Bill MacKenty

Technology strengthens, deepens, and broadens our learning...

Another beautiful question:

Hello, I am a fifth grade teacher and would like to use games to help the students learn. My school, though, does not have the resources for computer
based games. I was wondering if their were any simulation board games that I could use. I was thinking something similar to Avalon Hills Blitzkrieg. I
have heard of some that teach the pioneer life. I have been scouring the internet for help but have come up with nothing. I thank you for any help.
Craig

My answer:

Hey Craig!

Nice to meet you.  Actually, board games have more educational value than computer games, in that players often see the mechanics behind game outcomes, whereas computer games people only see outcomes. 

Any teacher can make anything education (almost.) The key thing is to ask the kids to think about what they are doing.  So you can play great games, but if you don’t ask the kids to reflect on the experience, then while minimally educational, they won’t get as much out of it.  I hope this makes sense - it’s the basic “how games in education work” message I’ve been pushing for years now. 

Create essential questions about XYZ. Teach the kids about XYZ, play a board game, reflect on the experience, build assessment tools. This is bread and butter teacher stuff.  The game will get your kids very excited and involved. Make sure they know all the rules, and ask them how this game is (and isn’t) like your topic of study.  Ask them to simulate certain scenarios.

I love that you are looking at war games - fun and exciting. Here’s a list I think you can use with 5th graders:

1. Diplomacy
2. Axis and Allies (there are different theaters - all work)
3. Risk

There are more, of course - but as long as you use strong instructional design, you’ll be fine.

Good luck, and please keep me in the loop.

Mental note to self: ffmpegx is yummy good for converting stuff.

Went to an interesting meeting today.  We are trying to create a system that will let our students register for their AP exams.  With over 500 students eligible to take the exam, the old “turn in a paper application” thing isn’t really working. We have billing, test assignment, and room assignment to think about. 

We hobbled a solution together last year, which involved using a web-based survey tool and then exporting the results to excel, where we were able to sort and sift through the data.  Still, though, registration is more “databasey than spreadsheety”, especially when we think about all the different ways we need to query the data (select all the kids who havent paid their bills and are taking more than 4 exams).  I suggested we use our school website CMS, Expression Engine. It is perfect for this, with a registration system, member tools, and good tools for building forms and input validation. It is built on a mySQL database, and allows for custom queries, so I thought it would be perfect.  I actually built a registration system for our school science fair using expression engine, and it works like a charm. 

My supervisor made an interesting point. “who is responsible for this system?“ She asked.  I paused, and mentally ticking off the major projects I had, and realized that the most efficient system (building my own web-based app) wasn’t necessarily the best choice.  It would be fun, and it would would be an effective solution to the problem. But what about maintaining it? I am already stretched thin, and this project most likely would of been designed and made well, but the organization should spread technical projects around. 

We voted to give this project to our DBA, with some front-end help from me.  Interesting project, actually. 

I love the questions people send me (hint, hint, send more). This one came from an old friend:

The Topic:  Is Wikipedia a reliable source?  Is it as reliable as something like Britanica.com?

The Answer: Sort of. Tell your kids to treat wikipedia as a secondary or tertiary source - not a primary source. The neat thing about wikipedia is the history and discussion about each article. What about a topic is being debated? How is it being debated? how often is the article being edited? What is being edited? It is this characteristic that really makes wikipedia stand up as a great source for student research. I’d say wikipedia is generally as reliable as britanica.com. Most students write about a subject in breadth, not depth, and they need an overview of a topic (for example, they write a 3 page paper about Martin Luther King, not a 30 page paper).

I don’t think most teachers are wise to the “copy from wikipedia and call it my own writing” thing that kids do. We teach internet searching and plagiarism as related topics in our school. It is 2008, and the way our kids think about and access information has changed.

