Towards Gaming in the Classroom

[Brundlefly]

On February 20th of this year, an article by the Education reporter for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel was published on the publication`s website. Some academics say video games might provide lessons for teachers on how to captivate students and make learning interesting, Amy Hetzner writes. One of the games studied for the piece was Civilization III. Kurt Squire, an assistant professor in the School of Education at University of Wisconsin-Madison, is the one who specifically took this title on. What he found in doing so, according to Hetzner, is that [s]tudents learned how resources affected civilizations in the past, why colonizations occurred and that they had to do research to succeed in the game.

This is a thread for comments about the most recent Civ3 News Item, "Towards Gaming in the Classroom".

I wonder what the kids reaction was when they learned that a spearman could defeat a tank...

[Rasputin]

never had a spearmen beat a tank yet !!

[Aqualung71]

A spearman can't beat a tank. You must be imagining things

[Plotinus]

Maybe discussion of these things in the classroom will see an eventual end to people claiming that highly developed nations have never fought poorly developed ones, or talking about that mysterious historical character "Napolean", the strange political doctrine of "facism", or believing that every country has a "capitol"...

[LzPrst]

I learned lots from computer games. old classics like caesar2 has tons of historical info on every building, god, soldiers and lots of other stuff about the roman empire. also IIRC conquest of the new world had little bits of historical info etc fed to you every turn. And all civ games have extensive encyclopedia functions on units, wonders, improvements etc. Civ 3 is probably the most extensive. I nearly cried when I read how the Mausoleum of Mausollos was destroyed. It displays human nature so simply and nakedly that it can make you nautios...

[LzPrst]

And just for the record this is my 300th post! And monday was my 3rd year anniversary here at Apolyton, YEAY!!!

[Mad Bomber]

Personally,I think the idea a good one. It can be used to expain realpolitik, and can help to put historical events into the 'big picture' view of our world. The one thing that a teacher would have a hard time trying to explain is how a nuclear war could increase global warming

LzPrst:

Congrats on 300, only 700 more and you are a King. At your current rate that would be in 2111. Better get that whip out!

But for now,

[vmxa1]

I was wonder how long before this was mentioned and would it soon lead to happy dances.

[Theseus]

I think this (education, not LzPrst's 300th post (congrats, though)) is awesome. I've been advocating it for quite some time. If it isn't a standard methodology in history / politics / social studies education by the time I have kids, I'll be doing it myself.

Of course, that may make my child, the future Podos POTUS, a bit prone to warmongering as a general solution, but what the heck.

[Solomwi]

Originally posted by Theseus
Of course, that may make my child, the future Podos POTUS, a bit prone to warmongering as a general solution, but what the heck.

Hey, it worked for George H. W. Bush (not a complaint, mind you).

I was recently telling my boss, who has a son about 6 or 7 years old, about CivIII and digressed into how it might be used to spark a kid's interest in history. Heck, it did it for me. I suppose at a certain age, it'd be easy to play the game without realizing it has any historical base, but it only takes a small seed of awareness for the spark to catch.

Of course, you'd have to beware a child turning in a history paper that started off "Crusaders are slow-movers with 5/3/1 A/D/M, and are the only combat unit that can build forts. They are produced by the Knights Templar great wonder, which becomes available with Chivalry."

[Theseus]

Yeah, but that kid would be summa *** laude at AU!

[joncha]

Originally posted by Theseus
Yeah, but that kid would be summa *** laude at AU!

haha... you said "***"

[Solomwi]

LMAO! Apparently the filter has an issue with certain Latin words.

[vmxa1]

Yes it is not smart enough to see some terms as harmless, such as co*ked hat. I used c-o-c-k hammer and got it blanked.

Just a bit too broad a filter.

[Rasputin]

filter jsut not clever enough to work out the context of the word .