crazy, I got diamonds on the soles of my shoes...
Games can certainly be educational, I do not doubt that. But they have to be enjoyable to play them.
If they make some kind of quiz like game there is no way those kids are going to like it in any way.
But imagine they make a warcraft where you have real characters from the battle of troje or the WW2 on real battlefields etc. You have a game kids will continue to play at home and hopefully learn something from
Artists against online scams http://www.aa419.org/
With a name like Mr. McCool... I don't see how you could really go wrong with this. I mean come on... McCool. Is anyone going to argue with that? I didn't think so. :)
The Bible thumpers could learn from the Bible tales games for the NES. I think they had to gather all of the animals for Noah's Ark or some shit.
I remember the first "computer game" I saw at school in 1977. You we had knobs to adjust air travel, fuel taxes, r&d, etc. to see how long fossil fuels would last. No scenario could make them last past 2005. Pure propoganda.
Activist coders shouldn't be allowed to generate their own versions of "history".
You can mod me down, but you cannot call me a coward.
I'm torn on whether or not this is a good thing. As a professional historian, my immediate response is against this sort of thing - it essentializes history and is likely to remove much of the complexity from history for the students. Games also tend to be quite anachronistic, project contemporary (modern?) views, beliefs and stereotypes back across periods and events preceding these views and beliefs. Video games rarely teach people to think critically and analytically about history.
On the other hand, I have to admit that Civilization (the original DOS game) had a lot to do with getting me fired up about history in high school. I now know (and was vaguely aware then) that the game was (and continues to be) *HORRIBLE* in terms of historical accuracy or methodology, but it *did* get me fired up about history and caused me to sign up for the advanced history classes, which led to me choosing history as a major in college. Had I not gotten so fired up about history when I was 16, perhaps I would not have pursued a PhD in it.
So I suppose I'm on the fence - games such as Civ and Age of Empires mislead people into some horribly skewed views of history, but since they do get people interested in becoming history students, we (professional historians) get a chance to "unlearn" the errors when they take our classes. With any luck, we can keep some of the excitement while doing so. Since college intro history spends much of its time undoing the damage of the (highly political) K-12 school-board-driven history classes anyway, it's not likely to hurt.
I did not design this game/I did not name the stakes/I just happen to like apples/And I am not afraid of snakes-AniD
"She said that she was going to see naked people being tortured by snakes..."
Oh, I know this.. um, 8th circle!
Different actions have different consequences, and it is important to learn how to think and evaluate all the different scenarios that can come up as a result of one or several actions. If you have a choose your own adventure type game, you could see what could have been if historical figures acted differently. It's something worth thinking about.
People say I'm crazy, I got diamonds on the soles of my shoes...
...to teach them kids about how it used to be in the olden days. Every day we got Force Choked by evil Sith before breakfast, and we LIKED it!
Another method for the revisionists to tell us "what really happened..."
This all reminds me of Kim Stanley Robinson's alternate-world-history, The Years of Rice and Salt.
That said, playing the game taught me a hell of a lot about organization, being a naturally-disorg-ey person.
Intelligent Design: because MATH is HARD.
With gas prices so high this summer I'm not sure if I would take a hummer, althought that's very nice of her to give you one. Maybe something more economical? Like a Focus?
It looks to me like the game is merely setting up a historical event like "you're the British prime minister in 1938. Diplomats in Munich have reached a deal: Germany will be allowed to annex the Sudetenland if it promises that its expansion will go no further." and then you're off to do whatever you want in that context. That's not really teaching history. What if simulated Chamberlain has some balls and doesn't sign the peace treaty with Germany or simulated Hitler keeps his treaty with Russia or soembody playing Roosevelt doesn't get involved in WWII? That's not what happened. That's really no different than C&C: Red Alert.
I just think that the amount of actual history picked up through this will be minimal to the time spent on it. Also, it might actually confuse students learning history because they might not differentiate the historical verion of what happened and the simulated version of what happened. Of course, that's just what I pick up from the article. The actual software might have already addressed these issues.
it sounds interesting, but it will only work if the students need to remember and reference the content for some *fun* reason. Otherwise, students will just short-term memorise it and forget it, like 90% of the other crap their "taught" in prison--i mean school. Also, fun for one person will not translate in fun for everyone. An important tidbit.
I've always thought risk would be good in a geography class for youngsters--if you could find a risk game with modern countries.
Lastly, for schools--the history channle has some awesome programs about many various important parts of the past--i really think it would be benificial if those kinds of programs were shown in classes on a fairly regular basis--i think they do an excellent job of making them interesting, unlike the boring paper paper weights most students must haul around from class to class.
Troll, Troll, go away and flame again some other day
"History is a selective interpretation of events intended to justify those currently in power.
Memory is the same thing on an individual scale. "
One of my favorite quotes.
What I'd like to see is better history simulation. Get a program that can take certain factors and use it to predict the outcome. After all, knowing math means we can predict the answers to math problems. Shouldn't knowing history mean the same thing? And isn't any school of thought's actual value as a study linked to the predictive value it creates? Or we could just be cynics and say that history is only useful for indoctrination and persuasion....
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
That computers in educational environments have not helped education (sorry, I cannot recall the citation; if I can find it I'll post it). Indeed, there have also been articles written on the degradation of writing due to Internet research.
I've looked a lot at educational software for physical science, and most of it is the same old stuff you can get in a book (only maybe smaller and faster).
I saw a web site a few years ago (again, I cannot recall the url..not much help today apparently) where the arguement was made that web solutions (and thus perhaps computers in general) should only be used to do something DIFFERENT and NEW.
Using games to teach history has some interesting possibilities (perhaps similar to play acting?), but I agree with your point 100% that some objective assessment of effectiveness needs to be maintained.
