stories or quotes from characters they
talk to in a digital “reporter’s notebook.”
Because the notebook can hold only 10
quotes at a time, each player must
decide which quotes provide the most
compelling support for his or her argument. These quotes are eventually
brought to an in-game “evidence sorter”
that uses a preprogrammed scoring
metric to evaluate the power of the
collected quotes in relationship to the
player’s espoused argument about Dr.
Frank. This evaluation helps the player
understand how particular evidence
supports particular arguments.
Once the evidence scores high
enough on the convincing meter, the
player can craft his or her editorial for
the paper. The classroom teacher then
reviews this article—in the guise of the
in-game editor—and either accepts the
work or requests revisions.
a happy creature freed from the doctor’s
laboratory—but this creature is freed
into a village that includes hospital beds
filled with sick people and contaminated streets. The bottom three pictures
show the outcome if the player had
argued for keeping the creature
enslaved: The village is a bright, healthy
world, but the creature remains at the
whim of the doctor’s experimental
probing.
I am very confused by your letter. What
have you had to lie about? What is going
on in Ingolstadt? What does the good
Doctor have you doing? Please, follow the
guidelines I have tried to teach you when
writing an informative letter to your dear
mother.
Supporting Games
in the Classroom
Although the games we design are more
interactive than textbooks, they don’t
teach themselves. Quest Atlantis is not
Support Core Concepts
In supporting content learning in virtual
worlds, consider three ways of engaging
with content: procedural, conceptual,
and consequential. First, students may
need help learning the procedures for
completing tasks in the simulation. For
instance, in Digital Prometheus, students
select three pieces of evidence for each
reason they use to support their argu-
We view games as environments that
make academic content a necessary
Discovering Consequences
Experiential consequentiality is
threaded throughout Digital
Prometheus. Soon after making their
way to the doctor’s lab, players
encounter the first ethical dilemma of
the unit: They decide whether or not to
take a package from a crypt in the
cemetery, a task that involves lying to
the constable. The choice each player
makes at this point affects the kind of
reputation that character develops with
both the doctor and the constable. This
experience actually changes the content
of the players’ subsequent interactions
with characters, ultimately affecting the
type of evidence players can collect in
support of their thesis.
Later in the game, each player
submits a final piece of writing either
arguing for the continuation of the
doctor’s experiments or advocating that
the creature be granted the civil liberties
that citizens of Ingolstadt enjoy. The
player then experiences a world that has
changed because of what the player
recommended. A screenshot from the
game (see fig. 2) shows two possible
outcomes. The top three scenes portray
tool and that position the learner
as a hero who transforms a virtual world.
autopilot software. The real potential of
educational games is realized only when
teachers join students in interacting
within these narratives, taking on new
roles as they teach with these technologies. As we observe teachers using our
virtual games, we’ve discovered that the
following key actions enhance the
instructional value of games.
Become a Character in the Game
Play alongside your students. It’s essential for teachers to engage in virtual
worlds because, even in this nontypical
context, teachers still drive and shape
student learning. As teachers play, they
help the narrative unfold, motivate
students with appropriate feedback at
opportune times, and highlight key
concepts embedded in the scenario. For
example, as a player’s “in-world mother”
in Digital Prometheus, one teacher
wrote to a student,
ment. This activity has meaning only
when teachers help students understand
the difference between evidence and
opinion. Second, students will need
guidance to see the bigger picture and
gather knowledge and tasks into a larger
conceptual understanding. Strengthening students’ conceptual knowledge
might involve discussing key concepts,
posing “what if” scenarios, or engaging
individuals or the class in Socratic questioning. Third, consequential understanding occurs as teachers help
students see the relevance of concepts to
in-game situations and use those concepts
to influence particular situations.
Use Failures to Teach
It’s hard to get students to use both failures and successes to improve their
thinking. Making mistakes is embarrassing, and students may not want to
dwell on failures. But, just as in tradi-
