As I promised I am beginning the journey of explaining Civ
Lab to the world. Below are links that will
help to explain everything I have written on gamification so far:
Finding the words to describe how to use this as a teaching
tool has been difficult, but I am going to try. I think the best way to share
how to use this is to take you through how I do it from the beginning. I think for the sake of my own brain I need
to chunk this down into small mini concepts that can be explained in shorter
bursts. Every time I have tried to
wrestle with this concept to find the words I tend to become overwhelmed and my
brain tries to jump from one concept to another. I have tossed out several different drafts
and attempts so I am hoping the chunking will make it more effective for you
all as a reader. Below are a few things that will help you get started.
1.
Create the Game Environment: I have been very fortunate. Adam and Nate Parry have basically coded the
Civilization IV world to meet our needs for me.
They have created the map, added the locations of all the civilizations,
and changed the coding for things like science or how fast you ca build
military units. You use the XML for this
and change the values so things work smoother. Playing Civilization can take days, but we have it down to a science now that makes it work so much better.
2.
Each class must be given their own civilization
to run. Once they have been placed on
the map it is best to have your classes in the order they will be played by
period. I am fortunate to have several
other great teachers to play with, which makes the environment richer and full. Once I input all of my moves I email the game
file to the next teacher. This means that
we have to input multiple times a day, but it really has not ever been a
problem.
3.
Create some sort of checkpoint to make sure that
the students are getting the concepts you want to have them use in the game. I use a journal where the students write down
our events for the day and their feelings, which I then use at the end of the
quarter to have them write a history of their nation. They use the journal as a primary source and
look back to see what happened before writing a secondary source. I know Adam Parry uses a system that gives
everyone a job and each students is responsible for their money, which then
turns into a grade. Nate Parry uses a
system where he does a check at the end of each week that requires students to
describe the concepts that were used in the game. Both of them teach government while I teach
US history so we have different goals and we all developed these independent of
each other.
4.
Decide ahead of time what concepts you want to
teach. Inevitably the game will demand
certain concepts at certain times.
Especially when the classes interact, but if you lay out ahead of time
what concepts you want to teach you will accomplish much more. In the past I tried to make it up as I went
along and it is not as successful.
5.
Have a plan for how the students will make
decisions. The government aspect of the
game is where it can be the most powerful.
For my class I begin using the town council format where everyone has a
vote. I know that Nate Parry begins here
as well stressing the importance of direct democracy. MCPS values government a lot in their curriculum
and really at any level reminders about these concepts are important for the
testing my students endure. So modeling
and practicing these concepts is best.
6. Make sure you have a working computer that has all the necessary devices to play the game. I ended up having to bring in an outside computer that I wiped and only had the game on. MCPS would not let me install on their machines because of a licensing issue. So we just play it on my machine and we go back and for on the Promethean Board as necessary.
If you lay out all of these things your Civ Lab experience
will begin on the right foot.
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