Halo 2 and your 3rd period class

Sylvia and I have been emailing back and forth about video games, mostly because I've been bugging her. My vision, unfulfilled so far, is to have my students create a working video game simulation of The Grapes of Wrath.

Why?

First, a slew recent books have convinced me that video games represent an evolution in thinking about motivation and how we learn. Steven Johnson's Everything Bad is Good for you, argues that the complexity of modern video games (and TV) put to shame what humble teachers are able to do in a classroom. For instance, in order to complete a game like Deus Ex, players need to not only be able think critically, analyze puzzles, and solve problems they also have to be able to deduce the rules of the game without being explicitly told them. For an English teacher, this is a holy grail; the act of reading a new text is similar in that students need to quickly get their bearings and figure out the logic and rules the author imposes on readers in order to be able to make sense out of the book.

So, how could kids make a video game that would deepen their understanding of great literature.

First, there are baby steps. The old choose your own adventure books can be done wiki-style or on Keynote. Students could write out a video game proposal that takes a current game (like Civilization III) and modifies the game to achieve a specific goal (give players insight into the moral decisions the Joads need to make in order to survive). Or, students can use drag and drop applications such a Game Maker or XNA Game Studio to make their own. Or, and this is the dream, partner with an existing Game design company to create the game (examples include the Global Kids Digital Media Initiative).

What do y'all think? How can we harness the power of video games in Classroom 2.0?

Resources:

Scott McCloud's posts on video games in the classroom
Epistemic Games: Amazing stuff but you can't see it
Serious Games: Great company and they link to playable games
Gamer Theory: A book by the folks at if:book a great blog about emerging technologies involving the book.See the Read/Write section and the Visualizations
What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy, by Dr. Jim Gee at the University of Wisconsin-Madison

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Comment by Sylvia Martinez on April 24, 2007 at 8:39pm: Your questions prompted me to post this on my blog, plus there's some comments from a game-using teacher I really respect about various engines.

http://blog.genyes.com/index.php/2007/04/23/game-design-as-an-educational-activity/

My answer to your question: The BEST use of games in education is to have students make them.

Comment by sschwister on April 26, 2007 at 4:22pm: My two cents are to wonder if/where an alternative reality game model fits into your thinking about gaming implications for Classroom 2.0. It's funny that you reference Halo 2, since "I Love Bees," one of the better-known ARGs out there, was developed as part of a publicity campaign for Halo 2. My own English teacher lens hints that an ARG may also tie together many of those Holy Grail qualities you mention. There are built-in caveats, to be sure, and even dangers---how ready are we, really, to take on something so sprawling and complex, and that blurs the line between reality and unreality? But, as Sylvia says, maybe the best solution is to have students create them. Now THAT would be something.

All that said, I agree that gaming has fascinating possibilities. You've already spotted and noted Gamer Theory via if:book. There are some great posts on if:book about using gaming to collectively solve problems, etc.

Comment by SparklingDrift on April 27, 2007 at 8:14am: I just read up on "I love bees" and it's fascinating. I know there are similar ARGs going on with Lost and Heroes. My thinking is much more mundane. My basic idea is to try and have kids create Oregon Trail-like simulations that mimic the decision making and milieu of literature. The big idea is that a group project to create a video simulation could be a recurring process in which classes add on the work of other classes to evolve the game. Sort of like a video-game wiki.