Gaming the Past

Posted two recent articles of mine.

From November 2012 The History Teacher: Navigating the Problem Space: The Medium of Simulation Games in the Teaching of History

From spring 2012 Journal of Digital Humanities: Historical Simulations as Problem Spaces: Criticism and Classroom Use

The History Teacher published my article in the November 2012 volume. It reflects my latest research and theory on simulation games as a medium, how they compare to more familiar narrative media, and what that means for the classroom. Give it a look and let me know what you think.
The History Teacher is available at most college libraries and through many online databases.

Listen to Zack Gilbert, Gerry James, and I discuss the Playful Learning Initiative and find out how you can participate.
Edgamer 86 Jeremiah McCall and the Learning Games Network
Edgamer 80 Playful Learning Initiative with Jeremiah McCall
Both are also available on Itunes.

I had the pleasure to talk about my work and GTP on the latest episode of Edgamer: EdGamer 61: Gaming the Past with Jeremiah McCall (It’s in a streaming format now but will be out on Itunes soon).
Make sure you check out Edgamer in general for the great work they are doing on video games in education.

A couple of formal reviews have come out for Gaming the Past since its publication last year.

The History Teacher, Volume 45, No. 3 (May 2012)  http://www.societyforhistoryeducation.org/pdfs/M12_Reviews.pdf

Teacher’s College Record (this one seems to be under restircted access: http://www.tcrecord.org/Content.asp?ContentId=16592

 Journal of Digital Humanities Vol. 1, No. 2 Spring 2012

This includes a slightly revised and copy-edited reprint on my PtP essays on problem spaces, titled,

Historical Simulations as Problem Spaces: Criticism and Classroom Use

Also included are:

Games and Historical Narratives
Jeremy Antley

Privileging Form Over Content: Analysing Historical Videogames
Adam Chapman

Going Beyond the Textual in History
Jeremy Antley

The slides and handout from my GLSES Keynote and workshop are up on the Presentation Notes and Handouts page.

(A republication of my original article at PlayThePast 5/8/2012 )

My original plan for this essay was to analyze the problem spaces filled in by Hegemony and evaluate briefly how defensibly this problem space was presented in light of what ancient evidence suggests about ancient battle. Playing the game, reading the manual, and, most importantly, engaging in the process of using a game to encourage thinking about a relatively unfamiliar problem space have led me in a different direction.

I have been writing on the subject of using simulation games to help students study the past in terms of dynamic systems for some time. And as an educator, I regularly attempt to put myself in my students’ cognitive shoes, to see things and encounter problems as they might. Hegemony allowed me the chance to experience more authentically how a sim can encourage students to think, question, and problem solve in an unfamiliar domain. To be fair, my dissertation and first book were on the Roman citizen cavalry of the Republic, and my third book on the military and political career of Marcellus (cos. 222 etc.). I do not (really!) spend all my time poring through works on ancient battle, and, more importantly, I have never had much opportunity at all to consider Philip II of Macedon’s problem spaces, other than at a superficial level. So while I am familiar with the basic narrative of Philip and the main characteristics of the Macedonian army, my knowledge on these would not fill more than a vaguely worded page or two.

Read more…

CHNM (The Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media at George Mason University) invited me to write a six part series introducing the effective use of historical simulations to teachers. The series will rely on some of the core practices I have set out in my book, Gaming the Past, while including some more recent insights. I’m very pleased to note the first installment is out.