Teaching History In Schools With Video Games 364
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.'"
Well... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Well... (Score:5, Interesting)
You know, Oregon Trail and the like. Not just pictures, and there weren't quizzes. Just lots of history and geography...and consumer economics.
You left out the best part... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:The Bible thumping children... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The Bible thumping children... (Score:3, Funny)
"I'm really hoping to get my Jesusaur enough experience to evolve into Saviortron."
Also:
"Abihu, I choose you!"
Re:The Bible thumping children... (Score:3, Funny)
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.
Re:The Bible thumping children... (Score:3, Insightful)
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
That reminds me (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:That reminds me (Score:2, Funny)
Re:That reminds me (Score:4, Informative)
So get an emulator, that's what I did.
It is amazing playing all the neat games I played as a kid, only now I get 16 colors instead of just 3.
Personally I recommend AppleWin [google.com] for those using evil err Windows OS. I'm sure there are emulators out there for Linux, but I've been too lazy thus far to find and install them.
After you have an emulator all you need is a ROM for Oregon Trail [google.com] and then have lots of fun contributing to the total extermination of the Buffalo, Deer, and small rodents across our great nation.
Re:That reminds me (Score:3, Funny)
Those were the days...
Oregon Trail was good... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:That reminds me (Score:5, Funny)
(This guy in TFA seems to get that. They don't call him Mr. McCool for nothing)
I loved the game, but honestly, I learned nothing about the Oregon trail from except that shooting bears is easier than shoot rabbits. And little sisters get sick and die a lot.
Of course (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Of course (Score:5, Interesting)
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.)
So... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:So... (Score:2)
Re:So... (Score:2)
Carmen Sandiego? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Carmen Sandiego? (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Carmen Sandiego? (Score:2, Interesting)
Yes, IWantMoreSpamPlease, "Where in Hell [apple2.org.za] is Carmen Sandiego" really does exist. Blows my mind, thought the hardcore Apple ][ geek who told me about it was pulling my leg.
Re:Carmen Sandiego? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Carmen Sandiego? (Score:2)
Re:Carmen Sandiego? (Score:3, Interesting)
jason
But it was still cool at the time.
And yes, I sing barbershop.
How could you tell?
Re:Carmen Sandiego? (Score:2)
Sri Lanka (Score:2)
Hit it Rockapella!
Oregan Trail... (Score:2)
--
New deal processing engine online: http://www.dealsites.net/livedeals.html [dealsites.net]
Learned more history from books than class (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Learned more history from books than class (Score:2)
Age of Empires historical campaigns anyone?
Re:Learned more history from books than class (Score:2)
Re:Learned more history from books than class (Score:5, Interesting)
empires are what drives scientific advance because at the geographical heart of the empire there is peace for scientists to study and research.
Re:Learned more history from books than class (Score:2)
I learned (and still remember) more about history from all the historical fiction books I've read than I ever will from history classes.
I learned a lot about the 20th century from Our Dumb Centry [amazon.com] by The Onion [theoinion.com]. No joke, you can really get a fairly decent overview from the satire. The moon landing story is especially funny.
Obligatory Simpsons quote... (Score:5, Funny)
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!"
OT Great Historical Fiction - Flashman! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Learned more history from books than class (Score:5, Insightful)
Funny, back when I was studying history, I made a point to avoid reading historical fiction.
The problem is that unless the author has a really good grasp of the history in question and the ability to understand and overcome the prejudices of his own time, those modern prejudices inevitably will distort the history being related in the author's fiction.
Or more concisely, as an English professor once put it to our class, all fiction, regardless of its setting, is about (the issues of) its own time.
Let me make this more concrete with a thought experiment involving not history, but science fiction. You're probably not a vegan, and you probably don't consider meat-eaters to be morally flawed.
Now imagine that, two hundred years from now, everyone is a vegan vegetarian -- and that they grew up the children and grandchildren of vegans, the result of a bloody war begun in 2161 to abolish meat eating. Imagine further that although the vegetarians did win that war, for decades after the war, the resentful losing meat-eaters did their best to surreptitiously continue meat eating, until the vegetarians responded by becoming strict vegans and changing the culture by teaching the moral wrongness of meat eating or any sort of animal exploitation in all the schools.
So two hundred years from now, every school child is taught in elementary school the horrors of the farm and slaughterhouse, and about the valiant war that put an end to the holocausts that supplied the meat aisles of the grocery stores, and the bottom line, that meat eating was not a choice, not just an inefficient allocation of scarce resources, but a disgusting moral wrong.
Now that school child, when he thinks about life in 2004, will find it puzzling, at best, how the vast majority of Americans of our time could go to McDonald's and casually enjoy the results of the abuse, murder, and consumption of an innocent animal. Only the thoughtful children will even get to "puzzled"; most will simply dismiss us as brutes and barbarians.
