The Extra Credits EDU Steam Curators' List explains what I'd do if I were a teacher.
Likewise, doing this project via Steam curation group may also be more intelligent than the curators intended. First, the store links are right there, so students can click through to purchase, and teachers can worry less about students falling through the cracks by not going off to the bookstore to purchase. Second, Steam is getting better all the time about system requirements, general PC support, driver updates and the like, which means the average student can really access this stuff even if they're not part of the "PC Master Race" of uber-hardcore gamers. As a minor detail, it's also worthy to note that dedicated curation gives us details in a consistent format regarding play times, topics and the like.
If I had kids this would be a wonderful way to bring bonding and school to the dinner table. Maybe the homework games wouldn't be at every American's dinner table, but they'd appear daily at mine.
Each game comes with:
- Suggested topic (to which the game would be a complement)
- Suggested minimum play time (eg, it takes 2+ hours to get it)
- Suggested minimum fluency with playing games
- A one-sentence lesson plan
A favorite example is for Papers, Please:
(skip to 1:46 to see Papers, Please)
And the curators' comment:
"Social science. Psychology. Ethics. 1-2 hours. Easy. “A dystopian document thriller”. Use as context for discussing subjects like immigration or ethics."
Imagine you're teaching high school Social Studies and you assign that game to your kids. Their homework is ostensibly to go home and play a game, but it's really to go home and simulate having to make difficult choices of who to let into a country given a variety of realistic constraints.
Imagine the debate that could follow from that. Kids would come in the next day informed from the real constraints they were given regarding criminal backgrounds, terrorism, trade, or labor economics, and then discuss their choices and why they made them. Beats the hell out of kids coming in the next day and parroting whatever sound bites they've heard on TV, or what they've heard their parents parroting from TV.
It's a shame that kids still have to write essays on AP tests that reference certain books or other creative works, but they wouldn't be able to cite these games and be taken seriously. If you're taking the AP European History exam, your essay rubric may expect mentions of the Age of Discovery and the Dutch East India Company - but if a student were to learn the intricacies of 15th century plundering economics from Anno 1404, they'd be punished on the same rubric.
The curators' use of minimum time requirements are, I think, more clever than they appear. "Go play this game for about an hour minimum" is an interesting homework assignment, opens up the chance for kids to keep going if they want, and exposes every kid in the classroom to what we in the web/app world call user experience by trying out so many different interfaces and ways of accomplishing things. (I've always meant to write a post to the effect that hardcore gamers are the world's best UX experts.)
The curators' use of minimum time requirements are, I think, more clever than they appear. "Go play this game for about an hour minimum" is an interesting homework assignment, opens up the chance for kids to keep going if they want, and exposes every kid in the classroom to what we in the web/app world call user experience by trying out so many different interfaces and ways of accomplishing things. (I've always meant to write a post to the effect that hardcore gamers are the world's best UX experts.)
Likewise, doing this project via Steam curation group may also be more intelligent than the curators intended. First, the store links are right there, so students can click through to purchase, and teachers can worry less about students falling through the cracks by not going off to the bookstore to purchase. Second, Steam is getting better all the time about system requirements, general PC support, driver updates and the like, which means the average student can really access this stuff even if they're not part of the "PC Master Race" of uber-hardcore gamers. As a minor detail, it's also worthy to note that dedicated curation gives us details in a consistent format regarding play times, topics and the like.
If I had kids this would be a wonderful way to bring bonding and school to the dinner table. Maybe the homework games wouldn't be at every American's dinner table, but they'd appear daily at mine.