Hello, 2013-2014

It's been a while.

I became a very bad blogger at the end of last school year. In fact, just as the Minecraft project became exciting, I stopped. I hope to avoid doing that this year.




(Sidenote: If you want to skip my musings, just scroll down to the next two posts. One is an outline of a Minecraft project I want to try this year; the other is the curriculum outline & handouts for the Civilization project from last year)

It's been a busy few months away. While working at the same school, I now teach 8th grade humanities. This means I have a lot less time and freedom to incorporate games into my class. We have tests to prepare for, standards to cover, and around 100 years of American history to get through. I'm excited about quite a few projects my partner teacher and I have planned -- essays about revolution, a spoken word poetry performance, pen pals in the developing world -- but I will, as much as possible, keep this blog close to its central theme of games in education.

My view of the role play-based-learning & games can . . . play in education has expanded drastically over the last several months. I started working with the wonderful USC-based CollegeologyGames team and their games designed to help prepare under-privileged for the college application process. A couple of my friends started the summer camp Learn By Gaming, and interest is high enough for them to continue the program every Saturday throughout the school year. Over in Playa Vista, The Incubator School, a middle school with a mission based on entrepreneurship and 21st century learning,  is starting its first ever school year just a few short weeks after hosting a professional development in conjunction with the Conney Center that I attended with a few other LA-based educators. And, last week, I was on Southern California Public Radio talking about Minecraft.

The times, it seems, are a-changin'. Game-based learning isn't a mainstream practice, but it is becoming a part of the mainstream conversation about education. The values of play are gaining recognition, a "gamer" philosophy is something the majority of people can relate to, at least tangentially, and the tools at our disposal are getting better by the day.

I want to try a few things this year. I'd like to extend my use of games and gaming concepts beyond activities with Minecraft or Games for Change, and make them more of an integral part of how my students and I approach learning and problem-solving. I don't want game-based learning to be perceived as something that only exists on a computer or tablet -- far too many schools and children don't have access to those luxuries (well, except for cell phones, but that's a whole other fascinating conversation) -- so much as an active, creative and joy-filled way to interact with the world. I have no idea how this will look. I don't know how to achieve it. Let's try to figure it out together. 

The Civilization Curriculum

One last bit of house cleaning. Here is a very rough curriculum for the Civilization project from last year.

Objectives:

By the end of this project, students will be able to . . .

• Describe the process by which societies rise and fall
• Describe the importance of agriculture in the development of civilizations
• Compare/contrast various civilizations throughout history
• Compare/contrast different forms of government, including examples and strengths/weaknesses of each
• Explain the different aspects of civilizations (using GRAPES) and the interactions between the various components
• Create their own fully-functioning civilization within Minecraft and compare it to actual world civilizations

 By the end of this project, students will understand. . . 

• the importance of agriculture and technological in the development of civilizations
• the role of geography in the development of a civilization
• how the Age of Exploration affected the global economy and power balance

Common Core Standards:
 Writing 2.b, c, d, f; 3.a, c; 4;
 Writing-Text Types 3.a
Comprehension & Collaboration 1; 2

California State History Standards:
 7.1.1, 7.2.2, 7.2.4, 7.2.5, 7.3.4, 7.4.1, 7.6.1, 7.6.3, 7.7.1, 7.7.2, 7.11.1, 7.11.3, 
 
Outline:
Students worked in groups of four-five to create their own civilization, going through all of the stages of a developing society. Each group was placed on a different island equidistant from a mysterious "New Land". Each island was the same size, but had a completely different geography and biome. This had a profound impact upon how the students' civilizations developed. The group living in a desert had sand but no stone, the group in a forest had wood but no sand, etc. These differences rippled throughout all of the decisions the students made, including the development of their religion and architecture.

The biomes were:

1. Desert
2. Jungle
3. Forest
4. Mountain
5. Ice land
6. Plains

Each day, every student had to complete an entry in their "survival log". Here they would list how many times they died, challenges they faced, and their plans for the next class.

