This document discusses using video games like Guild Wars to reinforce social studies content. It provides background on millennial students and massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs). The author details how economics, civics, geography, and history concepts could align with gameplay. Students who connected games to classwork performed better on standardized tests. More research is needed on topics like representing race and gender in avatars and practicing social justice in games.

1. I Need A Green Axe
Reinforcing Social Studies
Content By Using Video Games

2. Presented By
Mark Austin Evans
Co-Authored by Michael K. Barbour

3. My Classroom Experience
• Worked at the Dekalb
Truancy School in
Atlanta, Georgia.
• Conversations about
video games led me
to a pedagogy of
using them.
• SimCity and the
Women who love it.

4. A Brief Discussion of Millenials
• Prensky, Gee, and
Squires
• Born in the early 80s.
• Anyone before them
is a digital immigrant.
• Bring extraordinary
skills to the classroom
if exposed.
• Major problem is the
digital class divide.

5. What Is an MMORPG
• Massive Multi-Online
Role Playing Game.
• You become a hero
or heroine and
explore a digital
world.
• Your actions have
consequences to
them.

6. A Brief Description of Guild Wars
• Three Installments of an award winning game.
• Uses mythology of Europe, Asia and Africa as
the back drop for the game.
• Allows players to create many different
avatars/characters.

7. How Will This Work in: Economics
Three Economic Principles
Most Missed on EOCT
• Market Price
• Bartering
• Opportunity Cost

8. How Will This Work in: Civics
• Cooperation
• Differentiate Between
Duties and
Responsibilities
• Teaching Democracy
• Practice Social
Justice

9. How Will This Work in: Geography
• Cardinal directions
• Landforms
• Vocabulary

10. How Will This Work in: History
• Aware of timeline.
• Actions have
consequences.
• Use of hermeneutics
to be successful in
the game.

11. Conclusions
• Students who correlated video games with
content faired better on EOCT than those
who did not.
• Teachers who were familiar with
MMORPGs were able to reach students
who historically are left out.
• Much more work needs to be done.

12. Future Research Topics
• Race and Gender
topics in picking of
Avatar.
• Practicing Social
Justice online and
translating that into
the “real world.”

13. Thank You
Mark Austin Evans
Michael K. Barbour
Harvard, Spring 2007