Computational Chemistry products and services.
*shocking* that a "new" media presentation format can be made to enhance learning or training. How unlike all previous media presentation formats like books, audio recordings, or movies.
Or am I the only one going "yeah, duh?"
Just wait till some crappy band steals your nic.
Personally I doubt this will help.
I left school about 2 months ago, I seriously doubt using games will help learning much. I'm sure most of us have used those lame maths games at some point. Personally, I didnt learn jack from them, not only were they uneducational, they sucked really bad. Crap graphics, crap sound, no storyline, etc.
For games to actually be used for education, I think they would have to be like games and not some transparent method of trying to get people to pay attention. Which I highly doubt will happen.
If people do make games which are interesting for pupils, they will end up wanting to play the games constantly, and not communicate verbally with other students/teachers, alienating them and making it harder for them once they leave school and enter the real world.
I dont even think the problem is how they try to teach you, its what they teach you. During my whole time at school, they teach you exactly the same stuff year after year. TBH, it's boring crap.
To quote The Hackers Manifesto:
"we've been spoon-fed baby food at school when we hungered for steak... the bits of meat that you did let slip through were pre-chewed and tasteless. We've been dominated by sadists, or ignored by the apathetic. The few that had something to teach found us willing pupils, but those few are like drops of water in the desert."
And it's true..
I fucked school off about 2 months ago, it was shit. The vast majority of what i know has come from TV and the internet, school is complete crap. From what I did learn at school, I'm gonna use about 5% of it in real life - what a waste of my time and government money. Ditch the whole education system. All smart people know it just stops people from learning..
Take this quote from Mr. Einstein himself,
"The only thing that inteferes with my learning is my education"
..to put games in schools. Now if only their marketing guy ("Mr. McPopular") can convince the principal to buy it.
I think civilization had a very accurate portrayal of history. I grew up on civ! Without civilization, I would have never known that the Hoover Dam *ACTUALLY* acts as a Hydro Plant in all your cities on that continent. I would have never know that about America! I also wouldn't have known that finding the cure for cancer will make one unhappy citizen content in all your cities, no wonder everyone is trying to find the cure!
It was also a great geography lesson, and learning about cultures. It was important to know what the world map looked like and finding your enemies so you could destroy them. Without that, I wouldn't have known that the Zulu empire actually exists on the American continent!
Notice my elaborate knowledge of American history because of civilization. Your current president (Abraham Lincoln) should be proud of me!
"There is no spoon." - The Matrix
But let's not forget Number Munchers!
How about a "learn the presidents" doom-like game? As you run along happily blasting George, Lincoln, and all the other lesser-known presidents, you can learn their names as well as when they were president: "You just killed James Garfield, who was our 20th president, who served for only one year in 1881 before he was (ironically) shot to death". Bonus points for getting them in order!
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
Teaching history of the Cold War will be pretty easy too, given the amout of Cold War videogames that were out in the 80's.
Imagine playing as Alexander the Great, Julius Cesar, Attilla the Hun, or any other historical figure trying to build an empire.
"Hello Lisa, I'm Genghis Kahn! You'll go where I go, defile what I defile, eat who I eat!"
Witness the opening salvos of the Iraqi war. --A LOT of people around these parts had enthusiastic Command & Conquer images running through their minds and emotions when that fiasco was going down. It was obvious and disgusting. I wonder how many troops currently serving in Iraq have played Doom?
So yeah. 'Teaching' history? A video game is certainly going to be effective in doing this. The problem is that any information approved by the school system is going to be based largely on lies. Goebbels would have probably used the video game medium too, had it been available.
-FL
I think about how much I've learned from various games, and it makes me feel sorry for people without comptuters.
:P Some might not find that helpful, but I do, as history or civics from the textbooks never gives you a full picture of how things really are - just the governmentally sponsored version. The game also provided a look into a "political worldview" where the government isn't to be trusted, in essence - something I don't doubt most students could benefit from.
For instance: Lords of the Realm III has a bunch of battle re-enactment scenarios, complete with the history of the event. Being a geek, I read those histories... I now know a fair bit about the warfare of Britian ~1400s.
DeusEx, while not in the least bit historical, taught me a lot about conspiracy theories.
I don't doubt that my most fundamental understanding of international negotiations comes from the Civ games, to some degree. Sure, it's matured, but I was playing the the original civ long before I was really aware that the US wasn't the central point of the world.
Now that I think about it, the Carmen SanDiego games helped me learn research skills fairly well. I didn't particularly enjoy the game, but I did enjoy following the trail and looking stuff up to try and get to the next point. The interesting thing is (from what I recall!) the game wasn't primarily sold to schools, but had a fairly large commercial offering as well...
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
We have all these stories on /. about computers in every classroom being a waste and a fantasy that doesn't deliver. It's true, pouring money into computers as a magical fix for education problems IS a big mistake.
There is nothing magical about technology the same way there is nothing magical about books.
As this article demonstrates, it's the CONTENT that matters. The stuff that's in the book. The software that's on the computer. That's what matters.
It's not rocket surgery... The reason that the rush to get computers in every classroom has been such a mistake is that there is such a woeful dearth of GOOD educational software.
Way to go Muzzy Lane!!
Operator, give me the number for 911!
This is exactly the kinds of pragmatic thinking we need to teach young people: consequences of heavy decisions. How and why to muse over a decision before making it. There aren't classes in this kind of thing, but it's def. what history is made of.
Intelligent Design: because MATH is HARD.
