Purdue Serious Games Center

Peace Game Puts ‘Weight Of The World’ On Students : NPR.

Christopher Ferguson: Video Games Don’t Make Kids Violent | TIME Ideas | TIME.com.

The journalist who broke the story of the murder of the Balibo Five in East Timor has turned to the field of video games to help educate the next generation of war correspondents.

Tony Maniaty believes it is vital to teach young journalists how to balance the risks of frontline reporting against the desire to chase the story.

The former ABC journalist hopes to do just that with Warco – a video game that drops players into the virtual shoes of a war reporter who is charged with covering an unfolding civil war.

via Video game gives taste of war coverage – ABC Sydney – Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Cancer can be a tough opponent, but giving kids the power to beat it is the focus of a new video game developed by students and faculty at the University of Utah.

“If they can see themselves as super heroes fighting off an illness to achieve a state of health, that’s exactly the kind of thing that we want them to experience,” said Roger Altizer, adjunct professor at the U. and director of game design and production.

via Video games lend helping hand to doctors looking to slay big, bad cancer dragons | Deseret News.

Experts claim a link between violent video games and increased aggression in lab settings yet note no link between violent games and actual violence.

Violent video games ‘reduce crime’ – Telegraph.

Video games used for ICU physical therapy – UPI.com.

Friday was our last day of game play, but I wasn’t actually at school that day to observe it.  So today I had each group give me a “report” of the status of their country and then we discussed some of the things we learned from the game.  I asked students what were the most significant decisions their country made, what their greatest strengths turned out to be, and what the hardest problems were to overcome.  I was pleasantly surprised at the responses I got.  Students quickly caught on to the importance of resources and allies and realized that winning a conflict is not solely about military strength.  I was impressed with the way they seemed to pick up these concepts with ease after playing the game.

We also took our post-test over a map of Europe today.  I’ve only graded half of them but so far the responses are very encouraging.  Out of about 50, only 5 have not shown improvement, so that means that about 90% of the class improved their knowledge of the geography of Europe simply by playing the game.  I need to finish grading those and I also need to make a survey for my students to take over game play (unfortunately I cannot access the ones set up by the Ackerman Institute) but overall I’m thrilled with this project.  It is easily something I would do again every year.  It was so worthwhile and so fun.

At this point, I mostly evesdrop on my students while they are playing.  It’s pretty amusing.  I think tomorrow will be our last day of game play.  Then we will talk about whether or not WWII was inevitable and what we learned–strenghts and weaknesses, greatest assets, greatest struggles, etc.  We will also take our post-test map quiz and see if we’ve learned anything about geography along the way.

I think that after playing the game for 2 days, we’ve worked out all the bugs and my students have figured out most of the controls.  Their energy levels are still very high but they really don’t need me much now!  They are pretty self-sufficient and excited to get down to “business” each day when they come into class.  I think our WWII discussion next week will go very smoothly and will really make sense to them after actually trying things out themsevles.

At the start of class today I had each student write down what they liked about the game, what they wished they knew before they started, and how they can best help their group today during game play.  The responses were pretty varied, and some were pretty funny.  Overall, there were a lot of students who felt like they didn’t know how to play the game–what buttons to push, how to attack, how to build up their military, etc.  I told them multiple times to check on their cities but I’m not sure they understand that yet so I think we will go over it again tomorrow but I feel like after playing the game for 2 days now they are much more comfortable with the interface.  I had a lot of students who said how much fun they were having and wanted to know where they could download or buy the game, which I think is high praise.  I also had some funny comments.  “I wish I had known that attacking Ireland was a big deal” was pretty good and I also liked “I wish I had known to never attack Iraq.”  I got more comments than I expected about geography–students who wished they knew more about that.  I have maps and posters hanging in the room with that information but perhaps next time I should stress that more before we start the game.  I had a few technology issues in the first class but once we figured things out it went smoothly from then on. 

One of the best moments of today was when a math teacher came up to me in the lunchroom and said “I don’t know what you are doing in your world history class but my students can’t stop talking about this game!”  I’m not sure she was as excited about that as I was, but I’m glad that it has captured students’ attention and that they are thinking about it outside of class (maybe math is not the best time, but hey.)  I think they will really remember this experience and what they learn about going to war.