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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
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 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)
"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
-=D34tH_fruM_4B0v3=- just carved up FRANZ_FERDINAND with his green shaft....
:)
World History UT2004.
+5:offtopic,but anti-American
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
Then your teacher could explain how that huy with the spear took out a stealth bomber. You know, just like what heppened in history.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
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.
"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.
..to put games in schools. Now if only their marketing guy ("Mr. McPopular") can convince the principal to buy it.
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
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!"
It was called Bible Adventures.
There were a couple of Jesus freaks in my school and that was the only game they were allowed to play on the NES.
It was AWFUL. You had to collect the animals for Noah's Ark, play as David and beat Goliath, escape from the lion's den I think. Oh and you also had to part the water and escape from Egypt or something.
It was so bad it made baby Jesus cry.
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=15I 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.
Actually, the game wasn't that bad for an NES title, especially considering it was an unlicensed independant game. It had remarkably good graphics and decent gameplay. It was a decent collection of games, with characters from the Bible.
BTW, you didn't part the red sea, the level was about keeping baby moses safe as he crawled across snakepits and stuff - kind of a gyromite thing. IIRC, that is.
I don't know why people who claim to not be religious get so upset about religious themed stuff. I mean whats the difference between a bible story like Noah's Ark and another legend like Hercules, if you dont believe in either?
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
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).
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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.
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.
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"
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.
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.
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)