And the historical novelist of two hundred years from now, who will himself be a confirmed vegan, will write books that, consciously or not, incorporate his moral belief that exploiting animals is wrong, and will tend to cast his sympathetic characters as vegans, or at least as holding vegan attributes, or anachronistically treating their pets as co-equal "animal companions", all out of proportion to the actual number of strict vegans in the real america of 2004.
Just substitute "abolitionist" for "vegetarian" and "Civil Rights supporter" for vegan" in the above, and you'll have an understanding of how difficult it is to write honest historical novels about slavery and racism in America in 1804. In 1804, slavery was considered by some to be a moral wrong (just as some today are vegans), but the vast majority saw it as a political problem or even as a natural way of life endorsed by the Bible. Even of those who in 1804 were against slavery ("vegetarians"), only a very very few believed in racial equality ("vegans"); perhaps the closest they came were proposals to forcibly send ex-slaves back to Africa.
Even those who were ardent supporters of slavery were not necessarily judged to be immoral men for it, unless they seemed to take unnecessary pleasure in being cruel to their slaves; and many slave owners were -- and are -- considered to be great mean -- among them George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.
But since the Civil War and the messy, inconclusive aftermath that was Reconstruction and the Jim Crow Era, Americans have made racism -- and by extension, slavery -- into a moral issue that transcends all others. Nowadays, nearly the worst thing you can accuse a public figure of is racism -- only sex crimes against children are more inflammatory.
The result is that mo
Civ would've made school more interesting (Score:2)
Re:Civ would've made school more interesting (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Civ would've made school more interesting (Score:3, Insightful)
Not nessecarily. The tank can defeat a large number of spearmen, but it's all a distant abstraction of combat. In reality, that tank would need to be refueled each day, while the primitive troops can go for weeks without eating. Tank's can't kill infantry effectively- they can break them out of fortifications and drive them into hiding, but that's all.
If the tanks are surrounded by hidden enemies, the risk of one of the
Civ screwed up my sense of history! (Score:2, Funny)
This all reminds me of Kim Stanley Robinson's alternate-world-history, The Years of Rice and Salt [salon.com].
That said, playing the game taught me a hell of a lot about organization, being a naturally-disorg-ey person.
Today's lesson... (Score:4, Funny)
"Okay class, if you'll click on the GTA3 icon on your desktop, we'll begin."
Re:Today's lesson... (Score:2)
'Say hello to my little friend!'
Medieval Total War (Score:5, Insightful)
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!
Re:Medieval Total War (Score:2)
Re:Medieval Total War (Score:3, Insightful)
For a book that explores why Western Europeans ended up being so successful, I would highly recommend Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond. Geography plays a big part in his argument, but not
Civ (Score:5, Funny)
... 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!
Dad responds with.... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Civ (Score:2, Interesting)
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.
Re:Civ (Score:2)
If such people would "play games" (actually, "simulations"), they might learn how impotent that combination is. Instead, they persist
Which contintent are you talking about? (Score:3, Informative)
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 talk
Wed Night Prod Push (Score:2, Insightful)
Seriously, there should be AT LEAST a development server, integration server, and staging server before hitting the production server. Its pathetic how unprofe
Cool! (Score:5, Funny)
World History UT2004.
for math, maybe, for history? no way (Score:2, Insightful)
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 ident
As long as they do post-mortems. (Score:2, Interesting)
that's just your opinion... (Score:2)
what about math? (Score:2)
(btw, i'm not dissing math, i'm just saying what most people find)
Noahs Arc 3D (Score:2, Interesting)
http://diehardwolfers.areyep.com/bunker/noahark.h
One of the best educational games... (Score:2)
interesting (Score:2)
However, it should not replace teaching and additional supplementation with books (and perhaps Discovery Channel).
Difficult to say... (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Civilization, Skewed? (Score:2)
It was also a great geography lesson, and learning about cultures. It was important
Try Europa Universalis II or Victoria (Score:5, Informative)
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).
Re:Difficult to say... (Score:5, Interesting)
I want to make concise valid points here w/o being trollish.. please bear with me...
It can be argued just as successfully (maybe more so) that history classes do not teach you to think critically and analytically about history.
A few examples: My history classes taught me that Johnny Appleseed was a hero who spread food to the pioneers. In actuality he was their only provider of alcohol. He died in rags but he was filthy rich due to all the real estate claims he owned. He didn't care a bit about wealth and his apples were 99.9% inedible as food. He cared about exploring and getting people drunk. We never learned that.
We also never learned that founding fathers slept with their slaves and grew pot and would scoff at the idea of women voting.
My history classes did me a disservice. Pilgrims did not eat Butterball turkeys. The Civil War wasn't really about slavery. On and on and on. I learned a horribly skewed version of history simply through ommision and candy coating. No computer required.
Oh but we did memorize a litany of dates. Because that's what history is in school, memorizing dates. "Columbus sailed the Ocean blue in 1492 because he had nothin better to do" Actually he sailed the ocean blue because the king of Spain wanted to get him away from the Queen!
If educational games can do anything to help kids understand what it was like to actually live in the past then I think that's wonderful. If it gets them to ask questions instead of memorize dates then it's a blazing success.
