Gaming in General Education!?

This Spring, our lab group will pilot the use of a popular video game as an environment for experiential learning in a university general education curriculum. There is a long history of the use of simulation in the social sciences. Classes about gaming have long employed video games, and undergraduates may be exposed to simulations in required courses in statistics (e.g., Monte Carlo) or in methods courses (e.g., Sugarscape). Distance education courses may involve collaboration using remote presence or virtual reality (e.g., Second Life). However, instead of these approaches, we will try to view a simulation in the way that we would critically view a text or a reading.

Students will not be asked to use a simulation in order to learn the laws that drive it. Instead, students will have to experientially discover the rules driving the simulation and critique them. This is a useful skill in that it provides an introduction to the understanding and critique of software "black-boxes" that students increasingly encounter in all aspects of life, while also providing a gentle introduction to the use of simulation methods in social science -- an important general education goal. (Using popular software instead of custom-designed educational software also promises benefits for student engagement.)

The class Communication Technology & Society* will play and critique a modified version of Civilization IV in order to formulate and test principles about how human societies develop and employ communication technology, and its relation to human culture. This experiment in using new technologies in university learning has been made possible by a partnership with the Gaming Collection of the University Library.

* - this course is under consideration by the general education board.

See also:
    Our lab at the Radio Spectrum Working Group (previous)
    Lyon and Sandvig appear at AAG (next)