Blog Post 6 - Oregon Trail
Oregon Trail, created in 1971, is a classic educational computer game simulating the historic journey of pioneers traveling to Oregon. Initially, it was a text-based game designed for high school history students. The players are a group of settlers guided by a wagon leader traveling to Oregan. The game involves talking about the travel pace, food ratios, and challenges such as weather conditions, diseases, and river crossing. The game came to American classrooms in the 1980s and 1990s, and over the years, it has undergone numerous updates and adaptations, including versions for different computer platforms and mobile devices and updates to graphics and features (https://oregontrail.ws/).
The game can be implemented in middle school and high school social studies, humanities, and U.S. history courses while teaching topics such as Westward Expansion, Manifest Destiny, Exploration of the West, the Lewis & Clark and Sacagawea journey, and the Oregon Trail. The game is a great addition to understanding the topic of the Oregon Trail and delving into the challenges of the Oregon Trail journey. The Oregon Trail game can serve as a formative assessment. According to James Paul Gee, Big Thinkers, “If you think about it . . . a videogame is just an assessment. All you do is get assessed every moment as you try to solve a problem, and if you don't solve it, the game says you failed, try again and then you solve it.” (Abrams and Gerbers, 2013). In the Oregon Trail, players goal is to reach the destination with as much wealth as possible, for example, remaining supplies and numbers of survivors. Students need to imagine the obstacles of the Oregon Trail to plan ahead while choosing skilled wagon members, selecting the most important for surviving supplies, and preparing themselves for random events like native attacks, diseases, animal attacks, food and water poisoning, crossing rivers, mountains, etc. Students have to think strategically and use critical thinking, as well as understand the historical context and conditions of life in the 1800s. The game requires problem-solving and decision-making skills.
The Oregon Trail is a classic pioneer educational game and demonstrates the potential of educational gaming. The game is relatively easy for students to navigate, and it may require brief technical support. The game engages different types of learners and multiple intelligences. Therefore, most of the learners can benefit from simulation. Students can play the game after learning historical content to better understand the difficulties pioneers had to go through. According to Shaffer and Gee (2010), “games require the kind of thinking that we need in the 21st Century because they use actual learning as the basis for assessment. They test not only current knowledge and skills, but also preparation for future learning. They measure 21st Century skills like collaboration, innovation, production, and design by tracking many different kinds of information about a student, over time. Thus we suggest that the road to better schools starts by making the tests in school more like the games that students are already playing out of school.” To elaborate further, it should be taken into consideration to modify testing and adapt assessment methods that integrate gaming concepts as techniques demonstrating students knowledge and skills.
References:
Abrams, S. S., & Gerber, H. R. (2013/09//). Achieving through the Feedback Loop: Videogames, Authentic Assessment, and Meaningful Learning. English Journal, 103(1), 95-103. https://queens.ezproxy.cuny.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/achieving-through-feedback-loop-videogames/docview/1442778863/se-2
Shaffer, David & Gee, James. (2010). Looking where the light is bad: Video games and the future of assessment. Phi Delta Kappa International EDge. 6.
Hi Bozena,
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing about the game you picked for this week’s assignment. I love how you included screenshots of the game. It made reading about your game much more interesting since I had a sense of what the game looked like. I also like that the game gives the user choices such as turning the sound off, traveling the trail, learning about the trail, and more. I remember learning about the Oregon Trail more in depth in eleventh grade social studies class. It was explained through a lecture style lesson, which I struggle with personally. I think using class chromebooks to access this game would have really increased my engagement and overall understanding of the Oregon trail, as well as major social studies themes that pair with the subject such as manifest destiny.
As you mentioned, games like this can be used as assessment in the classroom. How would you use this game as an assessment in the classroom? Is it a valuable assessment tool? Furthermore, you address that differentiation is important by stating, “To elaborate further, it should be taken into consideration to modify testing and adapt assessment methods that integrate gaming concepts as techniques demonstrating students knowledge and skills.” Within this game, are there options to modify and adapt for students? If not, how can you help create these modifications and adaptations?
Again, thank you for sharing your simulation. I hope the students enjoy it as much as I think they will!
Hi Bozena--It says a lot that this game is still around. I am sure that students would enjoy using this in connection with humanities classes in adjacent topics, but I'd love to think more about how the game and the playing of the game might expand into other work. Would students be able to record their choices throughout the game and compose a paper or other presentation about their characters' experiences. Could they compare and contrast the gaming experience to a real-life account they've read?
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