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As some of you may know, I have been taking a Master’s Degree in Education with John’s Hopkins University for the past 18 months. The last class I took was titled: Gaming and Media Design in Education. It was not a prerequisite for my degree in Administration and Supervision, but I was fascinated by learning about the implementation of video games into curricula; Who wouldn’t want to take a class where homework and gaming are synonymous ?

Putting aside some of my issues with a wholly online class (this class was based in Ning), I was able to engage with some interesting ideas about gaming and education. Before this class I thought that I was engaging my students in a technological environment by using Web2.0 tools and the odd flash games like, ContentGenerator.net, 3rdworldfarmer.com and BBC games… but now I realize that there is so much potential in the gaming industry.

The Nintendo Wii has revolutionized the gaming industry and is being used in a number of classrooms (particularly elementary it seems). It has great brain-software and could be used to stimulate students as a warm up for an activity.

Last week I read the beginning of an excellent series of blog posts by Tom Barrett on his use of the game Myst with his classes. His use of gaming into a writing unit is an excellent example of the integration of gaming in teaching.

History simulations have been a part of the gaming world for decades (I loved Civilization, and Caesar as a kid), and now there are plenty of World War II shooters in the main stream. I think we should embrace them for the classroom. We use clips from movies all the time, why not video games? They are a clear representation of the past in our culture… students need to make connections with them as historical documents and evaluate them as interpretations of the past. Newsweek would certainly agree…

Games are a real motivator for our students. My students continued to play the 3rdworldfarmer.com game at home for days after we used it in class; they even posted their high scores

Why don’t we use games in the classroom?

Games are expensive and most popular games today require more hardware than most of us have in our classrooms - how much memory does your graphics card have?? The only solution is to purchase older games (as Tom Barrett has done), but many of us are hamstrung by not having admin rights to computers, or the need to get software approved.

Many games are also equivalent to R-rated movies. The reality is that it would be impossible to use any of the Medal of Honor series of games in the classroom - the graphic violence would get me a number of parent letters

So…

I am going to continue using flash games as often as I can. The BBC website is excellent and there are some wonderful games at gamesforchange.com. In fact there are games on the internet for most subjects you can think of. One of my goals this year will be to integrate them as often as possible… this is the easy step.

It is harder to integrate commercial games into my instruction. Perhaps I should bring a Wii into the classroom sometimes to play some brain games, or set up a Civilization competition with my students. I am not in a position with admin rights to do what Tom has been doing, but I would love to try. What experiences have others had?

And…

If you want to read some of the articles we read for our class you can find some in the text above, but all of them are tagged at my diigo account…

Following a trend across the history edublogosphere…

See drdennis.edublogs.org/2008/07/26/need-i-say-more/

Temudgin, Genghis Khan, Chingghis Khan (however you wish to record his name) was probably the favorite character in World History AP this year for my students and myself.  In November we spent a week studying nomadic culture, the life of Genghis Khan, and culminated in writing a Document Based Question (Sources Question - part of the Advanced Placement test) exploring contemporary attitudes to the great man himself.  My students were gripped by the stories told about Genghis Khan, particularly Persian tales of Mongols ripping babies out of pregnant women.  They even face-booked about their memories!

Genghis Khan has been written about by contemporaries and historians, but he has become more than that.  He appears regularly in popular culture.  In Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure he is taking from his time to ravage a mall.  In 1979 the German band Dschinghis Khan produced the theme song of my AP class this year… apparently some of them even listened to it in their cars

This made the release of the Russian movie Mongol a little more interesting to me.  I don’t think that I have been quite as excited about a movie for a while.  My wife and I went to see it at the AFI theater in Sliver Spring, MD last week.  While I was disappointed in some of the edits, and the rambling nature of the plot, I was captivated by the scenery, the depiction of nomadic life and, of course, the story of Temudgin himself.

Blogs have been a huge part of my online life for the past two years, but this post constitutes my first (or kind of) venture into the edublogosphere. I am an avid follower of Jeff Utecht’s Thinkingstick, and Doug Belshaw’s blog in particular. In fact Doug’s list of plugins helped me to get this blog set up the way I wanted it to… I am certainly endebted to him.

As a newbie I am unsure exactly how I am going to use this blog. I want to reflect on my current experiences as an educator; so expect posts on history teaching, the use of technology, and school leadership. However, I think that, most importantly, I want to engage in blogging so that I can help my students to develop their ability to express themselves online. Just this summer I have installed Wordpress MU on my server, and I am planning to roll it out with my students in the fall. How can I teach them how to blog when I have only ever been a spectator?

I think this is central tennet of my educational philosophy… I want to be a participant in my student’s learning and will never ask them to engage with material I have not emmersed myself in.

Thanks for reading this first post, and feel free to leave a comment below… you are welcome however you found me: twitter, history teacher’s discussion forum, AP World list serve, or from a comment I left on another site.