This will shake out the british geeks around here - who remembers Yellow River Kingdom on the BBC? I used to love that game - played it whenever I could get access to the computer(!) in our school. Basically it was a little management game where you were mayor of a town which had to grow food (i.e. resource gathering), and build a dam which stopped the village being flooded. It was very very simplistic, and the "graphics" were all in text mode, but it was fun :)
---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"
A lot of the value in educational games, in my opinion, is to inspire the player to want to know more, rather than to directly teach it to them.
Of course, a little of both never hurts. But most importantly it really has to be a good *game* first and foremost, or no one will play it. The best example I have of this is "Uncharted Waters 2" for the SNES. Teaches you a bit of geography, history, ships, gives you a taste of some of the discoveries that were made back in the 16th century, while also being a damn fun game with plenty of challenge involved (assuming you don't abuse the "assign crew: 100% combat" trick too badly).
It made you want to go and learn about some of this stuff. Or at least, it did for me.
Random and weird software I've written.
Games, sure as an aid in teaching for 12-year old pupils but for high school and college students? Come on, are things so bad that reading books is something impossible for a 18-year old? Don't get me wrong, I'm a 23-year old computer science and political science student and I love playing Civilization and/or whatever mainstream game you throw at me but for studying things I still prefer resorting to something more conventional ways such as a visit to library of the faculty.
I agree that it is the content.
So why waste money on computers?
A video game and a book have about the same cost.
Omit the computer overhead and you can buy way more content for the money.
I loved playing Carmen Sandiego in school, but the educational merit of the game paled in comparison to the world almanac they put in the box with it.
Then: Voyage of the Mimi Game - yes we had it on our 'only' computer in the school back in the late 80's. Also there was this Civil War game (text based of course) that let you fight key battles-I never could win any.
Now: Medieval Total War - seriously that game has many factual details and descriptions of events and the leaders of that time - the hun invasions, the Children's crusade, the political confrontations, the introduction of gunpowder and the rise of papal influence etc... The whole Total War series is epic Japan - to Medieval Europe - to the Roman Empire - all with tactical combat is really fun just for the tidbits of information it has. Total War.org
Still Mud? Try www.phoenixmud.org!
The game used is called Europa Universalis 2 and is something which has consumed hundreds of hours of my playing time over the last couple of years.
It's a strategy game that uses historical events to shape the course of the game. The game has military, economy, diplomacy, colonization and religious aspects to it. There are also hundreds of available countries to play with and the game is very moddable through text file editing.
Also, the game was developped in english which makes it available for a wide audience.
http://www.paradoxplaza.com/news.asp?ArticleID=15Just play counterstrike.
That's the history of the world in a nutshell, except with different weapons, different characters and different fictions to kill each other over.
You never have to do your homework!
- Pirates! (2004) - It's not out yet, but will hopefully be at the end of this year. For those unfamiliar with it, it's a revamped version of Sid Meiyer's Pirates! Also, Pirate Hunter Tortuga would be a good game in the interim.
- Civilization III - Any of this series would be good, but IMHO, Civ3 has been the best so far.
- Axis & Allies - Every-body...wants to rule the world... The board game was great.
- Oregon Trail - I believe they've made a new version of this game, but it was pretty good on the old macs.
- Colonization - I think this was also a Sid Meiyer...
Ehhh... come to think of it... pretty much any game by Sid Meiyer is a great idea for schools to use...-The Libra
"You've got no kids, no wife, no job, and you're not in The Tigger Movie!!!"
- my best friend's son, Gabe, at 5 years old.
-The Libra
"Please be patient--The future will begin momentarily."
This reminds me of my junior year high school history class. Our teacher (who also happened to be the baseball coach), decided on an...interesting way of teaching WWII during the last few weeks of school (which is also, if I remember correctly, when HS baseball season is at it's highest point)
He broke the class up into teams, four I think. Then, he hooked his computer up to the TV in the room, and the teams played Axis and Allies against eachother for a few weeks. This was, truly, an incredibly educational experience. We learned how dice rolls determined the outcome of battles, among other amazing history facts.
Of course, it was the most interesting history class I've ever taken, too.
Yep, the site is obviously popular.
And, just as obviously, people keep comming back, reguardless of the mistakes.
And best of all, when slashdot is down, nobody dies or goes broke or loses clients or anything.
So, they don't need to hold themselves to the same professional standards as, say, a real-time stock trading service provider.
--A/C
You know what the best part is? That Western Europe was probably saved from invasion only because Ogodai, the Mongol leader, died, and the disarray his departure caused in the empire forced the Mongols to retreat..
Man is a slave because freedom is difficult, whereas slavery is easy.
It the parent's responsability to teach their kids right from wrong! Video games do NOT teach our children how to carjack and... ummm shoot people.... Hmmmm...? oO(But they can teach our kids history and stuff, but ummmm.... hmmmm....)
Well great, now what do I do with all those video games don't teach kids stuff rants?
This one gang kept wanting me to join cause I'm pretty good with a bo staff.
I remember playing Oregon train and learning not much about history but the concept of what happened when I was in elementary school.
I once knew an Englishman who was trying to create an accurate simulation of the Alamo siege. His theory was, he could sell this program to schools all over Texas and make a fortune. It sounded like a good idea. . . He just failed to reckon something: Texas schools have almost no interest in teaching history.
During my 12 years in grade school, we studied the Texas Revolution probably for a total of about 30 minutes. We never got any explanation of why it took place, and our coverage of The Alamo simply repeated the Hollywood myths.
We learned: The Alamo was one of only two battles in the history of the world (the other occurring in ancient Greece) where all the defenders fought to the death.
Historians say: A few defenders escaped during the confusion of the fight, and a few others were captured and later executed by the Mexicans.
We learned: Each Texan killed, on average, four or five Mexican soldiers before he fell.
