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Re: [ICTs in English] Weekly update, April 17 - 23 - More Computer Games!


Chronological Thread 
  • From: Malcolm Law <malcolm.law AT xtra.co.nz>
  • To: ictenglish AT lists.tki.org.nz
  • Subject: Re: [ICTs in English] Weekly update, April 17 - 23 - More Computer Games!
  • Date: Sun, 13 May 2012 16:41:59 +1200

On 11/05/2012 2:40 p.m., Nick Wilson wrote: Not sure if anyone's mentioned gamefroot yet, but it's a very simple yet effective browser-based game design tool. And it's free!

Plenty of preset textures to use as well as the ability to create your own images and upload them. And it's free!

Lots of potential here for students of all abilities to create a playable game that demonstrates their ideas - students could show their knowledge of a text and deeper ideas by creating images of symbols from the texts and including them in the game.

Think of the potential!

The Shawshank Redemption Game - dodge the hostile prisoners and climb through sewerage to freedom!

The To Catch a Mockingbird Game - stomp on injustice and racial inequity as you race to save Tom Robinson.

The Catcher in the Rye Game - a baseball game in an overgrown field (I haven't read this one - is this what Field of Dreams was based on?)

The Hunger Games Game - actually, there's probably a pretty good reason there isn't already a game about this...

Check it out!

Nick Wilson
--
English and Media Studies Teacher
Albany Senior High School

536 Albany Highway
PO Box  300 380, Albany
North Shore City 0752

I suspect, Nick, your post is made tongue in cheek.

There is no reason why well designed simulation games can not engage students and give them a deeper understanding of the themes and settings of a text.  Back in the 1980's Tony Adams, author of Teaching Humanities in the Microelectronic Age, came to God's Own Country for the NZATE conference and at another meeting I attended, he demonstrated a game, Big Brother, which explored the world of 1984.  This games was written for the BBC computer, so I suspect as BBC computers went the way of the dodo, the game was no longer played.

As I recall it, students played as members of a committee at the Ministry of Truth, allocating a budget for various institutions in an unnamed city.  When the players booted up the game, they first heard a clock strike thirteen times. (The first line of 1984 is "The clock struck thirteen".)
At random points in the gam,e the screen would change and a picture of Big Brother would appear.  After they had been playing for some time, they would be told to participate in the Five Minutes Hate and Goldstein (Emmanuel not Ira!) would appear.  If they did things like allocate funds to a museum, they would be told that "History is bunk" and that they had been reported to the Love Police.  I thought it was a pity the game did not have a longer run and I feel that similar simulations could work now for other extended texts.  Students would expect, however, much better visuals and animation.

Malcolm Law
Te Aho o Te Kura Pounamu



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