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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
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 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)
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.
In catolic School.Now thats some sick stuff.t m
http://diehardwolfers.areyep.com/bunker/noahark.h
I learned everything I need to know about Germans by playing Wolfenstein.
That's actually a good point. These 'games' are great at imparting the creator's bias. It's one of the things I love/hate about 'God Games' (think SimCity tax policy) but it unnerves me when people talk about their educational value.
One safeguard is, of course, open source. It won't get the bias out of the 'games', but at least you can identify it.
(And someone mod parent 'Funny'--the winking emoticon should have been a clue.)
One man's -1 Flamebait is another man's +5 Funny.
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
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...
And this is in opposition to how the real world works or with history??
I think that IF johnny learned about history by experimenting with running or crushing a revolt, and by observing the differences between democracy and despotism that he might be a better citizen.
Food not Bombs is a nice platitude but it breaks down when you notice that the Bombees are usually well fed
But let's not forget Number Munchers!
In the future they'll teach kiddies about 'the bush years' with bushgame ?
\x69 \x68\x69\x64 \x74\x68\x65 \x62\x6f\x64\x69\x65\x73 \x69\x6e \x74\x68\x65 \x66\x72\x65\x65\x7a\x65\x72
History does have predictive value; at least, the real thing tends to. Take Napoleon and Hitler; had Hitler paid any attention to Napoleon's attempt to conquer Russia, he probably wouldn't have tried to do the same thing in the exact same fashion a second time around (with equally bad results) -- some people, such as myself, are quite happy that he screwed up so badly.
Stalin, on the other hand, did pay attention to history; he couldn't get rid of the Greek Orthodox Church (he wanted a totally atheistic state), so he just made them a part of the political structure (thank you, Henry VIII), and then by controlling the church, controlled all the people who wanted to listen to the Church over the State (Stalin).
All of our methods of any sort of prediction do, in fact, rely on history; even science does. The whole concept that the universe tends to behave the same way throughout space and time (homoegenity of space and time) is one of the cornerstones of physics.
The problem lies in revisionist history. Try to use that as a baseline for any sort of prediction, and you'll get garbage, because you put garbage into the front of the equation.
--
I Hit the Karma Cap, and All I Got Was This Lousy
I wish I had mod points for you.
I graduated high school 8th in my class out of a little more than 100, but I feel exactly the same way this guy does. After about 6th or 7th grade, with exception to math, they just keep teaching you the same thing over and over again.
English is a horrible repeat of writing papers every year. My first year in college was exactly the same. I never learned anything new and my paper writing skills never increased after probably 9th grade.
Maybe new things are taught in history, but I'll never remember any of it. It was memorize, ace test, forget what was on test, rinse and repeat. You have to make someone care about history for it to sink into their heads, and frankly I need to worry about now more than back then. I'll never be a king or the President or anything that we're taught about, so how could these situations possibly apply to me? We never learned about recent history that MIGHT apply to us until the end of my senior year, and by then, I was more worried about what sort of prank I could pull at graduation than classes.
At least math had new stuff to it. But most people will never use anything from their math classes in or above Algebra 1.
As for games in the classroom, I doubt it would make much difference. English has no game applications. History would just be a "read the text, click for next scene" type "game." There would be no room for interaction. Math games might be possible but, nothing exciting or that would teach the average student any better.
However, we did play Doom2 in my Cisco Networking class. That was hella fun! But I never did get my CCNA certification. Oh well.
I do remember a game back around 4th or 5th grade that taught map reading skills. You drove around in a car going to different stores. We had printed out maps and drove the car from a first person view. As I turned a corner, I would turn my map so that UP on the map was the same as STRAIGHT on the screen. My teacher was really confused by this.
"This is the right way," she said as she turned my paper so that north pointed up. I then explained to her that it was too confusing that way. That I had to think which was left and which was right, when the way I was doing it was easy to do.
From that day until this day I've always felt superiorly intelligent to my teachers. (Granted I find out I'm wrong sometimes, but not most of the time.)
This was more of a rant than anything but simply put:
Nothing can make education better than getting rid of it can. Hands on experience will always be superior. Not books.
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.
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.
I see where youre coming from, and I agree.
I guess school wasnt exactly the right term, I've taken my GSCEs (got an A in maths btw - among other subjects) and was staying on for 6th form (like college, yet we stay at the high school).
I'm not trying to brag or anything, but throughout school I've been in the top class for all subjects (if not all the time, at least at some point), the only reason I didn't stay in the top classes was because I got bored of the same thing being taught over and over and so didn't bother putting much effort in a lot of the time.
I'm not blaming teachers specifically, since I know they only teach what they have been told to teach, I don't know where to place the blame.. possibly the Government. I just think people should have the choice whether they want to attend school or not, take whatever exams they want, whenever they want (with all the students not attending school it's safe to assume exam costs can be covered by the Government) since for a lot of people school doesn't help - people who want to be a builders for example, dont need to know how to cook a cake, or what the name of the green chemicals in leaves are, they only need to know how to build, maybe some maths.
I see school as more of a prison, people are FORCED to go there day after day, year after year. If people had the choice I think a lot more people would be able to get to the level of experteice they want in a much shorter time.
I guess I'm being kind of hypocritical, since I also think people should be forced to a certain degree, to stop people from not attending at all (I know the vast majority of people would never to go school given the choice), then again they will HAVE to learn something at some point to survive.
Argh, I dunno, my argument is kinda falling to peices, it's a complex matter. I just don't agree with how it works at the minute.
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.