Games in Education BUILD SOCIAL SKILLS & COOPERATIVENESS ENGENDER FAIR PLAY & HEALTHY COMPETITIVENESS INSPIRE PLANNING & EXECUTION PROMOTE CONCENTRATION & OBSERVATION EXEMPLIFY PLAYING TO WIN WITH GOOD SPORTSMANSHIP ...AND TEACH A WIDE VARIETY OF SUBJECTS WHILE YOUR STUDENTS THINK THEY’RE JUST HAVING FUN. BrochureBrochure #3#3 Revised Edition HistoryHistory && SocialSocial StudiesStudies LET W.W.II BREAK OUT IN YOUR CLASSROOM AND ENCOURAGE IT. GAMA’S GAMES IN THE CLASSROOM REVIEW: HEROIC GREECE, JOAN OF ARC, MEDIEVAL FRANCE- IF IT’S HISTORIC THERE’S A GAME TO BE PLAYED. WORKSHOP: USING HISTORIC BATTLE SIMULATIONS FOR INTRO. TO HISTORY CLASSES. Version 2.0, Printed June 2003, GAMA, the Game Manufacturers Association. Permission to photocopy but not sell is granted. All other rights reserved. 1 Play For Education THIS IS THE THIRD IN A SERIES ... a series that has developed by our culling the best of those newsletter articles. Developed by teachers playing games in classrooms and publishing observations about their usefulness. SPECIAL NOTE It should be noted that, as with any creative work, not all games are for all ages. Be sure to check for content! PLANNED BROCHURES IN THIS SERIES: 1. An Introduction To Games In The Classroom. 2. Improving English skills with games in the classroom. 3. Teaching History and Social Studies through games. 4. Games to introduce and expand Math & Science concepts. THESE BROCHURES ARE FREE TO TEACHERS GAMA will provide a copy to any teacher who requests it. GAMA grants permission to teachers to photocopy this brochure at will, for your own use, to give to other teachers, but not for sale. We ask that any teacher who gets a copy contact us. We’ll add you to our growing mailing list of teachers who might use games in their classrooms, and we’ll mail you future brochures as each is published. THESE ARE LIVING DOCUMENTS This brochure and the series will evolve over the years. We’ll add more game reviews, including yours if you send it to us! You will History is full of colourful characters. Care to be one? Roleplay! gain a published work credit while benefitting other teachers. The point of this series is to share knowledge, the continually evolving knowledge of how to make learning more fun, how to engage students, and how to make your calling of teaching a bit more enjoyable. SEE INSIDE BACK COVER FOR SPECIAL PROGRAM NOTES Game publishers are naturally interested in teachers using games to educate. Some are willing to give you their games free, some are able to sell you games at wholesale prices. Each year in early July thousands of game enthusiasts gather to play at GAMA‘s showcase convention Origins®, the International Game Expo and Fair. Amongst over a thousand scheduled events are demonstrations of new games and introductions to a huge variety of games. Naturally, David Millians gives a seminar(s) on using games in educational settings. In the future, depending on teacher interest, the seminars roster may include more and more seminars & workshops on this key element of getting kids involved and enthusiastic about learning. Contact GAMA’s Executive Director for more information. GAMA CONTACTS: For Publications: GAMA Publications Request 80 Garden Center, Ste.16. Broomfield, CO. 80020 Phone 303-635-2223 Fax 303-469-2878 The objective of the Game Manufacturers Associa- tion is to promote the general interest of all persons Games in Education: David Millians email [email protected] engaged in the buying, selling, licensing, or manu- Games in Education: Richard Martin-Leep email [email protected] facturing of gaming products. Naturally, if we can GAMA Executive Director: Mark Simmons email email ma.org help you teach with games we all win! 2 GAMES IN EDUCATION: HISTORY & SOCIAL STUDIES This is the third Games In Education brochure. It is a good IOWA COUNCIL FOR THE SOCIAL STUDIES time to remind the readers that the articles you read are from by Marvin Scott a collection gathered by David Millians over the span of his teaching career. Throughout the issue are photographs with Sometimes things don’t turn out as expected. Certainly that captions, since the photos are of current games they often do was true for my presentation to a small group session at the not relate to the article they are placed near. However we do Iowa Council for the Social Studies. Last year my presentation hope you enjoy seeing the children’s delight while learning had drawn a crowd of two, so this year I planned accordingly. I from playing games in the classroom. packed my case with books, magazines, and a collection of Using games as teaching tools is not a new concept. Several games for two or more players. I expected that my presenta- methods