Replaying history: learning world history through playing
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- Orienting to Civilization III as Gamers
Building CivilizationsStanding the test of time. Marvin was very engaged in the game. His goals were to build a “huge” infrastructure, discover more civilizations, make allies and build big mines. He enjoyed talking to the researchers, reporting that we taught him how to talk to his advisors, read more difficult aspects of the interface, gauge his scientific research progress and use the Civilopedia. Marvin figured out how to solve most of the basic game problems and was now building mines, roads, city structures. He shared with us his biggest problem with the game: He wants to see lots of individual soldiers on screen instead of one unit representing a large army. Seeing his units would provide him visual feedback on his progress and further live out the fantasy of replaying history. He enjoyed history and playing Civilization III was a way for him to participate in it. Earning money. In contrast, Jamal just wanted to make more money. Like many students, he struggled with making enough money to support an army and fend off barbarians. He approached the game strictly as a military conflict and had not built many roads, so there was little commerce in his civilization. I noticed that few students were building roads at all and, as a result, their cities were isolated, unable to trade luxuries. Further, students could not defend their civilizations easily, as moving military units took several turns. Like Jamal, most students approached game situations (i.e. barbarians) as isolated problems and did not discern how bigger cities, a stronger economy, or increased production capacity were all interrelated and would ultimately lead to a stronger defense. Exploring geography. Much of Amy’s (Iroquois) initial play was about exploring geography; She had three warriors exploring North America but her civilization of two cities was not doing very well. She was broke, her population was stagnating, and she constantly battled with barbarians. She wanted to create workers to build more roads, but her cities could not support them. By midway through class, she had started a new game because she “had a sad little city with not much going on.” She did not seem to mind failing and starting again. I showed her how to create roads, defend her workers from barbarians, and manage her cities’ production. This time, her civilization thrived. She protected her workers from barbarians and built more cities with more roads. Most of all, she enjoyed exploring the geography with her warriors, quickly learning that she would need to devise strategies for improving her civilization’s economy, infrastructure, and defense in order to support such exploration. Stewarding her people. After a day of watching Miranda play, Vicky was hungry to play the game on her own. Vicky (Egyptians) was all smiles and eager to talk with researchers whenever we visited. “My game is going well. Things are good. My people are happy.” She spent the day exploring the controls, moving and building units, and experimenting with the city screens. After seeing how quickly Vicky picked up the game after watching Miranda, I thought that having students watch the game on a projector might be a good idea. The second researcher disagreed, thinking that Vicky would have been confident and positive regardless. For her, the fun of the game was creating a civilization and making her people happy through her strong leadership. Forging relationships. Miranda (Iroquois) was also very involved in her game and eager to chat with researchers. Most of Miranda’s game played focused on relationships with other civilizations. She explained how the Aztecs were polite or the Babylonians were at war, using the exact terminology from the negotiation screens. After her first day of warring, staying in the good graces of other civilizations became very important for Miranda and she could go on in detail about who was being nice to her, who attacked her, the last time she was at war, and how she made peace. Miranda frequently called leaders by name and asked researchers about the historical leaders of each civilization. She explained how she learned to examine city resources, including the amount of food, resources, and trade her city had. She also had a seemingly endless parade of questions about game vocabulary: “What is an archer? What does ‘pillage’ mean? What does ‘irrigate’ mean? What are the rockpiles (mountains)? What do they do? How can I make civilizations less angry with me? How many people are in your city?” Miranda, more than any of the others, was interested in comparing her game to “real life.” She wanted to know how big her cities’ populations were in actual size, which I showed her. She enjoyed talking with researchers; in fact, we had to be careful not to spend all afternoon answering her questions. For Miranda, the game was about meeting other civilizations and socializing with the virtual characters, specifically making treaties, going to war, and making “friends” with allies. Orienting to Civilization III as GamersJordan and Ricky sat in the back of the room and talked about their games throughout the day. Both students oriented to the game first as gamers and only second as a students