Seven Questions to Ask Before Using a Video Game In the Classroom

Today is the first day of school for most public districts in Texas. With that in mind, I’d like to offer seven important questions teachers should ask before using any videogame in the classroom. This list is based in part on a paper I delivered to the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT), 2005 Convention.

1. Is the game’s cognitive load appropriate for your students? Many simple edutainment titles are aimed at younger audiences. Consequently, these titles are often inappropriate for older students, who will find them less of a challenge and potentially insulting to their intelligence. Conversely, modifications of such titles as those in the Neverwinter Nights series, or the Civilization series, might be beyond the abilities of younger audiences.
2. Is the game easily modifiable? Many educational games on the market offer no capabilities for modification, giving teachers a “what you see is what you get” approach. Some games might have a higher level of adaptability for classroom use. For instance, a foreign language teacher can run a copy of The Sims 2 on her classroom computer and simply change the operating language, offering an instant immersive language environment for her students. Ideally, however, a game can be easily modified by the teacher, so that he can insert whatever objectives are needed into the gaming environment. Such modifications are more difficult and time consuming but doable, as seen in several examples for the Neverwinter Nights engine and Second Life.
3. Does the game align with your standards (local, state, national)? Fortunately this question is increasingly being addressed by educational video game companies, as they realize that the purchasing of their titles in large quantities by schools largely hinges on this question. Look at the excellent job Tabula Digita is doing making sure their math games are aligned with state and national standards. Hopefully the company selling the product has already done the alignment for you, however your job as a teacher will be to make sure you know where the product lines up with the standards you are responsible for teaching. If nobody has done that previously, chance are good you will have to do it yourself if you need to justify using the game in your classroom to parents and administrators.
4. Can the game present useful outcomes within a short time period? Class periods are generally short. Time spent on any lesson is perforce brief. Many excellent video games with learning potential are hugely complex and take hours to complete. However, you have just minutes in your class to drive home a point or two. Therefore you will need to eschew games that take an inordinate amount of time to develop their pedagogical points. Also, setting up a game and getting students going takes additional time, whether in a lab, on laptops, or on classroom computers. Setup and shutdown times will decrease the available minutes students can spend on the game and its learning objectives.
5. Does the game train or teach? This is a critical difference classroom teachers need to fully understand. Most “serious games,” as they are commonly called, train players in something. This training may involve safety practices, industrial techniques, machinery operation, or a host of other skills. Academic games aligned to state standards will focus on testable outcomes and high stakes exams. Most teachers will not want to deviate from the standards they are required to teach, or at least have a ready explanation as to how the game is germane to their subject matter. For instance, a geometry teacher could certainly justify using a game that involves creating floor plans; a history teacher can find plenty of justification for the many Civilization mods out there; and a language arts teacher can justify the typing and reading involved in most any higher level game. Regardless, if a game actively seeks to teach academic content, its appropriateness for the classroom will naturally rise above a rival game designed more for work skill enhancement.
6. Does the game track player progress? Videogames that keep track of the progress your students make will lift that burden off your shoulders. Ideally the game will offer reporting functions on each student so you can easily track their progress, and perhaps suggest remedial actions or advanced activities if a student is behind or ahead of the norm.
7. Are the graphics and gaming quality on par with contemporary entertainment titles? It is certainly possible to buy educational games which fall far below the expectations of students used to higher quality offerings. Since studies show that nearly two-thirds of all households play videogames, it behooves us to use quality games in the classroom since our students will likely be used to high standards. It’s always good to pilot test any particular title with students you trust. If they like the game, it’s probably worth the investment to outfit a school computer lab or buy a site license. Dr. Brian Woodfield over at BYU noted how a teacher set up Virtual ChemLab on one machine in the back of her classroom, which eventually led to the school purchasing a site license. I do mini-studies with my own kids from time to time. Also, my paper on assessing higher order thinking in videogames might help pinpoint the pedagogical potential of games with which you are unfamiliar.

In conclusion, any classroom intervention is worth serious consideration beforehand. Hopefully, these seven questions will help steer you toward quality products. Educational videogames are strong tools for teaching in the classroom. Judicious selection of appropriate titles may result in many positive results.

References:
Rice, J. (2005). Evaluating the suitability of video games for k-12 instruction. Paper presented to the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT), 2005 International Convention, Orlando, FL.

CFP: Computer Games & Their Applications

The following call for papers was shared by Rosario De Chiara over at Universita’ degli Studi di Salerno, Italy.

Computer Games and their applications (CGa)The industry of computer games is a flourishing reality since several

decades. Several issues on their future are going to be presented and

discussed at the symposium since the availability of hardware and

software platforms is widening their use, breadth, capabilities and

(of course) impact on increasingly large audiences. Moreover, computer

games engines offer, nowadays, also a mature environment for non-ludic

applications that can leverage on their graphical capabilities to

offer interactive virtual environments for educational applications.

