Classroom Application of EB (going live in a couple of months)

[Teleklos Archelaou]

The box from Amazon.com arrived this past week - inside was seven copies of RTW Gold. I have 14 students in two sections, seven in each, and I will be installing RTW Gold and then EB 1.2 (with a minor music addition) onto seven computers in our school computer lab. It will probably be April before we actually try this, but I am thinking two weeks for the project.

My students will be almost done with their year-long Ancient Greek I class. About 60-40% Grammar/Vocabulary-Culture/History. We will read and talk about Hellenistic Greek History and Alexander before the project begins, and a little about the different Greek "factions" after Alexander's death, then I will take them into the lab for a one-day introduction to the software/interface/etc. That would be about 45 minutes. Then we would have 80 min, 45 min., 45 min. that week, and then 45, 80, 45, and 45 the next week of actual playing time. They would each choose a faction and play as it, mostly autoresolving the battles. I would like to maximize the educational benefits here - with them seeing and hearing the military units on the battlefield, but focusing on learning about their faction's history and culture in the campaign map. I'm thinking about basically making them write AAR's - keeping diaries of their campaign and playing for about 5-10 years. They could only play in the lab though, as they won't have the game at home. But they could be working on their diary/AAR as homework each night (during the two weeks of this project we won't be doing any other grammar/translating really). These would be sort of "alternative history" reports, as they describe what they would have done differently at an important point in the history of the Greek world. It would be really cool if they could use images from their campaigns and make true AAR's, but that is probably asking too much - still it would be great to show people later instead of just looking at the text by itself.

So I'm asking, what do you guys think? These are mostly really good high school seniors at a terrific school with good grades (the ones with the lower grades are probably going to be even more into this btw). What sort of direction would you take this if you had total control of a Greek class with really sharp 17 year olds, a computer lab, and EB 1.2 on seven computers? Half of them are females, but the females all have high marks. Any thoughts or suggestions? I want to make this as good as it can be and possibly make a video of the students in class playing EB and talking about what they learned from it too. It could be great PR for the game but also for my class at school and the school itself if done right.

edit: Oh, I almost forgot, any spam or negative comments in this thread will be deleted post haste.

[Kull]

What a fantastic thing! Here's a couple ideas for you to consider:

1) I agree with autoresolving the battles, but you should consider using some of the pertinent historical ones (like Raphia) so they get a taste of that, too.

2) EB is all about having the opportunity to "rewrite history", but there are reasons why it flowed as it did. So when your students take their factions in a non-historical direction, it might be helpful if they wrote about that later in the context of "why didn't this happen historically"?

3) It's hard to see how the school could NOT get very favorable media coverage out of this. The angle is so obvious that the story almost writes itself: "Boring history comes to life in the classroom!" But it gets better if the twin bogeymen of "evil video games" and "the dangerous internet" are exposed as shallow oversimplifications. Video Games, properly researched, can be a fabulous interactive learning tool. And the Internet connected people of every age, nation, language, and race into a cohesive team that created a product so multi-dimensional that is boggles the mind to just think of it - the sounds of ancient languages, the sights of two and three dimensional artwork, the volumes of synthesized historical research, to say nothing of the technical accomplishments necessary to make it all work seamlessly.... as always, just "wow".

[oudysseos]

I don't know how practical this is, but I always thought that it would be really cool to do a group battle: you could set up a good historical battle on an overhead projector and divide your class into teams, selecting generals, centurions etc etc and then play hotseat or mulitplayer. The general would have to give orders to his officers who would execute them by manipulating only the units they are supposed to be in control of.

You as the teacher could pause the game from time to time for a talking point. You could even have someone betray their general and defect to the other side!

Back in the day, I had a teacher do something like that with Squad Leader (god, what a great game that was): there were about 14 of us in an after school history club. We also dressed in period uniform while playing. No girls, though.

Also I thought you might be interested in this.