This comes from the anecdotal evidence of a former B student in high school history though so take it with a modicum of salt.
Re:Difficult to say... (Score:5, Insightful)
There are exceptions of course, but grade school and high school history in America often have little to do with teaching students to think critically about history and to ask difficult questions. History for kids is one of the most politicized subjects, if not the very most. School districts and parents argue that their kids should learn the nice, happy stories they were taught, which have nice morals to them and make us better people.
Of course, much of what you're reciting above is the same thing - essentialized stories, this time designed to refute the old stories. Any time history is about neat little stories, whether positive or negative, it's not getting anywhere. History as a field explores questions and is meant to be argumentative, not narrative. There are no neat, tidy answers that don't essentialize the problem to such an extent as to lose meaning.
Let me give a quick (shabby) example: most grade schools teach that the Civil War was about southern slaveholders who wanted to have slaves. The North protested, and the Northerners fought a holy war to free the slaves. Separately, the traditional southern story of the War Between the States teaches that Southerners were upset that a Federal government was telling them what to do. The war was about states' rights, not slavery. The northerners forced unfair government on the South.
Well, I could say that both of these stories are false, and I would be fairly accurate. However, it's not useful simply to say they are false. The point is, both stories have some elements of truth to them, but the problem is far more complex. Was slavery a central issue? Sure. Was States' rights a central issue? Yes. It also had a bit to do with how people interpreted the founding documents of the United States, and how they viewed the struggle that had been the American Revolution. It was tied up in the fact that the United States were expanding rapidly, and the new states had no stake in the original compromises that had brought about the Constitution. It had a lot to do with the death of an old political party (the Whigs) and the birth of a new one (the Republicans). The reality is, the war came about thanks to a whole lot of factors, and every individual involved had a different way of interpreting what it was about.
One of the interesting questions that emerges from this is, what caused individuals to view the Civil War the way they viewed it? How could two brothers, living in the same city with the same upbringing, come to opposite conclusions about the war and fight on opposite sides? What was at stake for these people, and why did they view the struggle as something worth dying for? How were these many and varied views and opinions united into armies, and how did those in power (journalists, politicians, etc) appeal to people about the war? What does this tell us about Modernity and the emergence of print culture in the middle of the 19th Century?
These are the types of questions that professional historians ask (though I'm a European historian, so I may be ten years out of date on what questions are hot right now on the American Civil War). These questions cannot be addressed by a video game, and they're rarely addressed by grade schools, high schools, or popular history in general.
I'm a bit skeptical (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:I'm a bit skeptical (Score:5, Insightful)
History is... (Score:5, Insightful)
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....
Re:History is... (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re:History is... (Score:5, Funny)
Been reading any Isaac Asimov [wikipedia.org] books lately?
OMG! (Score:2)
Or am I the only one going "yeah, duh?"
Not the solution (Score:2)
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
Re:Not the solution (Score:3, Informative)
Learning isn't something that just happens, you know. Skills don't increase on their own just by going to class. You have to take responsibility for that. Don't blame your teachers because your writing skills didn't increase. If you were writing well enough, in 9th grade, to get A's in every English
It takes a man named "Mr. McCool" (Score:5, Funny)
"Learn the presidents" game (Score:5, Funny)
Re:"Learn the presidents" game (Score:4, Insightful)
Why do I also have a feeling that the most of the rest of the world would pitch in for said company's legal defense fund? *grin*
absolutely correct (Score:2)
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.
You know... (Score:2)
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
Computers or books, it's the Content that matters (Score:2)
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.
Yellow River Kingdom? (Score:2)
Non-traditional educational games (Score:2)
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
Target audience (Score:2)
Europa Universalis (Score:3, Informative)
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=15Axis and Allies (Score:2)
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 educatio
Computer games and The Alamo (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Europa Universalis II (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Worked for me (Score:5, Interesting)
Educational games, but to what end? (Score:4, Funny)
Problematic (a historian's favorite word) at best (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
The interest in history must come first (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:The interest in history must come first (Score:3, Informative)
MT
Heh. (Score:3, Funny)
Other than that, though, I think I mostly got incorrect information from games.
Ordinary persons? (Score:3, Insightful)
Shouldn't it also be possible to play the wife of the Czech factory worker caught up in the middle of it all?
I'm not sure video games are the right venue... (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Fundamental flaws in historical games (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Sierra On-Line's Gold Rush (Score:3, Informative)
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.
MIT (Score:3, Informative)
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)
Re:This could be useful. (Score:2)
Too bad Sim Earth hasn't had a remake. That would be awesome for teaching geology and evolutionary biology.
And of course, a modified Scorched Earth will teach all you need to know about ballistic kinematics.
what if? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:what if? (Score:2)
Re:Nintendo's work in educational games in China (Score:3, Informative)
Anyone who doesn't know this guy yet, read his post history, or check here [google.com]. Known troll who always falsely claims to be working at Nintendo, Sega, etc.