Teacher Develops Game To Make History Interesting

[vansau]

Teacher Develops Game To Make History Interesting

How do you make the Revolutionary War cool for high schoolers? Develop a game about the subject and then make your students play it.

History is often pretty dry stuff - I would know, since I majored in that subject the first time through college. It's particularly dull in high school, when there's not a lot of topic flexibility. So New Jersey teacher David Allocco decided to make the topic of the Revolutionary War a little more accessible by creating an original videogame that puts players in the middle of the conflict.

The game, Choosing Sides: The American Revolution in Bergen County , casts players as Hackensack resident John Van Dunk, and follows them as they guide him through the war. It sounds like this is an open-path adventure game, since Van Dunk talks to other people in Bergen County and has to decide whether or not he'll be a British Loyalist or an American Revolutionary. Along the way, players meet and interact with real historical figures.

Allocco's students would spend two days playing the game and were graded on a journal they maintained, explaining why they made their decisions. According to the teacher, he was surprised by how many of the teens decided to side with the British. However, the decision makes sense: Many Redcoats were based out of New York and often conducted raids into the nearby areas in New Jersey, and the students operated as loyalists out of a desire to simply survive.

Choosing Sides sounds like a great way to make history interesting for students, and it also doesn't sound like Allocco is finished making educational videogames. The man has stated that he wants to create more games that put students in "key moments" of American history.

Source: <a href=http://paramus.patch.com/articles/teacher-creates-american-revolution-video-game>Paramus Patch via <a href=http://www.gamepolitics.com/2012/02/24/nj-teacher-creates-game-teach-about-american-revolution>GamePolitics

<a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:BattleofLongisland.jpg>Image Source

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[Formica Archonis]

So.... End of the road, huh, Vansau? Your stuff's been good reading. Will we be seeing you somewhere else around the net?

 

[Poisoned Al]

If the facts were accurate, then I'm not that surprised most sided with the British. From one point of view the British just saved them from the colony from the rest of Europe and now a load of rich land owners were staging a coup before the UK could lick it's wounds.

That war was mostly BS. The British were sick of fighting over that crappy spit of land and they were broke and the king was unpopular as hell (a dig turned up chamber pots with his face in them). The rebel leaders were mostly in it for themselves and bar a few notable people the "founding fathers" were some truly disgusting people (some had high ideles the rest were just slave-owning bastards that wanted to keep their slaves and money).

There were no real big battles. The rebels sacked undefended villages and ran at the first sign of trouble and the most George Washington did was write snotty letters to the British commander (an early flame war).

In the end the British just gave up and went home. Possibly why it's not covered in history much. Massive failers were everyone dies the British love, but just GIVING UP? That's just not cricket!

 

[Waaghpowa]

History needed to be more interesting than it is now? Boy do I sound like a nerd...

 

[draythefingerless]

If the facts were accurate, then I'm not that surprised most sided with the British. From one point of view the British just saved them from the colony from the rest of Europe and now a load of rich land owners were staging a coup before the UK could lick it's wounds.

That war was mostly BS. The British were sick of fighting over that crappy spit of land and they were broke and the king was unpopular as hell (a dig turned up chamber pots with his face in them). The rebel leaders were mostly in it for themselves and bar a few notable people the "founding fathers" were some truly disgusting people (some had high ideles the rest were just slave-owning bastards that wanted to keep their slaves and money).

There were no real big battles. The rebels sacked undefended villages and ran at the first sign of trouble and the most George Washington did was write snotty letters to the British commander (an early flame war).

In the end the British just gave up and went home. Possibly why it's not covered in history much. Massive failers were everyone dies the British love, but just GIVING UP? That's just not cricket!

well come on, do you honestly expect an american to believe he was founded by cowards n opportunists(not all, the founding fathers were pretty decent, but most of the rest of those guys were shit). then again, almost all nations are founded by opportunists.

 

[Ignatz_Zwakh]

History was one of my fave classes in Highschool and Cegep, but damn I would've loved to have had this as an assignment.

 

[JaceArveduin]

When I saw it, I was thinking "Isn't this what Total War did?" I mean, the History channel used it to recreate battles, like Marathon and Thermopylae, which was pretty cool. My Early Western Civ teacher shows some of the battles every other week or so for one of the class periods.

But yeah, it's pretty cool that he made it, and I'd rather like to have had it myself.

 

[IceStar100]

Anyone else want to play this game?

Can't be just me.

 

[Therumancer]

Meh,

History is only a problem because of all of the politicians trying to re-write it to be politically correct and address their own personal issues of white guilt.

When it comes to the Revolutionary War for example there is a lot of effort being made to try avoid villifying the British... even going so far as to lead to protests against the old "Schoolhouse Rock" version of it, and so on.