[Codyos Vladimiros]

The box from Amazon.com arrived this past week - inside was seven copies of RTW Gold. I have 14 students in two sections, seven in each, and I will be installing RTW Gold and then EB 1.2 (with a minor music addition) onto seven computers in our school computer lab. It will probably be April before we actually try this, but I am thinking two weeks for the project.

My students will be almost done with their year-long Ancient Greek I class. About 60-40% Grammar/Vocabulary-Culture/History. We will read and talk about Hellenistic Greek History and Alexander before the project begins, and a little about the different Greek "factions" after Alexander's death, then I will take them into the lab for a one-day introduction to the software/interface/etc. That would be about 45 minutes. Then we would have 80 min, 45 min., 45 min. that week, and then 45, 80, 45, and 45 the next week of actual playing time. They would each choose a faction and play as it, mostly autoresolving the battles. I would like to maximize the educational benefits here - with them seeing and hearing the military units on the battlefield, but focusing on learning about their faction's history and culture in the campaign map. I'm thinking about basically making them write AAR's - keeping diaries of their campaign and playing for about 5-10 years. They could only play in the lab though, as they won't have the game at home. But they could be working on their diary/AAR as homework each night (during the two weeks of this project we won't be doing any other grammar/translating really). These would be sort of "alternative history" reports, as they describe what they would have done differently at an important point in the history of the Greek world. It would be really cool if they could use images from their campaigns and make true AAR's, but that is probably asking too much - still it would be great to show people later instead of just looking at the text by itself.

So I'm asking, what do you guys think? These are mostly really good high school seniors at a terrific school with good grades (the ones with the lower grades are probably going to be even more into this btw). What sort of direction would you take this if you had total control of a Greek class with really sharp 17 year olds, a computer lab, and EB 1.2 on seven computers? Half of them are females, but the females all have high marks. Any thoughts or suggestions? I want to make this as good as it can be and possibly make a video of the students in class playing EB and talking about what they learned from it too. It could be great PR for the game but also for my class at school and the school itself if done right.

Dude, this sounds awesome.

I did stuff like this for some of my papers in college, when they were based on military interactions. And sometimes, it was a great way to procrastinate without procrastinating.

[Novellus]

This appears to be an excellent way to get everyone's attention. The autoresolving, I wouldn't be too happy with if I were a student, especially considering how off-balanced the computer seems to be when it comes to them. But it's completely understandable since there is only so much time available.

It's a wonderful idea. So much work was put into the creation of Europa Barbarorum, and there is so much to learn from it. I myself spend about the same amount of time reading the history that the researchers put into the game as playing itself.

I wish my school had an Ancient History class. I would attempt to bring it into the classroom as well!

[Dayve]

I wish history had been like that for me at school. Two subjects i were interested in the most was history and information technology... or computers, if you like. But the teachers were crap and the classes were crap.

This is a good thing. Keep it going and EB could one day be used in classrooms all over the world. I know kids will love it, especially if they have some interest in history. I've had people walk in my room when i'm playing and ask me what's going on, and i've explained to them, showed them what i'm playing, showed them a family members unit card with all his traits and his biography, then shown them a battle on how that faction fought their battles in this time and they have just been amazed.

[A Terribly Harmful Name]

Amen to that.

[A Very Super Market]

My history teacher has half his room stacked with different tabletop games, and every so often he will ask us to try one out. I've played ones detailing ancienct history, colonization, medieval life, industrial revolution business, and 18th century politics. Let me just tell you as a student myself that any kid or teenager given the chance to play any fun game will inevitably enjoy the experience and learn something from it.

[Olaf Blackeyes]

THIS RIGHT HERE IS HOW SCHOOL SHOULD WORK!!!!!!!
I support this with every last little bit of weight i got. Just two things.
1.Make them read the unit descriptions, building descriptions, and have them write a report on one thing that they learn about Greeks from the experience. For example, where we get the word gymnasium from. This could be used as extra-credit or something.
2.Post the best AARs on here id LOVE to see this.

A side note, make sure they are given a sufficient tutorial on how to use the RTW engine, and give them a quick run over on what to do about CTDs so they dont freak when the EB messes up.

