iCivics: The bacon of social studies

I like bacon.

Bacon cheeseburgers. Eggs and bacon. BLTs. Chocolate covered bacon. Maple and bacon doughnuts. Bacon and onion gravy. Bacon topped baked potatoes. Bacon wrapped Little Smokies. Bacon wrapped anything.

I’m probably not the only one. And I get it . . . some choose not to eat bacon for religious or health reasons. (And have much stronger will power than I do.)

My point? Pretty much everything is better with bacon.

So what’s the bacon of social studies? That one thing that goes better with everything and is so delicious that you really need to find a way to integrate it into your classroom? The answer is simple.

Assassin’s Creed Discovery Tour. Yes. It’s a video game. So . . . yes, it’s also an awesome teaching tool

The video game Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag came about five years ago. And as an avid fan of Assassin’s Creed, my son and his friends were some of the first in line to purchase it. And play it.

A lot.

If you’re not familiar with the Assassin’s Creed line of video games, they’re basically an action adventure featuring a centuries old struggle between two groups of people – the Assassins, who fight for peace and free will, against the Templars, who believe peace comes through control of humanity. There’s fighting, walking around, some fighting, sneaking around, more fighting, some running, and then some more fighting. Fairly typical video game.

The thing that makes the series a little different than many other action adventure or first person shooter games, is the creators of Assassin’s Creed have been very deliberate about mixing the historical fiction of Assassins vs. Templars with real-world historical events and figures. In Assassin’s Creed III, for example, the setting is the American colonies before, during, and after the Revolutionary War. And there’s a cut scene depicting a version of the Boston Massacre that does a great job of creating the sense of place around that event, perfect for creating a idea of what that event might have looked like and the ambiguity around how the event transpired.

My son experienced the same sort of historical involvement when he was playing Black Flag. Set in the 18th century Caribbean during the Golden Age of Piracy, Black Flag obviously was telling a fictional story. But to be successful in that story, players need to know a lot about what life was like during that period and in that place. I asked him later about his experience:

The Oregon Trail, GBL, and 7 suggestions to integrate gaming in the classroom

I had a flashback moment a few days ago as I was reading Lance Mosier’s sweet blog post You Died Of Dysentery! Resources on The Oregon Trail.

First year of teaching. Derby Middle School. Five sections of US history. One section of reading. Thirty plus kids per section. Kansas August with no air conditioning. I was absolutely clueless. And excited about the possibilities.

Desperate to figure out how to fill the time while also hoping to find some sort of instructional focus, I ran across a simple turn by turn game called Archaeology.

We played it on an Apple IIE desktop, with groups of four students taking turns to “dig up” artifacts that eventually revealed the remains of a 18th century New England farmhouse.  The game ran on a 5 1/4 floppy disc that I protected with my life because we couldn’t find a way to create a usable backup. My goal was that kids would begin to see that we learn about the past by finding evidence, analyzing the evidence, and by asking questions. I wanted to create little history detectives.

And it worked.

Kids were engaged. Conversation was happening. Stuff was being learned. Of course, I didn’t know why. I just knew something good was taking place. It wasn’t till much later that I started connecting brain research to what happened back at Derby.

The concept and theory of Game Based Learning was

Play Like a Pirate – Fun is an essential part of learning

I spent part of the morning chatting with golfing buddy and educational expert Steve Wyckoff. He’s got a way of sucking people into unplanned conversations that end up making everyone smarter. It’s always a good time when it starts with Steve’s signature line:

“So what’s become clear to you?”

This morning wasn’t any different.

We spent perhaps an hour meandering around a matrix that focuses on levels of student engagement. The different quadrants of the matrix ask students to think about how challenging a class is and whether they love or hate it. We’re thinking about using this to get usable data from middle and high school students. As in, “pick a quadrant that best describes each of your classes.”

PokemonGo: 21st century geocaching, lesson plans, & all around game changer

Maybe you missed this. Maybe you’ve been following the presidential election or the Brexit thing or bemoaning the fact that the 2015 World Series champions have lost seven of their last ten games and are now seven games back of Cleveland. You know, something trivial.

So let me catch you up.

A free mobile phone app just changed the world.

Okay. That may be just a bit of an exaggeration. But it’s not far off. Since last week, more people are using this app than Twitter. During that same period, the market value of the app’s manufacturer bumped up nine billion – that’s billion with a B – dollars. And all over the world, millions have jumped off their couches and are, wait for it

Using Graphite: App smashing in the social studies classroom

If you’re not spending time on the Graphite web site, uh . . .  what are you doing instead? Because I’m gonna suggest that you’ve got a problem with your priorities.

Looking for a handy site that helps you locate useful apps, games, and websites that also provides ratings and reviews? That also includes teacher feedback? That has awesome search and sorting functions? That organizes all of its goodies by Common Core – giving you the chance to find activities aligned to ELA literacy standards for history?

What you’re looking for is Graphite

. . . a free service from nonprofit Common Sense Education designed to help preK-12 educators discover, use, and share the best apps, games, websites, and digital curricula for their students by providing unbiased, rigorous ratings and practical insights from our active community of teachers.

Their team of professional educators – early childhood development experts, doctorates in education, and teachers with hands-on classroom experience – rates each website, game, and app on Graphite based on their detailed rubric. Every product on Graphite is rigorously reviewed to dig deeper into what and how your students will learn with it.

Start with the basics. Head straight