Rethinking Learning for the 21st Century
Written by mikefarley
At the end of March, four Gr.7 UTS History classes play-tested the serious games “Death in Sakkara” and “Flight to Freedom”. Simultaneously they also completed corresponding student activities that I had created for each game. I had a chance to sit in on the classes to see how things went, and History teachers Zach Fanni … Continue reading “Play-testing at UTS: (meaningful) Fun and (serious) Games”
Written by mikefarley
I just finished the first draft of the student activity for another History game we will try out with the Gr.7s at UTS. The game is called ‘Flight to Freedom’, and is part of the popular ‘Mission US‘ series (geared toward 10-12 year-olds). Here is a brief description of the game from the Mission US … Continue reading “An exploration of the ‘Flight to Freedom’ game and teacher guide”
Written by mikefarley
I just finished the first draft of the student activity for the History game ‘Death in Sakkara – An Egyptian Adventure’ (BBC). If you have an hour to spare and want to try a game that takes you on a wild and mysterious ride to Egypt in the 1920s, you might want to give it a … Continue reading “Feel like travelling to Egypt for an hour?”
Written by mikefarley
In my previous post I had outlined 6 main steps for my Action Plan. It has been a little slow getting things going, but I’m now happy to have completed steps 1 and 2. First off, after our last F2F, I spoke with two of our History teachers to pitch to them the idea of … Continue reading “And the winners are…”
Written by mikefarley
My Cohort 21 action plan is to work with one or two of the History teachers at my school to design student activities to be used with some history-related computer games (e.g. Mission-U.S. series, Death in Sakkara, and High Tea). There are a few main benefits to taking on this plan: A number of the … Continue reading “Back to the Future – Introducing Video Games to the History Curriculum at UTS”
Written by mikefarley
(note: this post originally appeared on the BrainPOP Educators website) For the past ten years I have been using ‘social change’ computer games in my Grades 7-12 Geography classes to explore themes such as natural disasters, energy management, urban planning, environmental issues, economics, peace and conflict, and civic action. The excitement and depth of learning … Continue reading “Changegamer Strives to be a Gamechanger”