Historians say: The death toll was probably roughly even on both sides. Santa Anna's army wasn't crippled by the battle.
We learned: The two weeks of time spent laying siege to the Alamo allowed Sam Houston to gather his troops and made ultimate victory possible.
Historians say: The Alamo had no strategic military importance.
My point is that if Texas schools were motivated to teach this story accurately, they certainly wouldn't have needed a computer program to do a better job than this. And the idea that they would spend money on it is fairly laughable.
However. . . If my British friend could have made a simulation program to teach football plays -- he probably could have sold a ton of them to Texas schools and be a millionaire by now. It's all a matter of priorities, you know.
This opens up the possibility of educating kids in terms of a completely different set of assumptions from the corporate/capitalist "official reality" they're indoctrinated with in school and in the "real world".
The vaunted "scientific method" has been proven to produce only the results the "researcher" wants: It imposes its own values on the data, and by its very nature (stiff, clinical, hierarchical, power-distorted, deeply unimaginative) the data it produces are destructive to life. There's a lesson there: Science creates and defines our world, and science's world necessarily denies, distorts, and destroys our essential humanity. The answer is obvious: Radical critical theory must create and define its own world, equally valid, equally real, but infinitely more just and human.
Imagine kids spending their days in a realistic, interactive "world" where corporatist theory's grossly self-interested and biased fundamental assumptions about markets and human motivation do not hold true.
"Education" in the West has heretofore been hijacked by a political agenda which indoctrinates children to be anti-environmental, producing/consuming "individuals". The effects have been catastrophic, as we all know: Racism, sexism, slavery, war, greed. Imagine schools freed from such counter-productive artificial agendas, and enabled with immersive experiences demonstrating that humane and fair economic theories do work (contrary to the right-wing propaganda now spooned out in "history" classes which address only the regrettable outcomes of a few imperfectly successful experiments, neglecting entirely the extroardinarily rich and successful tapestry of modern radical economic theory). Imagine students spending their days in a reality where their worth is intrinsic, based on their humanity, rather than a meaningless artificial construct based on what they can "produce" and sell to others at a profit.
Imagine students spending their days in a brilliant virtual classroom where profit is shown for the all-destroying, anti-human death-force that it is, where all the crimes are in full view, where all consequences are as they should be. Imagine all the ugly truths that a rigorous application of critical analysis can reveal, revealed to the students in 24-bit color and vibrant sound.
Imagine, in short, true education: Socially responsible, transgressive, anti-hegemonic, acting always in the service of the human race rather than corporations and capital.
It's within our reach.
Whippersnapper!! Back in MY day, we didn't have fancy computers to simulate battle-deciding dice rolls! We didn't have "interactive" history programs! We played RISK, and had to roll the dice OURSEVES! And that's the way we liked it!
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
It focuses more on trade, diplomacy, and research than on combat (there is plenty of combat, but it's relatively abstract). Also, it's focus on a particular time period (~1300 till 1800, if I remember correctly) means that it can be incredibly detailed and accurate. Many of the 'random' events are historical in nature, and tied to particular countries. Also the fact that you can play any of the more than 100 countries in the game (though many are doomed without lots of luck and skill) is pretty neat too.
Far and away the best game of its genre I've ever played. Difficult as hell, too.
He decided to just watch the government, and kind of scale it down to size, and run his life that way. --Laurie Anderson
"Hello, Lisa! I'm Genghis Khan. You'll
go where I go, defile what I defile, eat who I eat!"
This would be nothing, though, if Flashman weren't fun. He is everything that the Victorians stood against: a drunkard, womanizer, liar, coward, and scoundrel (the books take the form of deathbed confessions, with him setting the record straight to spite his prudish children and relatives). It's delightful fun to see him get the better of sacred institutions of proper society in one chapter and two chapters later see him about to be tortured to death by some horrid villain. Why? Because the bastard has it coming, of course! Even the footnotes are tonuge in cheek, criticizing Flashman's cowardice and bad memory even as the plot is being built upon those flaws.
Flashman is a great antihero. If you have a chance, wander by your local library and give him a whirl. You'll be happy you did.
"Prepare for the worst - hope for the best."
Both of those games are made by Paradox and are by far the most evolved historical games I've ever seen. Way beyond Civilization.
The EU2 "Grand Campaign", which covers world history from 1419 to 1820, has something like 200 nations in it and tens of thousands of historical events firing.
Sure, the game can quickly become anachronistic especially if you are a good player focusing on extending your empire, but it still strikes an excellent balance between simulating history and playability. I particularly like the way wars of religions are handled, and the crucial concept of national stability and of the necessity for a Casus Belly to declare war if you do not want to suffer from a drop in stability.
Those two games are the only one I would consider for teaching historical facts (and not simply getting students interested).
What do you know about World Politic? Find out in this quiz
when you have a teacher whose name is Mr McCool.
Thanks to Medal of Honor: Frontline, I can't watch a WWII documentary without getting chills. I vividly remember storming the beach on D-Day, and fighting house to house during Operation Market Garden. These events happend over 60 years ago, but to me the were just last year. I'm presently about the same age as those that were there. I know it's lame in a way, but thanks to MoH I now have an even grater level of respect for the veterans I know. Realistic and honest depictions of war may actually prove to be educational and valuable.
We had a game on the Apple IIe back in elementary school where you were an escaped slave trying to follow the underground railroad.
They took it away after a short time, something about racism. Anyone know the name of that game? I never did finish it.
Sigs? We don't need no stinking sigs!
I have always thought that if I ever subbed again in Math (something I do every now and then) - that I would take my old nintendo and after "the busy work lesson" plan were created the last 10 minutes let the kids play Tetris. (Explaining to them spatial relations, counting, etc.)
