Are you thinking about ways you can level-up lessons for your students? Check out my top 3 suggestions for games to enhance learning and engagement in secondary classrooms. Top 3 Games for Secondary Classrooms |
1. Discovery Tour by Assassin’s Creed: Ancient Egypt
This game deserves a spot on any top gaming list. With eleven editions released since its launch in 2007, Assassin’s Creed is without a doubt one of the most prolific video games ever created. Although the games themselves may be considered too violent for some schools, game creators Ubisoft recognised the value of the games’ intricately animated worlds for educators, and have released an education-focused guided tour for schools.
Discovery Tour by Assassin’s Creed is an interactive annotated tour of the incredible worlds within the Assassin’s Creed franchise. Under the expert guidance of historians and Egyptologists, players can move through the streets, buildings and community areas of Ancient Egypt, interact with the characters and listen to voice-over commentary from the experts themselves. A massive 75 individual tours are available, such as “Beer and Bread” which offers a unique insight into the daily life of Ancient Egyptians. To reinforce learning, players can take a quiz after each tour.
Read more about how this game can be used in classrooms to enhance learning of ancient history in this blog by Geek and Sundry’s Jessica Fisher.
Fun fact: Impressively, Ubisoft brought together a team of linguists to recreate the language of Ancient Egypt through extensive collaborative research. Here's an article about the fascinating process.
Discovery Tour by Assassin’s Creed is an interactive annotated tour of the incredible worlds within the Assassin’s Creed franchise. Under the expert guidance of historians and Egyptologists, players can move through the streets, buildings and community areas of Ancient Egypt, interact with the characters and listen to voice-over commentary from the experts themselves. A massive 75 individual tours are available, such as “Beer and Bread” which offers a unique insight into the daily life of Ancient Egyptians. To reinforce learning, players can take a quiz after each tour.
Read more about how this game can be used in classrooms to enhance learning of ancient history in this blog by Geek and Sundry’s Jessica Fisher.
Fun fact: Impressively, Ubisoft brought together a team of linguists to recreate the language of Ancient Egypt through extensive collaborative research. Here's an article about the fascinating process.
2. Gone Home
The struggle to engage teens with traditional and often uninspiring class novels is real. The following game, however, has the potential to change everything. The story exploration game Gone Home is every high-school English teacher's dream. A non-linear narrative set in 1955, the game takes players through a touching story which begins when the young protagonist returns to her rural home to find an empty house and her family missing. Players are then required to investigate by searching for clues around the house, reading journal entries and collating evidence with the aim to solve the mystery. Gone Home ticks every educator’s boxes in regards to being school-appropriate, violence-free and gender neutral.
English teacher Paul Darvasi’s blog is the ultimate guide to using Gone Home in the English classroom. Darvasi threw himself into the deep-end and generously blogged about his experiences teaching with Gone Home for the benefit of educators worldwide. Gone Home is not only a sure fire way of engaging reluctant learners, but it can also support the teaching of a broad range of literacy and multi-literacy knowledge and skills such as aspects of character, setting, conventions of language, intent and purpose, narrative structures, visual communication, and meaning making. Some ideas regarding potential learning outcomes can be found here and a range of assessment strategies have been compiled here.
Read more about how Gone Home inspired a new gaming genre and discover a few similar alternatives.
English teacher Paul Darvasi’s blog is the ultimate guide to using Gone Home in the English classroom. Darvasi threw himself into the deep-end and generously blogged about his experiences teaching with Gone Home for the benefit of educators worldwide. Gone Home is not only a sure fire way of engaging reluctant learners, but it can also support the teaching of a broad range of literacy and multi-literacy knowledge and skills such as aspects of character, setting, conventions of language, intent and purpose, narrative structures, visual communication, and meaning making. Some ideas regarding potential learning outcomes can be found here and a range of assessment strategies have been compiled here.
Read more about how Gone Home inspired a new gaming genre and discover a few similar alternatives.
3. Civilization by Sid Meier
If you are anything like me, you’ve probably wished for a tool to allow students to safely experience the diverse dilemmas of human civilisation rather than just read about them from a page. This legendary game of almost 3 decades may be as close to a perfect solution as is possible. Civilization by Sid Meier is a turn-based strategy game which focuses on developing a civilisation, beginning from ancient times to the present. Currently in its 6th iteration, Civilization has an almost cult-like following of dedicated personal gamers, gaming communities and educators alike.
Unlike the previous game suggestions, Civilization offers comparatively lengthy game-play, with one game potentially taking up to 30 hours. Teacher Terry Heick has blogged about multiple ways teachers can use the game in their classrooms, including a flipped model where students are assigned gameplay for homework then analysis and reflection on key themes occur in class. Civilization would bring value to units on the topics of Social Studies, History, Political Science, Governments, and World Civilisations.
Read how Civilization was used in Aleksander Husoy and Vegard Relling’s classrooms to teach English, Norwegian and Social Science. You can find wonderful evidence of their students’ learning in this blog.
-BJK
Unlike the previous game suggestions, Civilization offers comparatively lengthy game-play, with one game potentially taking up to 30 hours. Teacher Terry Heick has blogged about multiple ways teachers can use the game in their classrooms, including a flipped model where students are assigned gameplay for homework then analysis and reflection on key themes occur in class. Civilization would bring value to units on the topics of Social Studies, History, Political Science, Governments, and World Civilisations.
Read how Civilization was used in Aleksander Husoy and Vegard Relling’s classrooms to teach English, Norwegian and Social Science. You can find wonderful evidence of their students’ learning in this blog.
-BJK
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