Portraying the leaders of said revolution as nice guys when they were a bunch of slave owners, mass murderers, and torturers... whose intention was nothing like the liberal interpetation of the constitution as it stands now, basically burns in the craw of many liberals who basically insist on trying to to take a giant dump all over it by being judgemental according to modern morality on a time period when it didn't exist.

I'd be interested in seeing how this teacher portrayed the time period, and the historical figures in question, especially if so many of the students wound up wanting to side with the British (I wonder if the actual reasons were as explained).

One sticking point that started to get going when I attended school decades ago was about how our founding fathers ran around and killed off all of the whigs they could find after their victory. There were people being dipped in boiling tar, covered in feathers, and hung up and down the roads as a lesson and part of the "celebration" and for years after the victory. This is contreversial when you looked at how left wingers want to interpet the consitution, civil liberties, and other things. This was long before 9/11, but when I was a kid we did have a few issues with spies and such, and discussions about whether things like "Treason" or "Sedition" which are both crimes actually had any meaning in light of the constitution. To those whose morality is based on the counter culture of the 60s where both thigns were common, the idea is anathema, but in reality our freedom of speech was always meant to be limited by other laws. Basically you had the right to freedom of speech, free assembly, and other things as long as it didn't fall under the grounds of existing crimes like treason or sedition. Saying you dislike a politician is one thing, campaigning against the US on a more fundemental level is another. The whigs certainly didn't get to go running around publically protesting that the US should apologize to the british and re-join the crowd and make demonstrations to that effect (as an example). An interesting point in view of current situations around "the war on terror" and issues like torture, free assembly, and similar things when the Revolutionary War and it's aftermath provides a counter-example of how the US is supposed to deal with domestic threats.

I'm doubtlessly not articulating this well, but the bottom line is that history has increasingly been a problem in school due to disagreements on how it should be thought. Too many history "experts" with degrees that are really more political science majors wanting to re-write the past for what they see as the greater good... or those who had been convinced by them.

 

[uzo]

I have two words for you all.


Oregon Trail.



Hell, I'm not even American and I still love that game and the history of the whole Manifest Destiny, westward-ho kinda thing. It sounds incredibly adventurous and, despite the dangers and the hardship, it is the kind of thing I would attempt were I alive at such a time.

Imagine it - travelling a looooong road, through barely known lands, past treacherous rivers and perilous mountain passes. At the end, the opportunity to stake a claim in a new world; to provide for your family and your descendants. To, essentially, establish a new country.

Doesn't help that I'm a nutjob survivalist who makes and eats his own hardtack because I like it.

 

[weirdee]

When I saw it, I was thinking "Isn't this what Total War did?" I mean, the History channel used it to recreate battles, like Marathon and Thermopylae, which was pretty cool. My Early Western Civ teacher shows some of the battles every other week or so for one of the class periods.

But yeah, it's pretty cool that he made it, and I'd rather like to have had it myself.

This one sounds more like a text based adventure game, rather than a war sim, even if it does involve war. Total War is more about logistics and strategy, and it feels like this game works more towards the humanistic part of conflict.

 

[vansau]

So.... End of the road, huh, Vansau? Your stuff's been good reading. Will we be seeing you somewhere else around the net?

Yeah, I'll still kick around the forums. I got a new job at Inside Social Games, so you can find me there on Monday. Thanks for the kind words!

 

[MB202]

We'll see if this works or not...

 

[Elvaril]

When I saw it, I was thinking "Isn't this what Total War did?"

This was my exact thought when I read the title. In high school I knew a couple of guys that I would meet up with solely to discuss our latest conquests, favorite cultures, etc in R:TW and MII:TW.

 

[Aptus]

I kind of want that game now.

 

[Torrasque]

I'd be interested in how this game was made and how much work went into this game.
Also, I'd fucking love to have most of my classes in video game format. Statistics would be much more interesting if I was dealing with the statistics of how effective my attacks were against my enemies, instead of dealing with some study I don't give a fuck about using stats I don't care about.

Any class + Starcraft = LEARNING

 

[El Dwarfio]

History needed to be more interesting than it is now? Boy do I sound like a nerd...

I completely agree with this XD

Although to be fair, back in school when you don't get to chose what history you study it can be a bit shit.

 

[dobahci]

Teachers are always thinking that they have to make dry subjects interesting for students, but it's completely the wrong view.

If they view the subject as dry, then naturally that's what's going to get communicated to them. They need to have passion for the subject. Then it's not so much a matter of making the subject interesting as it is just a matter of showing students how interesting the subject already is.

Having said that, I think this is a wonderful idea.