I think this is actually a good tool for education and applies more to real world applications than the "train from one way...train from another way" word problems. If people don't know how to organize things in their life they can't possibly concentrate. I think games such as Tetris teach organization AND MATH + hand eye coordination.
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
used a pencil/paper Risk-style game to simulate the colonization of Africa, and the partnerships between the English, French, and Dutch. It worked out really well, and I think if it had been a video game, it would have only speeded up the process, so that we would have done more. Seems like a good idea to me.
I mod down pyramid schemes in sigs.
In my technology and civilization college course, we had to know a good bit about airplanes. The game Red Baron had thoroughly edumuhcated me on alot of the WWI stuff, so I didn't really have to study it.
I'm in graduate school with high hopes to become a history professor one day. I also consider myself quite computer literate. With that in mind, I see two obvious problems with Muzzy Lane's software.
First, Muzzy Lane seems to have missed the boat on the "new cultural history," which is a historical interpretational model that is simply history from the bottom-up. If it were really "new" I would understand this negligence, but the movement isn't new at all. The new cultural history is a historical interpretational development that is a solid 20/30 years underway. What I mean by referring to cultural history is that professors and teachers are moving away from the sweeping political and military histories and towards histories of very specific or localized people groups. Unfortunately, Muzzy Lane's "Making History" is not groundbreaking at all. It is very much a computerized form of this antiquated political history, and that's something that history teachers are trying to do less of, not more. Neville Chamberlain is someone I would want to speak as little as possible about in my class. It's the people who elected and empowered Chamberlain that should be the focus on Muzzy Lane's game and my class, not the select few who Muzzy Lane believes have "made history." Using phrases like "everything flows from your decisions" makes me cringe. The game's description implies that the decisions of one or two people influence the lives of everyone else, but developments in history in the last 20-30 years have firmly established that this rarely the case. Political and military history, history from the top-down, is very much out of style and for very good reason.
Secondly, the webpage for "Making History" implies that "this is how it was." They seem to be framing their game within language similar to phrasing ina textbook, which is definitely a bad thing. History textbook language is changing from the "this is the historical truth" towards "this is one historical truth." Muzzy Lane is making up history as they go, as do all historians, but in refusing to admit this students will walk away from "Making History" thinking, "This is what really happened." They promise "historically valid consequences." That's a dangerous perspective to take, one that I certainly wouldn't want to encourage in my class.
The name itself reflects the two problems inherent in their software. It suggests that one person is responsible for "making history," and at the same time it implies that there is one true version of history.
I'm not sure how Muzzy Lane can solve the first problem. I just guessing off the top of my head, but I think that a time period mod for the Sims might be more helpful in the classroom than Muzzy Lane's "Making History." The second problem is merely language, and I think if they qualified their description more and moved away from the textbook-feel in the language it might remedy this. I think that the game is fine and good as a game and merely that. I played the hell out of Pirates! when I was a kid, and it spurred a year of trips from the library with my arms full of pirate books. If "Making History" inspires likewise, then great. But I think what Muzzy Lane is going for is not so much a game as much as something you'd base one or two class periods around. That, to me, is giving too much authority to a company that apparently isn't as up on historical pedagogy as they imply.
This US Oil Imports Game where you play the President starting in 2005 is kind of neat.
It's along the lines of the Muzzy Lane History Games, except that you play into the future for the next 20 years, not history.
Gupta, fsck off and go spew your false info somewhere else.
Anyone who doesn't know this guy yet, read his post history, or check here. Known troll who always falsely claims to be working at Nintendo, Sega, etc.
Of course that is a much better education than what I would get from reading Howard Zinn.
Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.
From what I've seen homeschooling our kids, an interest or curiosity about history needs to come first if a kid (or anybody) is going to learn. The rote memorization of facts many of us suffered through doesn't work. In our case, my son was hooked on "The Magic Treehouse" books, in which a couple of kids transport through time in a treehouse and end up in the middle of important historical events. That, plus video games got him very interested in history, which made the teaching / learning bit very very easy.
It's no different than contuining education for adults. It's got to be relevant for somebody to be interested. "Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it" is not interesting to kids. Leaning more about westward expansion and what really happened with (Oregon) settlers is interesting to a kid if they have been enjoying the game (or books) already anyway.
Not a computer game, but the show History Bites is a fun way to learn about history. It presupposes the existence of television in the old day. Based on that, they send out reporters to cover major historical events - very funny, but educational none the less. I recall the tv reporters covering Julius Caeser's assasination. A well done show.
From their web site:
History Bites is a skit comedy show that explores the premise, "What if television had been around for the past 5,000 years?"
History Bites
This will be good for dyslexic and ADD kids
Anyone remember Ancient Empires, by the Learning Company..... great game!
I learned how to sneak more effectively from Thief.
Other than that, though, I think I mostly got incorrect information from games.
What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey
Well, reading the article, the game looks interesting. It seems to have a limited scope, so it can still be fairly historically accurate.
:)
I'm sure it's been said 50 times already, but relying on Civ for history...not so good. You might end up at a party somewhere talking about the day Cleopatra led her battalion of Egyptian tanks to capture Beijing and it's beautiful Colossus in 1702 AD.
If the game creators were to use history as the back drop, and force the game play to match the pace of history then students could pick up a lot about history.
For example, maybe make a spy game (Thiefesque) were you work for whichever side and try to help them win. You could work for the colonials, and your job is to find out what ports the British plan to blockade, troop strength and movements, etc. Everything you find out during your "missions" of course is real data from real events in real history.