engaging in a history simulation. Ricky had difficulty reading some of the words in the game and asked Jordan a lot of questions as a result. He also asked Jordan about general strategies, such as, “Should I build spearmen or archers?” Jordan counseled Ricky and gave him tips such as “learn map making and build galleys,” although it was not entirely clear where Jordan was getting these strategies. Jordan was both critical and excited about the game. Jordan ranted against the turn-based game format and complained about his cities in disarray, but then would ask get excited about the game after seeing the Pyramids or the Great Wall of China: “They have the Pyramids!! Will you show me how to build that?” He was an adept game player and learned the game system with little help. Later, Jordan asked if he could keep the game. I told Jordan that he could after the unit if he participated regularly, and so he said, “Well, if not, then I’ll buy a copy,” and returned to reading the dialog boxes. Interestingly, Jordan did not return to the class for several weeks, apparently, because he had downloaded the game from Kazaa and was playing at home. At the beginning of the day, Ricky was indifferent toward the researchers but eventually he opened up as he saw that I could be a very useful resources for helping his game play. By the end of the day, he had a stream of questions for me any time I was in the area: “How do you get ivory into your cities? How can I defeat these barbarians? How do I stop my cities from rioting?” Given that Ricky “hated” social studies and reported being a poor student in the subject, it was interesting to see him so curious about the game. He was interested in building an army and going to war, much as one might in a real-time strategy game. Ricky clearly identified himself more as a gamer than as a student. I helped him whenever I could, encouraging him to think about game problems as the result of interacting complex systems rather than as a series of isolated problems, but he was more interested in quick fixes that would get him into battle than approaching problems systemically.
Nadya had one city. She was laid back, if not indifferent toward the game. On the one hand, she was one of the first students to begin playing, and she quietly played throughout most of the period. We asked her several questions, trying to probe her opinions about the game, but she sat quietly, shrugging, nodding, or giving one word answers. Like yesterday, she also spent a fair amount of time staring into space or looking at other things. Although Nadya was learning the interface she still did not find anything about the game especially compelling. At 4:15, Amy stood up and said, “I give up. This is too hard,” and dropped out of the program. She and Monique (one of the high school teaching assistants) had been playing the game and lost. Amy read at about second grade level; as a result, she had absolutely no idea how to play the game. Earnie told me that she and her sister are inclusion students and have some severe learning disabilities. He said that their parents typically enroll them in programs as a form of day care. In reality, the game probably was too complex for Amy or Tara to find too enjoyable.
By the end of the day, most students had between two and four cities. Most understood how to create entertainers, how to build roads and irrigate land, and how to build new cities. Students met other civilizations today, which they seemed to find very inspiring. By far, students were most engaged in the game when they met other civilizations. I spent much of my time answering questions about specific terms or functions, such as “What is irrigation” or “How do I get ivory?” Most students were taking to the game. Sandy, Marvin, and Ricky all told us how much they liked the game. The teaching assistants were much more involved today. They helped students read and answered whatever questions they could. More often, they spent much of their time alerting us that students needed help. A few times, I saw them take the mouse over from students; I was not sure exactly what they were doing as they clearly did not understand the game.
At the end of class, we held a 15 minute discussion on “How to solve your problems in Civilization III.” I went from student to student, listing their game problems on the board. Students shared solutions to these problems with the class. Marvin and Miranda were the most active participants. An overview of these problems and solutions is listed in Table 6.1. I tied this discussion back to the four primary game variables in order to reiterate the basic structure of the model underlying the game. Directory: kdsquire kdsquire -> Toward a Media Literacy for Games kdsquire -> Running Head: Higher Education of Gaming The Higher Education of Gaming kdsquire -> Theory By Design kdsquire -> Critical Design Ethnography Running Head: Critical Design Ethnography kdsquire -> Curriculum & Instruction 614: Instructional Computing II kdsquire -> Spring 2004 Course Syllabus kdsquire -> Augmented reality simulations on handheld computers kdsquire -> Environmental Detectives – The Development of an Augmented Reality Platform for Environmental Simulations kdsquire -> Video Games in Education Download 1.01 Mb. Share with your friends:
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