Welcome to my rudimentary website of educational games.
A few years ago when gamification was all the rage, I realized that school itself is a game. We award points, level-ups, and win conditions. Unfortunately we were leaving out all of the best parts of gaming, mainly the fun.
While mastery is fun for some, it is not the only way to have fun in a game.
According to some websites there are at least
fourteen types of fun. I even did some research about fun in schools.
Next I realized that a lesson plan is nothing more than a game design, so I started designing games.
I have expanded my view of gamification so that it now encompasses two different manifestations. Gamification is adding games to the curriculum. It includes the points and other trappings of school, but adds some of the fun. The second view is ludification. This is the idea that the curriculum is the the game. It is an MMRPG, a simulation of the real world in which you can fail and respawn without high stakes consequences.Ultimately, my goal is to convince teachers that we need to stop referring school as a place where rigorous work is done and teachers are in the trenches. Instead we should see school as a playground, sandbox, and simulation. When designing lessons we should include meaningful choices and challenging win conditions. Once the lesson begins, teachers should give up authorial control and let the game play develop organically.
Here are some resources that have informed my work.
If you have stumbled upon this and had some fun, you can contact me at morden01@swbell.net to leave feedback. Thanks.
An exploration of St. Louis at the turn of the 20th century and the shooting that led to the crime ballad "Stagger Lee." This definitely more narrative. This is the first one I made and the namesake for this website.
Created with Twine
The world is facing an apocalypse and you have to assemble a team of inventors from throughout history using your time machine. I created this for a co-worker who did a unit on inventors for Black History Month. I expanded it to include other under represented groups. This can be played as a group, and the end game is definitely collaborative.
Created with Twine
Using images from Where Children Sleep by James Mollison, players attempt to match children with their sleeping arrangements. It was based on a relatively lame activity about seeing details in some paintings that was included in our curriculum. This way the students will notice details and make inferrences.
Created with Twine
An attempt to take my presentation about gamification and put it in game form. This is long and I have even more parts that have not been published. The idea is to help teachers understand the difference between gamification (adding game mechanics to the current curriculum) and ludification (the curriculum is the the game a simulation with choice, control, and the freedom to fail.)
Created with Twine
This is a companion piece to a text in our curriculum "The Two Clashing Meanings of 'Free Speech'" It is a basic quiz to help students understand the difference between isegoria and parrhesia. I have since eliminated this from the curriculum because the only place I see these words used consistently online is in this essay.
Created with Twine
A test of your ability to understand logical fallacies based on examples from The Crucible. I love this one. I really think it imparts useful information especially for the current contentious online environment.
Created with Twine
Learn about a few logical fallacies using a real world scenario. This was created for the freshman teachers to give more concrete examples of logical fallacies.
Created with Twine
A prompt based game that has students create a society after they have been stranded on an exoplanet. Kids say they don't like it, but the certainly remember it. It is a marked improvement on the version that was in the text book. I also used recording of students in the class. If I wasn't always behind I would update it with new recordings for each school year. The kids complain, but it definitely better than the version our textbook asks them to do. My reference to Elon Musk has not aged well.
This one is a card/role playing game designed to emulate the witch trials in The Crucible. The link about is to a three page rules document, but basically students are accused of cheating and they can either confess and go free or deny and go to jail. If they confess, they have to accuse another student. This is the spreadsheet I use to score the students and a link to the cards (I would print them 6 per page.).
Help students with test prep.
A story based algorithm to help students write and introduction. I don't think this works to well, but I am playing with a form that will helps students create portions of their writing. I do not like the story, and it still doesn't put together a good intro. I might come back to it.
Created with Twine
A simple template to help students create a constructed response. Another attempt at a writing form. This is another one where I tried to make a game that builds a paragraph. I am not happy with this either.
Created with Twine
(Beta)This was done as a request by a teacher for a specifice assignment. Honestly, I have not looked at it since I made it. The teacher seemed happy, but I don't know.
Created with Twine
This is an early attempt at a choose-your-own adventure game. The idea is that you have to go on a quest to create a quest. It follows Joseph Campbell's hero's journey research while making many pop culture references. This was the first game I made as part of my graduate program in Ed Tech. It is a classic example of me being a try-hard. The professor want some Google Slides silliness and I created a parser game.
Created with Quest Text Adventures