Another fun game might be an empire game (Civilization like) where you have to produce the weapons of war, get them to the field, and meet the objectives to win within the date parameters set for you. A set of scenarios could be developing, producing, delivering, loading, and then fighting with enough boats to storm Normandy on D-Day. Events of course would be dictated by the real timeline of history including must-do events like when the tech for landing boats became available and random events like how many uboats are out there impeding your shipment deliveries.
I can think of lots of ways history games could go because there so much interesting material to work with. History teaches that people do their best work when in conflict: That's why history books are full of Wars and modern society runs on capitalism.
If anyone wants to hire me to make fun games see my Journal. I would love to design fun games and could make someone a lot of money doing so!
This space for rent. Cheap.
I learned everything I know about geography and shooting indians from Oregon Trail on an Apple II in grade school. Should apply.
Or better yet, act as a spur for the gamer to research a topic of interest on their own.
Don't laugh, but I actually learned some stuff reading the manuals to, and playing games like "Gold Rush" and "Close Combat".
Of course not all games will be like that, but there is no reason this should be seen as unusual. Teachers have been using computer games successfully in classrooms since the 80s.
I'm glad someone finally realized the importance of history. There are millions of students growing up not knowing their heritage. We need to start teaching the basics. -Wolfenstein 3d -Dragon Lair -Gobblins -Space Quest -etc...
My favorite historical epic is the Romance of the Three Kingdoms (San Guo Zhi) series. I learned a good amount of my Three Kingdom's era history from the series now into its 10th iteration. Too bad the latest versions are only available in Japanese and Chinese.
John Brown (the abolitionist and psychotic
When will this old chestnut die? You should read Lies My Teacher Told Me by James W. Loewen, where the notion that John Brown was insane is exposed as a myth, constructed afterward to explain away John Brown's action in a socially palatable manner,
In general Loewen's book is a searing indictment of what most people accept as 'history': it points out that someone in the U.S. who goes on to study history at College level pretty much has to spend their first year unlearning all the distortions, omissions, and outright falsehoods that pervade U.S. high school history curriculums.
If this game is geared at high school students, chances are it just perpetuates the same historical mistakes as their textbooks. Even if the makers are aware of these defiencies, they aren't going to try and buck local school boards when they're struggling for acceptance and adoption.
Honestly? I rather someone learnt no history than the wrong history. Then they'd at least know that they didn't know what happened!
"Just once, I'd like to meet an alien menace that wasn't immune to bullets." -- The Brigadier, Dr. Who
Many hours spent playing Oregon Trail. And there was another, Saipan? Where you sail around trading silk and opium and fighting pirates. Taught me everything I know.
Take off, every Hoser
"Mary has died of typhoid!"
NOO! not lil' mary! oregon trail was a solid school entertainer through elementary school (around age 5-11 in the US) as you took the role of a westward-bound 19th century pioneer family's leader. wasn't so much of a line-by-line history lesson as it was a "here's what it was like" lesson, where you had to buy supplies, make route decisions, manage money, catch food, etc. never had to slaughter villages of native tribes or give them smallpox, but i guess the army had already blazed that trail.
- emilio
neurostyle dot net - it's all in your head
"If Pacman had affected us as kids we'd be running around in dark rooms, munching pills and listening to repetitive music."
What? People do that? Oh damn...
The Neo-Bohemian Techno-Socialist
Shouldn't it also be possible to play the wife of the Czech factory worker caught up in the middle of it all?
Any sufficiently advanced libertarian utopia is indistinguishable from government.
I guess he will have lost of quiet reading time next few years.
Help fight continental drift.
I'm starting a petition to elect Mr. McCool the new mayor of McDonaldland against the incumbent Mayor McCheese.
it teaches the progression and practicality of modern weapons.
It's already been done.
The History Channel is actually a video game with one control method:
Watch it and learn; or,
Change the channel.
When the battle commenced, the walls of Quebec City couldn't take the stress of the French guns firing because the contractor skimped on the materials.
When Montcalm wanted to move up more ammunition for his cannon in the field he couldn't because the Intendant (governor) was using all the wagons to move his mistress's stuff out of town.
Shadow President was a great educational game.
.sigs are for post^Hers.
Do you have one?
Someone said...
One who controls the present, controls the past. One who controls the past, controls the future!!
Imagine the powers of the author to *exactly* make children learn about history (from his/her/their perspective).
What the fuck is wrong with textbooks? All these videos, tv leave little room for imagination. Guess they want a nation of zombies..who are told exactly what to imagine.
In an earlier era of computers, I got some familiarity with US geography through Agent U.S.A., in which you had to take trains from town to town, fighting the FuzzBox and curing FuzzBodies.
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
The Incredible Machine for basic physics and problem solving.
I recently covered the same terrain.
Dude, where's my Slashdot?
Hiawatha Bray
Tech Reporter
Boston Globe
It was the only game in school that involved shooting guns. I also liked using humorous names that would end up on tombstones. "MYASS DIED HERE"
Isn't an edutainment title from someone called "Mr. McCool" similar to a used car from "Honest Eddie"?
You're not talking about Africa, I'd guess. Most of the nations in Africa have low GNPs anyway, and they're not exactly trying to exert their influence around the world. They're trying to fight AIDS and keep their people fed.
You're not talking about Australia, as they're involved in the Iraq operation and had a military budget of $7.6 billion for 2003-2004.
You're not talking about Asia, as Russia, China and Japan alone had a combined military budget of $154.6 billion.
You're not talking about South America, as Brazil and Argentina alone spent a combined $11 billion on their militaries.
You're obviously not referring to North America, as the US alone spent $399.1 billion dollars last year and is continuing to spend billions more this year.
