21st Century Skills
 
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When I was twelve, every week was the same.  I would spend Sunday to Friday night looking for quarters.  I had one goal: to spend Saturday morning at the grocery store playing Pac-Man, while my mom got our weeks worth of food.  The game was way up front by the doors and I remember many times as my mom waited for me to finish.   I memorized the pattern of that game and can still clear levels from memory. 

As a parent, I watch my son play hours of PS3 or get online to play games.  I have tried to get into the PS3, but to no avail   However, this weekend I started playing this online game.  I showed my son and saved the site to my diigo bookmarks.  Zach was all over it and to my surprise, I was as well.  The game is called "GoodGame Empire" found at http://empire.goodgamestudios.com/ .    It is free and based on the Middle Ages.   Kinda a SimCity of the Medieval period.  BTW, if you start playing look me up dgholman, my screen name and castle. 

I am teaching about the middle ages right now at school. Mike and I use the Middle Age Webquest (an autonomous mastery learning model--read about it here and see the live version here
for student learning.  So, anyways I posted this link to my Diigo and shared with the MrHolman/Pennington group.  I was sure no one would read it on a three day holiday weekend, and a snow day as well.  However, when I went to school today, seven kids came to see me right away (all boys) and had started building their manors and wanted to show me.  They all had stories of battles and what they had built and what they planed to do next.   They were learning economics, military strategy, jobs, following directions and solving problems with a limited number of resources.  Below are a few images of there manors by day three or four.  

I started an alliance to help my son, but now everyone from school is joining so we work together to hold our own or expand our empires with about 70,000 other castles (individual players) in the game: we will work together to achieve some online goals.  I will keep you posted and update our progress and pitfalls, but CLEARLY they read that diigo feed, even on weekends.  That is cool and as Zach says, "Dad, these are not the stupid games you used to play."  He is right:) 
 


Comments

Joe Shalala
01/23/2013 11:10pm

Thank you for the blog post! Reading this brought back memories of the hundreds of hours I spent playing Stronghold Crusader (another medeval simulator) and the insane sieges my brother and I planned out. Awesome way to see little pieces of how medeval life worked!

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Cary Wade
03/04/2013 7:52am

I checked out this game and it is pretty neat. I’ve tried to get into the PS3 games, once a year I will bring home the newest Call of Duty but still find myself going back to play the traditional Nintendo games on the Wii. When I do play, I only pick it up during winter break when I feel like I have a break from school. While I appreciate video games, I’ve always appreciated the outdoors and my motto has always been “Life is one big video game.” I’m anxious to see how I will adjust in the classroom with all the technology use. I want to teach my students in the ways that they learn best and not the way that I learned.

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Amanda Halman
04/18/2013 1:27pm

I think gaming is such a great way to get students interested. Most students (especially the boys) have played on either the Xbox or the PS3 for years.
Finding a way to include gaming in your classroom is just one less struggle you have to face to get them engaged.

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Danielle Zampelli
04/28/2013 6:23pm

This is such a neat idea! What a great way to relate to the students since video/computer games have become quite the pastime. I would love to incorporate something like this into my classroom!

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Kelsey Stanoch
05/02/2013 6:48pm

We need to incorporate more of this type of learning in the classroom! Not only gaming, but also activities that students will partake in with or without directions given by an adult. For example, bringing in social media or videography may have a similar effect. This is such an authentic style of learning because the kids actually ENJOY it.

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Tristan Foyle
05/10/2013 4:21pm

I have been playing this game since the beginning of the semester, and I love it. It isn't super historical, but it could inspire students to research the deeper meaning of things in the game. At the very least it is a fun way for an educator to interact with students outside of the classroom

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