While many educators may see such games as distractions from schoolwork, others are starting to view them as a vehicle for honing students’ mathematical, problem-solving, and reading-comprehension skills (Education Week, 2006). This has lead one researcher to conclude “video games are not the enemy, but the best opportunity we have to engage our kids in real learning” (Prensky, 2003).
Research conducted in the UK found that youngsters learned more effectively from information presented in audiovisual form such as a video game than from facts on a printed page. The researcher who carried out the study, discovered more than three-quarters of the students absorbed facts contained in a historical video game as opposed to just more than half who were presented with the same information in written form (BBC News, 2000)). Another UK study of 700 children concluded that simulation and adventure games - such as Sim City and RollerCoaster Tycoon, where players create societies or build theme parks, developed children's strategic thinking and planning skills (BBC News, 2002)).
In addition to improved recall and strategic thinking, early research on arcade-style games suggests that games create intrinsic motivation through fantasy, control, challenge, curiosity, and competition (Malone 1981; Cordova and Lepper 1996 in Squire, 2005). This is an important finding when trying to find ways to engage previously disengaged students. The work of Gee, Hull, and Lankshear 1996 (in Squire, 2005 highlights that students who were failing in school (or who school was failing) developed and demonstrated complex understandings within a game-based curriculum that go undeveloped or unrecognized in other school experiences.
A move to game-based learning will require a paradigm shift on the part of education community. The skills required by the game curriculum—problem identification, hypothesis testing, analysis, interpretation, and strategic thinking more closely align with the new economy than does the "factory" model of curriculum, which privileges following directions, mastering pre-defined objectives, performance on highly structured tasks, and intellectual obedience (Squire, 2005). To reap the benefits of educational games a new breed of games, imbedded with core academics and analytical and problem-solving skills, that teaches through a method some educators call “stealth learning”(Education Week, 2006) will need to be implemented.
Good educational games require specific knowledge in a defined subject area and use intellectual skills that apply beyond the game to course content (Baranich & Currie, 2004)). A game should fit into the learning objective(s) of the course and have clear objectives of its own. Remember that a game must always be relevant to the learning objective(s). For an educational game to be a successful learning tool, the games objective should be reached by skill, knowledge, and/or teamwork, not by luck (Baranich & Currie, 2004)).
-> After reviewing a sample activity from each category, discuss the merits and difficulties of including games and simulations in your Social Studies program.
Games
Cross Country Canada
Cross Country Canada is a geography simulation program that lets students live the life of a truck driver, delivering essential commodities from Corner Brook to Nanaimo. The computer acts as their dispatcher, assigning them a mission to pick up and deliver commodities. Since minimizing expenses is important, students will need to read maps, plan routes, buy gas, eat and sleep while dealing with the hazards of long distance truck driving. Along the way, colourful graphics illustrate typical land use. Free distribution to all schools and teacher training institutions. Download free
MAC or
PC demo from Ingenuity.
Owl & Mouse Educational Software - Build a Medieval Castle
Make a model medieval castle -- a learning activity that teaches about history, feudalism and life in the Middle Ages.
Prime Minister Concentration Game
The classic matching game, featuring Canada’s prime ministers! Want to play again? You can choose to play the identical game again by selecting "Replay" or start afresh with "New Game".
Nobel Prize.Org - The Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons
Several people and organizations have received the Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts concerning nuclear weapons disarmament. Worldwide, the white dove is a symbol for peace. Take on the 15 minute mission to disarm the world of nuclear weapons! You have eight "Peace Doves" to help you, each able to disarm one of the eight countries possessing nuclear weapons.
Nobel Prize.Org - World Trade
Bertil Ohlin, awarded the Prize in Economics in 1977, showed that countries engage in and benefit from trade if their production resources differ from each other. This 15 minute online game brings economics to life.
Simulations & Role Play
Great Upper Canada Adventure
Try your hand at the life of a settler on the Sydenham River. This interactive game takes you through several of the challenges settlers had to face in Upper Canada.
Owl & Mouse Educational Software - Heraldry Game
Free on-line heraldry game - learn about Shields, Knights and Heraldry. Role-play as a young aristocrat, recognizing friends and enemies.
Canadian Immigration Process
is an online game designed to teach students about the process of immigrating to Canada during the era that Pier 21 in Halifax, Nova Scotia welcomed one million newcomers.
Klondike - Rush for the Gold
An Adventure Game exploring the 1860's Goldrush in British Columbia. Includes lesson plan. The Klondike Gold Rush was a significant event in western and northern Canadian history.
SimCity 
Sim City is exciting computer simulation software that allows students to create their own cities from scratch, converting a serene and untouched landscape into a thriving metropolis over a period of many hours. During this time, the students experience the challenge of building and maintaining these extremely complex systems. The software can be used to help students learn a brand new vocabulary and new concepts that lead to a better understanding of how a modern city functions and grows. Players can mark land as being zoned as commercial, industrial, or residential, add buildings, change the tax rate, build a power grid, build transportation systems and many other actions, in order to enhance the city. There is a free online verison of SimCity Classic
Over the Top
An interactive adventure which allows you to experience life in the trenches during the First World War.
Canadian War Museum: Armoured Warrior
Armoured Warrior is an interactive activity based on the real-life experiences of Canadian tank crews that fought in North West Europe during the Second World War. Unlike their stories, however, YOU get to decide how this adventure will end. As the commander of a Sherman tank in the final days of the Normandy Campaign of 1944, you will live through some of the excitement, despair, brutality and sheer horror of one day's fighting at the front.
Darfu is dying
An online, interactive video game gives players a glimpse of what it's like to be a refugee in the Darfur region of Sudan. In "Darfur Is Dying," players take on the role of refugees searching for food, shelter and safety, while avoiding the wrath of the murderous Janjaweed militia.
Quizzes
Where in Canada?
A quick and simple provinces and territories quiz.
Canadian Heritage Quiz (Canadian Symbols)
Matching Quiz
Test your knowledge of everyday Egyptian objects.
Atlas Canada Quizzes
Test your knowledge of Canada's geography and history by trying one of these quizzes made to challenge any level of user from novice to expert. The Canada quiz is an interactive module with user selected questions from eight categories: The People; The Land; A Land of Superlatives; Shapes of Canada; Economy; Ecology; Pre-Confederation Canadian History and Post-Confederation Canadian History.
Additional Information
Known as the Serious Games Movement, this genre is "about taking resources of the (video) games industry and applying them outside of entertainment," says Ben Sawyer, co-founder of Digitalmill Inc., and one of the organizers of the Serious Games Summit. This means creating games that play roles in areas such as education, health, public policy, science, government and corporate training, he says.