Maybe you're referring to Europe. Nope, that can't be right. After all, the military budgets of the top four European spenders (Russia not included) add up to $112.2 billion. That's certainly nothing like 0% of GNP. But maybe you were referring to the fact that European forces are never actually fielded in real-world operations.
Wait a minute. They actually ARE fielded in real-world operations. There are German troops in Afghanistan, and Norwegian troops in Afghanistan. There are British troops dying in Iraq and Afghanistan. There are Italian, Portugese, Polish, Ukranian, Dutch, Romanian, Danish, and other European soldiers in Iraq.
Their numbers pale in comparison to the number of American troops, but one wonders if the numbers would be higher had the Bush administration not bullied its allies into acquiescence on Iraq, rather than building a strong coalition the way the first Bush administration did. Perhaps the presence of forces from Germany and France, the most militarily powerful and politically influential of the continental nations, would have changed the overall calculus of the war.
But to say that Europeans are seeking diplomatic relevance without putting forth the force to back it up ignores the fact that many European nations are fielding units in Iraq and Afghanistan, and that many more might have been engaged had it not been for the brain-dead approach taken by the Bush administration.
All budget figures from the Center for Defense Information.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
for a while now i have been thinking about how one could use game engines to teach history - obviously this would only work for teaching about battles, and strategies used, but from what i remember (er..) that still covers a reasonable part of the curriculum.
Most of these were taught to me by scribbling diagrams on a whiteboard, or watching awful made-for-school documentaries from the 80s.
Using an engine like that of the "Total" series of games it would not be hard at all to set up the battles to run as they were fought.
The teacher can spin around, focus on any one part, speed up or slow down time, as well as display basic graphs as to who is winning what and why.
it wouldn't cost much to make - the technology is practically complete already.
training incompetant history teachers to use the software is another matter entirely..
Can anyone confirm what kind of proportion of "battle history" is taught these days?
the most historically-enlightening games i've played have to be the civilization series. for example, i learned that Ghandi was one mean mofo warlord, don't cross him or he'll crush you!
...since so much of history is about the nuances of personality and sheer human perversity, since Computer games really don't convey that aspect very well.
I personally think boardgames - even something as simple as Diplomacy springs to mind - are far more useful in teaching the complexity of human interaction in international diplomacy, for instance.
I very much wish that everyone who wants to spout their opinion about modern statecraft be forced to play a high-stakes game of Empires in Arms all the way through, with multiple players on a side. Suddenly you'll understand why most states are inherently conservative in their decision making and slow to react to world events.
Although I've had intense political discussions in games like VGA Planets, or pretty much any slow-playing, massively multiplayer game.
-Styopa
You make a good point, but let me point out that there are already "realistic and honest depictions." Take for example All Quiet on the Western Front. This book however proved itself to be too realistic and educational for some.
In the times before a country goes to war that book and others like it have been censored by governments worrying that such depictions might distract the populace -- especially the young -- from all the propagandizing and patriotic ferver the government is trying to inculcate in its future soldiers.
I wonder if some countries might at some time start censoring realistic video games for the same reason. It'll be books like the above, movies like Saving Private Ryan, and video games like you describe that will no doubt be censored.
quiquid id est, timeo puellas et oscula dantes.
1) The game rules don't necessarily reflect reality so much as the developer's concept of how things should work. Things that work in reality may not work in the game. Taxation is a good example. In reality, as the tax rate increases, people use more resources trying to comply at the lowest possible cost and so the amount of tax revenue doesn't grow as fast as one would like. In many games this is handled simplistically, with a higher rate giving you coorespondingly higher revenue. If there are any negative consequences, it is usually something like increased unrest rather than decreased production.
Similarly, reducing the tax rate in the real world tends to increase tax revenue because there is less incentive to hide your income in tax shelters, and the reduced cost of compliance, along with the reduced tax rate, tends to stimulate economic activity. In most games, this merely results in a decreased revenue.
2) Games which lets the player have incredible control over the country he runs distorts the reality behind politics and governments. In many games there is little real difference between how dictatorships and democracies are run. Some games may increase unrest in the democratic countries when the citizens are calculated to disagree with the present policy (or something like that), but otherwise the underlying assumption is that the head of state has complete control of the country. This is especially bad in games where the player decides what industry should be producing, and games where the player actually trades goods to other countries rather than, say, making high-level trade agreements with those countries.
I'm not saying that these games have no value in teaching history, but their simplistic rules (compared to reality), their political bias and the player's ability to control every aspect of the country would definitely need to be considered by the instructor.
Are we to just leap from our mother's womb fully formed and reasonable? Are we expected to extract the necessities of sense and reason from the world through instinct?
People are not innately capable of comprehending the present world and society. At some point they must be taught the basics of reason from which all other things flow.
They need to be taught the basics of reason, and rhetoric to enable them to converse with others to discover for themselves the necessity of critical thinking. For if a people can converse rationally, knowledge will spread, and ignorance will shrink, as each applies reason to the suppositions of others and accept what is reasonable, and reject fallacy.
I find it ironic the similarities in the current "education" present in schools with the "mis-education" of women rennounced by Wollstonecraft. With an enfeebling education that relies on blind acceptance of "facts," it is no wonder that our society is a herd of sheep. We live in a society where most can read and write, but few are literate!
</rant>
Anyway...Don't be so harsh on him. Education as exists today (with a few fortunate exceptions) is completely useless. Education should teach you *how* to think, not *what* to think. Since they're teaching you *what* to think, it's completely worthless.
Gone are the days (if they ever existed) where teacher and student are thought of as equals (save the teacher's superior knowledge and experience) and left to pound out the the truth from raw datum. Today the teacher is always right (and if the student thinks otherwise then we have a "behavior problem")...
