Via Cliopatria, Inside Higher Ed looks at increased use of Civilization III in college history courses. Um, yes, I’ve been playing Civ 4 in almost all of my spare moments of late solely for pedagogical purposes. Seriously, notwithstanding my own inveterate Civ addiction, I can’t see how the game would be in any way useful in teaching history, and particularly at the college level. And if you’re going to use games for elementary, middle, or even high school courses, I think you’d do better with a game grounded in specific history, such as old-timey classics The Oregon Trail or Seven Cities of Gold.
2 thoughts on “Eliminate the Babylonians…for credit!”
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using a non-linear history creation toy != a new spin on how to make history lessons “fun”. I think a PS2 slasher title like “God of War” teaches you more about actual history than any completed game of Civ.
Still a lot of fun though.
Hope they start using World of WarCraft as a teaching tool in my classes soon.
This is the only way you damn modernists learn about history before the turn of the 20th century.