iCivics - Educational Games to encourage student engagement in politics and civics

In today's media class, I was introduce to a website called www.icivics.org.  An initiative of the Chief Justice Sandra Day O'Connor in the U.S., the site is an interactive gaming community aimed at encouraging greater involvement in community and civics.  The site is also marketed as a much needed tool for educators who complain they have lacked resources with which to engage their students in this important subject.

In exploring the site, I navigated through the about section, where I learned that the games are designed to be played either by individuals or groups, and are designed to be completed in a reasonable amount of time for use in the classroom.  There are also forums for students as well as sections directed at educators and classroom teachers.

In choosing a game to test out, having taught mathematics this past year, I was drawn to the game People's Pie (http://www.icivics.org/games/peoples-pie) which is a budget allocation simulator for the Federal Government.  The object of the game is for students to set an acceptable tax rate and then determine which programs are worthy of being funded or not, while trying to maintain (if possible) a balanced budget.  The kicker is that you must aim to keep the citizenry happy - a trick which is easier said than done.  Every program requires a piece of the budgetary pie, but your pie is only as big as the taxes collected.  More taxes or cuts to programs both decrease citizen (and voter!) satisfaction.  However, overspending creates a deficit situation, which once again, is not a popular situation.

I found that the game was well thought out.  I can picture students in groups debating how bet to make choices about each of the ten categories of spending (which include education, military, and health care - issues that are constantly debated among real citizens).  The detailed descriptions of each proposal is informative without being overwhelming, and I think that the graphics and the animated features of the avatars and characters would be appealing to students.  As a Canadian teacher, I feel that this, more than some of the other games, could appeal to my students as it is not necessarily aimed to promote a uniquely American system.  All in all, I feel this game, and others on the iCivics site, are a good resource for the classroom.

 

Consuming Kids: The Commercialization of Childhood - A Response

The video presentation Consuming Kids: The Commercialization of Childhood is a dose of reality about the increasing focus of commercialization aimed directly at children.

In watching this informative video, it became clear early on that from the moment of conception, a human embryo is being targeted as a lifelong consumer.  Additionally, marketing towards the children's market has grown exponentially in the last few years to the point that it is nearly impossible to avoid exposing even infants and toddlers to branded merchandise.  What struck me is that affordable necessities such as clothing, towels, blankets, baby bottles, sippy cups, etc...are all emblazoned with some logo or image associated with a line of other products in an effort to develop life-long brand loyalty.  I found it surprising to hear that not only would it take a great effort to find the equivalent "generic" products without such commercial interests included, but that it would likely cost more!  I can remember a time when it was special to be able to show off a designer shirt or to run around wearing brand name sneakers, and we paid a premium for this "privilege".  Today, one is outside of the mainstream if there is no such label clearly visible on everything we wear, be it in public or private!

It is a near impossible task to purchase baby and toddler necessities without branded logos.

Another eye opening statement was the fact that there is no evidence or study showing improved learning from "educational" videos and games, referred to in the video as edutainment.  In fact, early exposure to these videos may negatively impact learning.  As someone who grew up on Sesame Street in the era before Baby Einstein, I would have thought the merchandise aimed at educating and shaping young minds would be based on the latest research in brain development.

These "educational" videos are not proven to improve learning, and in fact may do more harm than good.

It is sad to learn that toys of the past not only allowed, but required more imagination, which just isn't possible today.  An example of this is the Lego toys of my childhood as compared to the "kits" sold today.  Each kit, like the one below for the "Space" line of products, is designed to create a particular model.  While other items could be created, many of the parts are specific to 1 basic design.  Back in my day, we could choose a "generic" lego kit in which a catalogue of ideas was included, but the pieces lent themselves to creating unique designs on our own.

This highly specialized playset (above) is less useful at developing a child's imagination than the generic Classic kit (below)

Childhood memories through advertizing

Thinking back to my childhood and the hours of TV viewing (how was it possible I had enough time to spend all day outdoors playing and still log in hours of TV viewing?), I am amazed at how many memories are not of the programs themselves, but of the commercials that paid for them.  Many of these commercials were related to Saturday Morning Cartoon or after school syndicated shows (cartoons, game shows).

Some of the highlights include adverts with jingles such as for the Big Mac (2 All beef patties...), Slinky (It's slinky, it's slinky...), Transformers (More than meets the eye); Toys (Transformers again, the Six million dollar man), Cartoons ads (Tootsie Pop, which also had a memorable copy),  and those with celebrities (Mean Joe Green Coke ad, Bill Cosby for Jello).  There were also ads geared towards adults whose jingles also stand out, in part, I suppose because they were so long standing ad campaigns.  These included ads for Alka Seltzer, and Dunkin Donuts (Time to make the donuts....).

In some cases, the ad campaigns are still in use to this day.  For example, the Maytag Repair man ads, where the machine never requires repair.They continually replace the aging actor with a younger one.

There is also a nostalgia factor.  The Tootsie Pop commercial was remade using modern, 3D animation techniques.  This will appeal far more to adults and parents, rather than today's younger generation.

Perhaps the commercial that stands out the most, again because it played unchanged for years, was the Life Cereal commercial with "Mikey".

Ultimately, despite the engraved memories, I was not always influenced into purchasing their products.  To this day I still hate the taste of Life cereal, and I am an "anti-" Mikey.

First Blog - Test

Butterflies are pretty.

She sells seashells down by the seashore.

How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck would chuck wood?

Black box videos - click here