A Gettysburg College literature professor is teaching medieval culture using computer games. Within his rich Medieval Atlantic Web site, professor Christopher Fee’s students have written interactive fiction games to describe Icelandic tales, Norse myth, and archaeological site. This practice supports classes like English 401: Viking Studies
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For example, this page contains and links to information about the Lindisfarne priory. A student can absorb that information, then play this student-authored game, which offers an adventure story tracing a path through sites and myth. A quiz that lets the learner assess their progress.
Professor Fee makes available links to several free, downloadable, and often open source resources, including the Inform 7 interactive fiction authoring tool,
Interactive fiction (sometimes “IF”) is a form of text-based computer gaming dating back to the 1970s.
Professor Fee also showcased is work at the 2008 NITLE Summit.
on May 10, 2008 at 1:57 pm
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Of the four dozen or sites in the total project, nearly half–almost all of the sites in Viking Britain–have live IF games; the selection on the Isle of Man is especially good, so one might wish to start there. Most of those sites have relevant images/panos, video clips, and student-generated text reports, as well as the IF games; the idea is that a visitor to the site can glean the relevant information through any or all of these resources, and an on-line quiz is provided for each site so that such a visitor can self-assess how well he or she has absorbed the most important facts and themes. In addition, a key pedagogical constituency includes those students who learn by researching the sites and composing the reports, games, and quizzes. The complete project description is available here:
http://public.gettysburg.edu/~cfee/MedievalNorthAtlantic/
I suggest this portal for direct access to the project:
http://public.gettysburg.edu/~cfee/MedievalNorthAtlantic/index970×650.html
Simply use the map to navigate to the sites on the Isle of Man; Andreas, Cronk ny Merriu, Knockadoone, Maughold, and Peel are probably especially worth a look, but you be the judge of that and please feel free to get back to me with your impressions. The games are in their first iteration, but you’ll get the idea, I think!
Alternatively, you can just go play the games, although I do NOT recommend this approach, which does not provide the context of the site reports, documentary clips, and quizzes, and thus is unmoored from the learning tools and pedagogical goals of the project:
http://public.gettysburg.edu/~cfee/courses/English4012001/topic3.htm#target two
They’ll be alot more up–especially concerning non-Viking sites–in the next six months.
on May 15, 2008 at 11:15 pm
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Chris,
What I really found fascinating with your project is the integration of key literacy skills and strategies. You take the time to build the participant’s background knowledge, require the application of critical thinking skills, engage the participant through the various interactive “gaming opportunities” and allow the participant to take part in an historical adventure.
I also appreciate the opportunity you provide these young adults to become more savvy with their media literacy skills. I wonder what Dr. Donald Leu – from the University of Connecticut would have to say. His team of researchers investigate the need to teach students how to be critical online thinkers.
Just my thoughts….
~D:)
on May 16, 2008 at 6:19 am
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Divonna,
Thank you for your thoughtful and clear articulation of some of the learning strategies we’ve been trying to implement. I’m especially pleased to have input from someone who’s an expert in pedagogical matters. Can you envision ways of implementing this project into High School or even Middle School classrooms?
It also seems to me that I should think more intentionally about issues of media literacy; there are implicit learning goals there, to be sure, but I feel that they could be more clearly conceived and articulated.
Any suggestions?
Chris
on May 17, 2008 at 6:28 am
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Chris,
Blush, blush – I really am not an expert in pedagogical matters, but I do have a pedagogical passion and some pedagogical expertise!
I can certainly see opportunities to transport this project to middle and high schools. It is a critical time to engage our adolescents in media literacy. With that being said, it is essential to be sure that this engagement demands critical thinking. In the past, it seems we have offered multiple opportunities for media literacy at the awareness level, but we (educators) have neglected to integrate these opportunities with the instruction of essential critical thinking skills, which are warranted when learning through multiple literacies. I recommend the research out of the University of Connecticut (http://www.newliteracies.uconn.edu/), under the leaderhsip of Donald Leu. His research is not directly related to our project, but I think it is a place to begin your investigation.
