In this class we will explore the value and affordances of digital play and games for teaching history to public audiences. Whether on a console, PC, or on a phone or on the street, history-themed games are very popular. Can we get people to THINK historically with them?

Read a short overview of digital history game genres from Jerome De Groot.

Have a look through volume of PastPlay from the University of Michigan Press Online – to get a sense of some of the discussions historians are having about games, play, and history.

This chapter Robert MacDougall and I wrote for Seeing the Past with Computers that follows up on our chapter in the volume above and describes what it was like to run the ARG in brief.

I’ll do a demonstration in class of some of the techniques we used.

Here is the debate around games and history in the news:

Discussion of the newest Assassin’s Creed game’s potential as a teaching aid.

Really? From April 2017 “Call of Duty: WWII could be the most important game of all time for historians“

A couple older articles from influential thinkers:

Susan Engel, “Playing to Learn,” New York Times, 1 February 2010.

Niall Ferguson, “How To Win A War,” New York Magazine, 15 October 2006.

Play: Bring in great or horrible examples of learning history through digital gaming and play.