of teaching have advocated for decades that during tion would be a demonstration of World War I naval fighting play adults and children are more open to learning. “Adults” using Fletcher Pratt’s rules. I felt extravagant running off you say? Peter L. de Rosa uses wargames in one of his adult twenty-five copies of my handout. It included an outline about education courses at Newbury College. Look for his workshop teaching with games, a bibliography, and some GAMA mate- on page 4. The lessons learned through play are more mean- rial. ingful and stay with the learner longer than through some of Convention day was broken into five sessions of fifty minutes. the traditional classroom practices. My presentation was in the second. There were ten minutes It is very important for the Teacher to facilitate the Processing between sessions, so I was very busy unpacking. I put the in the classroom. A Game is merely a tool to provide the books on the tray of the chalkboard, pinned magazines to the learners with a common experience which they can then bulletin board, and spread models on the table next to the discuss. That is worth reiterating; the game is a common overhead projector. As I did this, it gradually dawned on me reference because the learners have all shared in the experi- that the room was filling. There were over thirty people. So ence of having played the game together. Once the learners much for Fletcher Pratt and Plan A. Was there a Plan B? have a common experience, the discussions that follow, help the learners to speculate, theorize, draw conclusions, explore Not really, but there was my outline on the handout, and it did many directions, and Process the experiences into meaningful serve as a basis for a lecture. I asked hobby gamers to raise lessons. their hands, and only two hands went up, so i did a basic introduction to gaming. I used the overhead to project the Enjoy this issue of Games In Education, silhouettes of my plastic Romans, Athenian triremes, USS Richard Martin-Leep, Monitor, and CSS Virginia. I tried to weave in stories of teach- Assistant Editor and Layout ing with games so they fit the outline. Time flew, and with twenty minutes left, the lecture was over. Now what? As a sort of afterthought, I had packed my Singapore game. It is a little role play or free kriegpspiel of the British navy defend- ing Singapore in 1941. I put the transparency on the screen Editor, David Millians, Paideia and sketched a map on the chalkboard. The group discussed School, Atlanta Georgia, USA. the problem asking a number of skeptical questions. I gave Many teachers know that games them a very factual briefing. I gave them time to discuss are quite useful in the classroom. among themselves, then asked their decision. Most of them Some of them have been contrib- chose to steam the Prince of Wales and Repulse out to meet uting their knowledge to the the Japanese invasion fleet just as the original commander had. Games in Education newsletter A few days later they were sunk by Japanese aircraft. It was fun that Atlanta teacher David to discuss the significance of this event with a group of sophis- Millians has been publishing for ticated adults. As they filed out of the room, I realized I had not eight years. even shown them my World War I ships. Mark Simmons is the Executive Director for the Game Manufacturers Richard Martin-Leep (-RML-) is Editor Association, GAMA, as well as of Games Quarterly Catalog and has publisher of Games Quarterly been working along side Executive Catalog. He works and plays in and Director Mark Simmons for many around the “Crowned City of the years. Planes” in Colorado. 3 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR: SPLENDID LITTLE WARGAMES by Marvin Scott In the years I taught U.S. history, the Spanish-American War was always one of my favorite topics. It was nice to study a war small enough that the students could understand it, and it seemed to offer lots of possibilities for games. When doing the causes of the war, I used my game 1898. Essentially, this was a simulated meeting of President McKinley and four advisors representing the army, the navy, the Depart- ment of State, and a political expert. Each advisor briefed the president, and he or she made a decision. This process took place in groups of five. There would be several such groups in each class. After running 1898 a few times, it dawned on me that I could also game the early parts of the war. I used one of my classroom maps - a world map. I put some colored markers on the map. I made my markers by cutting a piece of bright colored card- board into a square about 3/4 inch on a side and putting a loop of masking tape sticky side out on its back.