Oregon Trail emphasized proper use of resources and knowledge of geography. Video games could be used to further education. People had their doubts about music as an educational tool as well. Two words for them: Schoolhouse Rock. I still remember most of the songs. If done with the proper blend of entertainment (or replay value in the case of games) and educational content, it could work very well.
0x03 is a magic number.
-deac
the deacon...that's all you need to know for now
I learned a heck of a lot from "Where in Time is Carmen Sandiego", which came with it's own 1-volume "pocket encyclopedia". Hours of edutainment, even though it was in glorious CGA :)
Also in school we played the Apple II-based "Cross Country Canada", in which you had to drive a semi-truck across the country, picking up loads, delivering them, finding optimal routes for the time alotted, etc (so great for geography, basic economics - buying and selling). Also "Lemonade Stand" for the Apple II was a lot of fun as well (basic economics).
Gold Rush, from Sierra, was a great game where you played a guy leaving his home in Brooklyn to go to California for the gold-rush in 1848. It was a great game that taught about lots of things in 1848.
The game was not totally historically accurate, however it is the type of game where you still learn a lot and the inaccuracies can be easily explained. For example, in the game its your brother who discovers the gold; at the end of the game you and your brother strike it rich. In real life the man who is credited with discovering gold didn't find a second piece of gold. This kind of inaccuracy doesn't take away from learning about how people lived in the 1840s, or how they travelled west.
The major drawback of this game is that, like any other Sierra quest game, it takes hours to beat and the puzzles are usually not obvious. Good historical knowledge doesn't necessarily help you advance in the game. However, these deficiencies can be addressed if the game was re-done with "history-lesson" in mind. Student activities could include writing about how the game deviates from reality, and why they think that is.
However, I think that using games, even one as good as Gold Rush was, as an educational tool is inappropriate in most circumstances. Once in a while, it may be worthwhile, and games that educate as well as entertain are certainly good for a student's spare time, but I think a teacher should be able to keep children engaged in a history lesson without making them play games all day.
Did some one already mention ....
....
http://www.socialimpactgames.com
It has
OldHawk777
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?
I worked at MIT last summer in the Games to Teach project. Several games were in development, one of which was Civ III mod that made it more historically accurate. Unfortunately, that never was able to be created due to funding problems (Microsoft ditched us - slashdot bashing anticipated). Also of note was the beginnings of Revolution (briefly mentioned in the article). I am unaware about its current state, but at the point I left, it was to be a total conversion of Neverwinter Nights.
Most of the games were targeted at a middle school level, where the amount of detail in lessons is normally quite low. In this case, the games would be quite useful. For example, a Civilization style game could help provide an overview of events over a wide period of time, while holding the students attention. Other types of games could be used for more in-depth studies. Revolution, for example, had each student play as a person living in a town in the late 1700s. They would experience scripted events based on the actual causes of the revolutionary war. (this may have changed since last summer)
With that said, Fraser portrays Brown (here) as dedicated to his cause and not as bad as his detractors state, but still an absolute nutjob (a messianic one, too, if I recall the novel correctly). He (Fraser) meticulously researched everything and provides copious footnotes. If he mischaracterized Brown, it was because of the source material, not out of some personal agenda. After all, he wasn't at Harpers Ferry and neither was Loewen or you or I.
Your statement "I rather someone learnt no history than the wrong history," has merit, but it disturbs me nonetheless. History is not a monolithic set of facts and dates, but a living, breathing animal. As time goes on, interpretations of events change. As more data/evidence is uncovered, the the very nature of those events may be proven to be somewhat or perhaps entirely (as you posit with Brown) different that what was believed before. To throw out the Flashman series, one of the most educational and most readable bodies of literature I've ever seen because of one possible flaw (even a major one) is foolish. To catagorize it as being poorly researched is simply misinformed.
Here is what I propose: I've heard about Lies My Teacher Told Me for a while and I've meant to pick up it for a while. While it'll probably be enlightening, at this moment I still think Brown was a loon. I'm willing to give Loewen a shot at convincing me otherwise.
With that said, why don't you swing by the library and grab one of the Flashman books? You appear to enjoy history and I'd wager you'll get to like Fraser's stuff. If Brown is a sore point, steer clear of Flashman & the Angel of the Lord, as that is the novel where our antihero finds himself in the middle of Harper's Ferry, despite his best efforts to hide out in a brothel and miss all the action.
I told you Flashman was a scoundrel... ;)
"Prepare for the worst - hope for the best."
what happens when you make the allies fail on D-day?
Being modded 'Flamebait' means somebody has written one of two things:
1. Something Vile and Wrong designed to piss people off.
2. Something Upsetting and True designed to make people stop lying to themselves.
If I'm vile and wrong, tell me why you think so. If I've upset you, then ask yourself, "Why?" If you are way ahead of me, then please pardon my post, and Cheers to you!
-FL
Just so you'll know, I metamodded the Flamebait mod as Unfair. This was a good comment and should not have been suppressed.
Educational video games are always boring... and partonising. "Well done kiddies, you know how to count to 10!!" o.O
If they did that in my school, i'd probably switch onto miniclip while the teacher isnt looking. Like I'm on Slashdot while the teacher isnt looking.
---
I'm sympathetic to this concept in theory, but it seems to me that the United States recently invaded Iraq due purely to the motivations of and manipulations by a very small number of individuals. They may have rallied others to the cause, but without them no Iraq war.
Quasi-Disclaimer: I know one of the Muzzy Lane principals, but I haven't seen the game. I also know my 3rd grader would love to try it, as he's already hooked on XConq, FreeCiv, C-Evo, and Populous (on the old SNES!).
Cheers,
Richard