~D:)
on May 20, 2008 at 5:13 am
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What I admire most is the way that this project engages multiple learning styles while reinforcing basic research skills. I could see using this project at many educational levels, from middle school through college. This project provides users with an astonishing volume of information in an accessible and well-organized manner; yet, in addition to presenting information, this project could also encourage metacognition. I teach several 100-level courses, and one of my goals in these courses is to help students develop an understanding of how they learn. Students can explore the information on the site in a variety of ways (seeing an object, hearing or reading a description, engaging in a hands-on gaming experience); then, when the students complete the quizzes, they have the opportunity to see the information that they retained. I think this could lead to excellent discussions about the students’ learning styles, as well as discussions about how students can apply this knowledge (of their learning styles) to their work in other courses. There are so many ways that this project could engage students in learning.
on May 22, 2008 at 9:15 am
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Sarah,
Thanks for your supportive assessment of the learning potential of this project; as I noted in an earlier entry, I have had some solid success engaging my upper-level students in the development of the site reports and IF games, and I’d be very interested in how useful your 100-level students found those materials. I myself have had some great results using the Otter’s Ransom project to supplement the background reading for 200-level survey courses of Medieval literature. For example, in addition to the primary course reading, most weeks I assign a complementary site or sites from Otter’s Ransom to fill in the students’ background knowledge of particular topics: They look at Odin being swallowed by Fenrir on the Thorwald Cross at Andreas and Loki killing Otter on the relevant cross-slab at Maughold the week we talk about Norse mythology; they look at various grave sites and ship burials during the period when we discuss Beowulf; they visit Lindisfarne to prepare for our discussion of the Viking Age and the Battle of Maldon, etc.
In order to self-assess their absorption of the most critical material from those sites, the students rely upon the site quizzes. I—on the other hand—assess their conversance with each site in two main ways: First, I call on random students in class in the time-honored fashion in order to ascertain who is up to speed; second, the students are forewarned that the exams most definitely will cover material that each student is expected to absorb by visiting the assigned Otter’s Ransom project pages, reading the relevant site reports, playing the relevant games, and taking the relevant quizzes. Thus they are aware that this multimedia resource is designed to supplement and to complement the course reading and the class discussion so most of the information contained in that resource will NOT be covered in class, except insofar as it generates class discussion, unless a student raises a specific question concerning some of this material. This system has worked well, with the added bonus that most of my students seem to have enjoyed the process at the same time that they were gleaning background material which informed our group conversations. I find that this process gives many of my students—who often have no previous experience whatsoever of Medieval literature, history, or cultures—a distinct advantage in this regard, and thus I don’t have to start completely from scratch with each new topic; our class discussions are consequently more substantive. I’d love to hear about your own experiences in this regard.
Please let me know!
Chris
on May 26, 2008 at 8:28 am
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Gettysburg’s Eric Remy has a fine blog post exploring teaching with interactive fiction.
http://paidogogos.blogspot.com/2008/05/it-is-very-dark-you-are-likely-to-be.html
on September 8, 2008 at 5:54 am
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Chris,
Wow! I really enjoyed going through the project. The whole idea of student-based work is terrific and obviously the students will learn more by becoming the instructors and creating the work. The chance to allow multiple learning styles was well-represented.
I especially liked the wonderful use of media and technology so necessary in our global economy, etc. Now that BHS is going to individual laptops for all students, I saw numerous ways to use a project like this.
For instance, I have a problem-based learning project in which students are grouped and asked to “fix” a current World, US, state, or local problem. They may choose between things as obvious as the War in Iraq to how to fix the problem of the Homeless in America to stopping the drug problems in Adams County. By using a format similar to your project, they could create a project for viewing and study by any number of concerned, vital, and world organizations. Just my initial thought.
Back to your project…each item that I looked at was nicely succinct and user friendly. The tests of knowledge were very good. Assessment of this type of assignment can be difficult. I found the images and panoramas fascinating, especially how the user could “look around.”
Unfortunately, I could not access any of the Interactive Games. The Firewall didn’t allow it??!!
Bottom line is that this project is terrific.
Denise