The Best of Both Worlds? Design Challenges for Developing Playable Historical Games for Classroom Learning

Karen Schrier · James Diamond · David Langendoen · Leah Potter

Wed., June 10, 2:00–3:00, Inn Wisconsin (2nd floor, East/Southeast)

Mission America: Crown or Colony? is an adventure game that introduces middle school-aged students and game players to historical events, personalities, and sociocultural structures in colonial Boston during the years leading to the American Revolution. The game is the first of a proposed series of five online games that will address key periods in American history.

Part of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s “American History and Civics Initiative”, the project is led by Thirteen/WNET New York and a development team that includes WNET producers, historians from the American Social History Project at CUNY, game developers from Electric Funstuff, researchers from the Center for Children and Technology of the Education Development Center, and master middle school history teachers. Each partner organization brings its own expertise to the game development process, and the team values of these perspectives. In Mission America, students navigate historic settings, develop relationships with key figures, investigate primary documents, witness pivotal events, and ultimately decide their fate in the face of history. In this symposium, we propose to engage audience members in a conversation about the design and collaboration challenges associated with developing an educational game that achieves a balance between playability and gamer playfulness (or what Jay Lemke has referred to as a "stance of playfulness") with standards-based learning outcomes in K–12 curricula. We are particularly interested in sharing our own experiences — and hearing those of others around synthesizing domain content, effective pedagogy, unique perspectives, and the evaluation of learning outcomes with good game design — that is, design that promotes the achievement of learning objectives within a playful environment. In exploring these issues, we would like to surface the design, communication, and collaboration practices that integrate multiple viewpoints and lead to the creation of effective educational games.

Specific areas for discussion include:

• Constructing compelling tasks, narratives, and challenges that motivate players and also require them to practice skills associated with historical thinking;
• Balancing historical accuracy in game events, graphics, and character actions with the need to also support compelling game play
• Weaving learning scaffolds and assessments into the game while supporting playability
• Determining how the game should be integrated with classroom teaching and designing materials and methods to assist teachers in effectively implementing games
• Confronting the challenges of collaborative design involving producers, game developers, domain experts, master teachers, and educational researchers

Panelists may include (TBD) representatives from Thirteen/WNET, Spencer Grey: Electric Funstuff, American Social History Project, EDC/CCT, and the School of the Future Middle School as well as a moderator.

References

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