The advantage is that the overall result is available on standard PCs,

that make any result immediately available to a large audience.

The interest of the research in non-ludic applications is witnessed by

the rapidly growing industry that features the use of interactive

games technology within non-entertainment sectors; the trend is

showing an organized industry of developers using cutting-edge

entertainment technologies to solve problems in areas as diverse as

education, health-care, national defense, homeland security,

analytics, corporate management and more. Several commercial games are

used for purposes that are not entertainment related, such as SimCity

and Civilization, but many titles are built with an educational

purpose in mind, such as Virtual University, 3D Driving Academy etc.

We want to provide an opportunity to researchers in the field to

discuss and present their research. The objective of the symposium is

to cover state-of-the-art results, present and discuss key research

issues and outline future directions of computer games and their

applications in any field, not necessarily bound to entertainment. The

setting of the symposium would encourage and stimulate discussions

among the researchers and the audience.

Papers presenting original research within the theme of "Computer

Games and their applications" are being sought. Suggested topics

include (but are not limited to):

    * Exploring new game genres for future Games

    * Exploring new hardware (Multicore-CPU, GPU, Cell) for future Games

    * Development tools and techniques for games

    * Games and Accessibility

    * Educational games

    * Game-engine based reconstruction of cultural heritage

    * Game-based Policy/management environment

    * Authoring environment

    * Game-engine based cooperative multi-user environment

    * Game-based application for Public-health

    * Games in the mobile and ubiquitous setting

    * Location-based games

IMPORTANT DATES:

Submissions due:         March 15, 2007

Important Dates:         <http://www.graphicslink.co.uk/IV07/DATES.htm>

Camera-ready:            April 20, 2007 (accepted submissions)

Teaching Ancient Roman History with Civilization IV

On the heels of my post about using Civilization for teaching history (which garnered a lot more hits than I expected … thanks GameCulture!), Dr. Shawn Graham contacted me about his personal experiences using Civilization IV in teaching his distant students in classical history online.

Graham crafted a scenario in Civ IV focusing on AD 69, the year after Nero’s assassination. This became known as The Year of the Four Emperors, as rivals across the empire made a lunge for power. Graham used the Ancient Mediterranean Mod map, then used the UN mod in place of the Roman Senate. Players can re-write history in the game by choosing a faction then leading their emperor to “victory” through defeating the other sides or forging an alliance.

Most interestingly, he documented the use of his scenario in his WebCT course with students spread across Canada. First, the game threw historically unrealistic curveballs, such as Vespasian consistently converting to Judaism. Another was the anachronism of the UN governing in Ancient Rome (this was modified with a hack shared with Graham by the members of the Civ modding community … the UN became the Roman Senate, in name at least, following the hack).

So, Graham threw out the idea to his students, suggesting they could optionally play through his scenario in lieu of writing an end of course essay:

Play a game, or write an essay? I figured it would be a no-brainer. Now of course, not everyone had a copy of the game, and I couldn’t force them to buy it. There were a number though who did have a copy, and they gave it a try. The response was…. well, you know that odd uncle you have, who turns up at family gatherings, and every one tries to humour him without causing too much disruption? It was something like that. “I enjoyed it Sir, it really made me think differently about what was going on in AD69… but if it’s alright with you, I’d rather write an essay” was a typical response.

The problem, Graham realized, was a lack of understanding what the expectations were for playing through a videogame for a grade versus writing the traditional essay. Expectations for essays were known factors … expectations for playing through a scenario in Civilization were not. For future endeavors, Graham plans to spell out expectations for the videogame option much more explicitly.

All told, Graham’s experiences are very interesting. You can download his scenario from PlanetCivilization here. You can follow his ongoing research on simulating Roman archaeology over at University of Manitoba here. Finally, his most excellent blog, covering online education, educational gaming, using Civ IV for educational purposes, and other interesting items, is here.

Civilization Mods for Teaching History

Want to use Sid Meier’s Civilization video game series for history and social studies in the classroom? Why reinvent the wheel when these two sites provide all you need for successfully incorporating a unit on history through playing Civilization.

The first site is called CivWorld, and is based over at U. Wisconsin. Kurt Squire’s dissertation centered on researching the uses of Civilization within educational environments. The site offers a host of mods for teaching from AD 100 to the Industrial Age, and comes complete with related curriculum.
URL: http://civworld.gameslearningsociety.org/

Our friends north of the border offer the History Canada Game. Here’s a site devoted to Civilization III mods that guide students in Canadian history from 1534 onwards. Players can choose from the British, French, Ojibwe, or Mi’kmaq perspectives. A slew of related resources are also available.
URL: http://www.historycanadagame.com/