[Cyclops]

What a good idea. Certainly there's a heap of work on detail in the mod that could rub off on players, and its a way to get at the machinery behind the events.

Will you set them any specific goals? 5-10 years is a short time frame, but you might set each group a target e.g. "take a major city in Asia minor and hold it for 1 calendar year" (so they have to set up a reasonable admin/garrison, not just capture it and lose it to revolt straight away).

Anway good luck and good on you for making use of this excellent mod.

[Tarkus]

Hey Teleklos,

Really great idea! There's been some interesting research published recently in Science magazine on the value of game-based learning...see the 2 January 2009 issue if you want to dig deeper. In addition, a new book, titled What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy, is particularly relevant. I do a bit of simulation software-based learning in my own job, and have found that high school-age students really appreciate the "hands-on" aspect of computer lab experiences. A few observations and suggestions for ya:

• I've found that high school students these days pick up really quickly on the mechanics of a new piece of software...much quicker than I would have expected. That said, a well-planned "tutorial" during that first 45-minute session will help them greatly in the actual exercise.
  
• Allowing students to work through the assignment individually has its merits. Alternatively, you might want to think about assigning pairs of students for this exercise. Pairing them up will force them into discussing different strategic and tactical options in a "group" setting, which is always a very useful skill to develop for more effective decision-making capabilities later in life. They could also help each other through the mechanical aspects of the software -- especially those that have previous experience with the RTW engine.
  
• Auto-resolving battles does have its downsides, but I think this is the better option. The intricacies of tactical maneuvering on the battlefield may very well be beyond the scope of this exercise. Besides, I think the more strategic outcome is of greater value to the students as a study in history and how it unfolds.
  
• As mentioned earlier by Cyclops, I think the identification of 1-2 very specific goals for each faction would be a good idea. This will help focus the students' activities and reduce their tendency to simply "play around" with the software and see what happens (I used to adopt this more vague approach and it didn't work very well). The goals could be historically realistic, and the students could then be asked to discuss in their AARs how they were able to achieve them and, if unsuccessful, why they couldn't "recreate" the faction's achievements.
  
• If possible, I would recommend that you end the exercise with each student (or pair of students) giving a brief presentation of their "AAR" to the rest of the class. This may really eat into their simulation time, but if you could build it into the exercise (or make additional time) I would do it. The other students would be able to ask questions and you could come up with some interesting questions for each faction that could stimulate discussion in the class: e.g., influence of starting position, different factional capabilities, financial constraints, etc. Again, some work on your part but definitely worth the effort for their overall experience.

Hope this helps...again, this is an awesome idea and I know we're all interested in hearing about how it comes out! Your own "AAR" of sorts, right??!

[Macilrille]

In fact this has made me try and give my first baloon...

Teleklos Archelaou

[Skullheadhq]

EB in school!?!? I wish my school had that

[Subotan]

I think that you should spend some time playing Vanilla (Whilst stressing the historical abhorrence), and letting them muck around with that for half a lesson, to show them how the controls work etc. I've found that when playing games, although people go "Uh uh, yeah, sure" when eplaining the controls, they really have no idea what to do unless you let them muck around with it on their own and let them ask you questions about it. But seriously, this is such an awesome idea. Let's hope it's good for EB and your students grades.

[mikil100]

If only the media saw this side of video games. This is amazing. Great. I hope it works out for you, sounds so promising.

[lenin96]

This a great idea, you might want to cover up the gaesaetae though.

[Antinous]

You might also want to censor the naked fanatics and other naked units.

[antisocialmunky]

Or have them sign wavers :-p

You could also tell them if you have some extra time you could do a multiplayer tournement at the end of it just for fun.

[Digby Tatham Warter]

With the limited time you will have, will the lack of money in EB early on be a problem? partic as autoresolving battles will cause massive casualties.

At least your students can look at the possibility of sacking certain temples etc(which used to happen when some ruler was particulary hard up).