I’m sure you are talking about authoritative sources, and asking “how do we know something is true?“.  We subscribe to several e-databases at our school, and teach our kids to use these as authoritative sources.  We talk about triangulating data - using several different sources to support a point or thesis.  Many teachers I know allow only 1 or 2 wikipedia references, and the rest from other sources (or a ratio, like for every 1 wikipedia source, you should have 4 other sources). 

I usually use wikipedia to get an idea about a topic, and then research the topic further using more conservative or authoritative sources.

part 1  part 2 part 3

We began our explorations of MUSHes today.  In a nutshell, the activity was slightly disappointing, but I learned something important (especially at the end of the class).

We logged into a world war 2 mush and began character generation.  This was the first difference the kids noticed - interactive fiction had no CG and the mud we played had a minimal CG process.  The kids chose skills, attributes, nation of origin, looked at descriptions, and backgrounds. After about 10 minutes of character generation, the kids started to complain “I just want to play!“.

We continued, though, and they enjoyed looking and choosing the skills. There was a very entertaining conversation about flamethrowers. Still, though there was some impatience. They chose complimentary roles they thought would make a good party, and as with other text-based games we have played, they were incredibly excited and interested (but a bit impatient). 

We finally got to the training grounds, and the kids learned the commands for targeting and shooting. This was very different for them, as the combat system worked on a time-based point system (we are on mush, after all). The talk soon turned towards “this is boring” and “when do we get to attack stuff”? One of the kids seemed especially disappointing there wasn’t a flamethrower around for him to use. Heh.

So I realized at this point I had made a mistake. The mush we were on is actually very well designed, and well coded.  The problem was we were trying to play a mush like a mud. With the kids becoming exasperated, I told them we were going to role play new privates in the army during world war 2. We had already gone through character generation, so the kids had a sense of their character.  I taught them how to pose, and we discussed our pose order, and we got started.

The complaining immediately stopped, the room became quiet, and the conversation began! The kids were acting like solders, and having a blast. They were in-character, and acting like, well, new recruits. They responded to each other in character and were having fun.

I told them we might play a “pure rp” mush next week, and I apologized to them. They were quite understanding. They remain very excited about making their own game. We are going to explore how different games are made over the next few weeks before settling on a specific text-based domain.

part 1  part 2

We started our exploration of MUD’s today (specifically, we played legend mud).  We talked about the similarities and differences between interactive fiction and MUDS. We used Atlantis client to connect. 

After a brief character generation process, we settled into the game - the syntax and milieu was familiar to the kids, save the “real time” aspect of muds.  We noted the status (HP, MP and MV) and looked at SCORE, STAT, and other MUD commands. We put our party in a group and started with small MOB’s like rats, toads and snakes.

The excitement was palpable as the combat started - experience points started flowing into our group and each combat was followed by a period of rest as we waitied for our hit points to regenerate. It wasn’t long before we ended up in a swamp, and encountered something (I forget the name) but it ended in a total party wipe.  Humbled, we restarted and continued our adventures. Again, I was struck with their enthusiasm and excitement. These kids were (not literally) glued to the screen, laughing, jumping out of their seats and carefully coordinating their attacks. A snippet:

Student 1: ok. Everyone type attack toad, but DONT PUSH ENTER!
Student 2: ok
Student 3: where is the d key? oh yea. ok!
Student 4: ready!
Student 1: ok! now!

(The poor toad never had a chance)

The time went quickly and with 5 minutes left, we debriefed.  Again, we discussed the differences between MUDs and interactive fiction. We talked about making a text based game, and they were full of questions; how long does it take? Can I make a mud? I want to make a mud like our school! Is it difficult? They seem especially interested in making their own game…I warned them that making a game takes a long time.

I told them we still need to explore the MUSH family of games (there is a world war II mush I might take them to in a few weeks) and then we will decide what kind of game we will make.  I reminded them about the differences between single player and multiplayer, and I told them I knew more about mushing and interactive fiction than mudding, but if they really wanted to make a mud, I’d learn with them.

Next week, we will continue to play this mud, and I’ll start looking for a decent mush.