Episode 56:Learning History through Video Games with Charlene Hess
Charlene Hess of Hess Un-Academy joins me in this episode as we talk about learning history through video games. Be sure to visit her Facebook page.
When my children were young we all enjoyed playing Orgeon Trail together. Oregon Trail is seen as the first educational computer game to gain widespread appeal because it was also fun. As they got older the played other video games based in history like Knights and Merchants, Caesar 3, Rome: Total War and Battlefield 1942.
One of the games they played a lot was Civilization. It is a strategy game where you play as different civilizations and try to conquer the world. Be sure to listen to the episode to hear the story of what my one son learned when he played as the Egyptian civilization.
Another game my boys played – and Charlene’s whole family plays, is Age of Empires. Charlene explains how they play it and what benefits they get from playing. You can buy the game on the Steam website.
Charlene has created worksheets that you can use with your children to research each civilization before they play as that civilization.
Show sponsor FundaFunda Academy has a full year Honors US History online class that uses games where appropriate, as well as 2 World War 2 web-based unit studies that incorporate games and fun interactive websites to enhance learning – World War 2 Year by Year and Who’s Who in World War 2.
Be sure to join our Facebook group where we carry on the discussion about Homeschooling with Technology.
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Oh, hi! My nephew has an upcoming presentation on the Civil War next week and he wants to turn it into an interactive activity. I like the way you explained the benefit of providing worksheets to participants before they play any civilization-related game to help them learn and research more along the way. I’ll ask him to find a suitable game for him to use later on.