The project revolved around the completion of the "Civilization Packet". This packet is where students wrote down all of the different aspects of their civilization and island, from a list of resources to the leisure activities of their civilization's inhabitants. Each aspect also had a physical representation on their island. So, for example, if a group decided that their society valued swimming, they needed to construct a swimming pool on their island. If their religion included ritual sacrifice, they should include a sacrificial alter of some sort. 




Phase One: Survival - Students had to learn to work together and use the resources at their disposal to complete two objectives: Establish a stable food supply and build shelter. Many students initially killed all of their animals, resulting in starvation during the next class. By the end of this process, every group should have a system for breeding animals and/or growing crops. They must be able to protect their animals and crops from raiders.

Phase Two: Growth -- This is the heart of the project. Now that the basic needs are met, the civilizations can begin to grow and flourish. Students should spend between 1-2 hours developing each feature of their Civilization Packet. Each time you move on to a new page, go over the section as a class. Identify key terms and draw connections to curricular content and prior knowledge.




Phase Three: Trading -- In this phase, the class will develop a global economy. Each group will identify desired materials and set a value for what they have to trade. The "merchant" from each group then moves to a separate area, both in the game and in the classroom, and the bargaining begins. After around 3 rounds of this, a fairly stable economy will have developed.

Phase Four: Age of Exploration -- This is the phase of global conquest. Students are told that there is a large, untouched land past their borders. They then work together in a race to be the first group to reach the territory. This land is a giant city full of materials, items, and food. Once reaching the city, students could claim territory, pillage buildings, and make/break treaties with other groups. During this phase, connections to the actual Age of Exploration naturally develop. Students almost always either identify with Spain, the Native Americans, or England, and they are not shy about saying which group is which. Additionally, since this can be a very frustrating process, it also lends itself to teachable moments about the frustrations of the different groups and just how dangerous & scary exploration during this age actually was.

Phase Five: Archaeology -- By this point, students have created civilizations that rose, grew, and, in some cases, toppled catastrophically. Now it is time to jump far into the future. Students visit each others' islands and, based solely on their observations, make predictions about the civilization (their type of government, what life was like, etc). They then compare those to what the group actually developed. I somehow lost the handout for this phase. Sorry.

Download the handouts:
Survival Log
Civilization Packet

It's not a house, it's a home

It took us at least five minutes to pose for this picture. I told the boys I wanted a group photo and they then ran, swam, and flew around until finding the perfect location. Then, somehow, they convinced me to let them have swords. Gotta look tough.

The problem with the after school club is that kids leave at different times -- we started with seven boys but, by the time we got around to the group photo, were down to just three.

The current project is very straightforward and open-ended: Build a house. They're working in creative mode and can use any materials they want. As you can see in the background, everyone decided to use something different and go for a different style. One house is underground, another has a glass roof, one is straight-up TNT, and two students are building extensive hidden tunnels to connect their houses. 

The coolest moment so far happened after the student building the TNT house went home (in real life). Another boy decided to start destroying his building. The other kids noticed and told him to stop, that he was being rude. He apologized, rebuilt what he'd destroyed, and went back to constructing his house.

The whole incident lasted less than 30 seconds and I doubt any of them gave it a second thought, but I was extremely impressed. They self-regulated to enforce good citizenship and the vandalizing student responded positively. If they only acted that way during lunch!

We finish this activity today, and Wednesday we move into cooperative survival mode.

  

Well that was fast

Gigih, thank you. Your generosity and faith in a project you've only read about, organized by a person whom you've never met, is truly touching. I'll make sure my students know that someone from literally the other side of the world believes in their potential and knows that who they become and what they will do can affect the entire world.

I'm going to document this endeavor rather heavily and, even before I actually implement it in the classroom, I'll make sure to post updates on this blog at least once a week. Everyone in Internetland deserves to know how things are progressing. Hopefully, the better my documentation, the better this blog will function as an educational resource for teachers interested in similar projects.

To everyone who donated, I can't thank you enough. Maraming, maraming salamat kayo.

Dan.