Cyber Nations in the Classroom

[Jaeger Vollmar]

As a teacher in public education I become accustom to game-based learning units, such as SimCity, and CivIII. As a new discovery, CN seems like another obvious choice, yet who is using it in the class and how? Using my summer weeks to recreate and update at least one-quarter of my units/lessons, government and civics, I really appreciate collaborating with other teachers who are using CN in the classroom already, or those who are interested in trying it. Otherwise, I guess I'll have to slug it through alone creating a unit. Is anyone out there?

[supercoolyellow]

Hmm I think the biggest parts of CN that could [i]possibly[/i] be used in a classroom would be how foreign affairs work, and also how you can use org behavior principles in a class room. That being said teh learning curve for CN is likely too steep for a classroom.

[Locke]

I'm not sure if you could teach a formal unit on CN, but it can pertain to a classroom. I'd encourage your students to join on their own and write a paper relevant to your class using CN as a base. Though I think it'd be more relevant to a sociology/psychology course than one on politics.

[SirDelirium]

To have 20-30 kids try to join CN in the matter of 3 weeks and understand the dynamic by the end of the unit is asking way too much. I could see you explaining the history and motives of CN as an independent case study to compare to reality (and show how very similar the two are).

[Yuri Armstrong]

It appears that there are two sides to this game, one that focuses on your nation itself and its development over time into a super power. The other side is the much more complicated one of the alliance politics driven world, which seems to me to be impossible to understand. Just look at that treaty web

[lonewolfe2015]

This has been attempted before, just make sure you follow through the game rules so you don't get everyone banned.

It would be a very good way of demonstrating how human behavior works I think, as cybernations rulers have done the most basic human function when in masses, forming groups, which we demonstrate as alliances. And those alliances have formed blocs to create giant communities.

Edited July 21, 2010 by lonewolfe2015

[thaone]

[quote name='Yuri Armstrong' date='21 July 2010 - 05:46 AM' timestamp='1279683992' post='2381971']
It appears that there are two sides to this game, one that focuses on your nation itself and its development over time into a super power. The other side is the much more complicated one of the alliance politics driven world, which seems to me to be impossible to understand. Just look at that treaty web
[/quote]


The power of CN is in the fact that it has a whole history behind it, where GW 1 let to GW 2 let to GW 3 etc.
I find it quite surprising that it took only 1 conflict to get from the post Karma polarized landscape to the current power structure.

[Banksy]

We had someone in our alliance try this. We were going to offer them a protectorate so they could attack each other without interference. In the end the professor couldn't force the class to play for grades, so it became optional and never happened.

[Axolotlia]

Probably used more as a reference to Foreign Affairs and Human Nature, or the history of CN; or even an extra credit assignment, but I could not see someone being forced into this game, and expected to understand it in a short period of time, with little or no motivation.

[Baldr]

Teaching CN would be a horrible use of school time.

[Caleb279]

I wish you were my teacher...they've banned CN on the school servers so many people were playing it

Use it for history, human behavior, how some governments might operate I suppose, how treaties and foreign relations work. Otherwise its pretty much a waste of time. This is a game, it takes a long time to master, and some "cool" kids probably won't want anything to do with a nerdy game like that that requires some thinking.

[Pomiel]

I'm going to roll your alliance.

jk but what grade do you teach?

[Baldr]

[quote name='Caleb279' timestamp='1280397484' post='2393782']
I wish you were my teacher...they've banned CN on the school servers so many people were playing it
[/quote]

I don't blame them, but I would sort of expect CN to end up taking care of that. A bunch of players, all sharing computers at school? Seems like a bunch of nations just begging to get admin-bombed.

[mdnss69]

Another problem would be that 20-30 kids logging in on different school computers every days is going result in a few IP bans that could spell disaster for you as well.

[thedestro]

I read a while ago about a university professor doing this. And most universities provide students unique IP's in dorms and such.

[Australian Warlord]

[quote name='Baldr' timestamp='1280243338' post='2391206']
Teaching CN would be a horrible use of school time.[/quote]
Hey, anything to help useless teachers keep their jobs. I just that after McHoops year 12 (year 13 for Poms, unknown for Yanks) units that they couldn't bring down the education standard much further.

I'm just waiting for the QCE certificate to come in the bottom of the breakfast food boxes.

[+Zeke+]

I don't see how the nation building would be of much value to education. Maybe a little in a math class, but not elsewhere. It's only value would be in the social dynamic and diplomatic aspects. But for all those aspects the game gives a lot of negatives as well. First and foremost is the time scale. Year old nations are n00bs to a lot of us. The 3 months of a semester barely gets a nation started. The diplomatic aspects also cover vast periods of time that semesters cannot contain in the short period of time. Simply to learn a small fraction of the long term history of CN would be extremely time consuming for a student. Finally you have the social aspect. Let's face it, life is pretty harsh on Planet Bob. Not all people can accept the in-character aspect that is OWF. Do you really need to use CN as an example that life is tough all over?

[OldSelf]

I disagree with those who say a game or CN is not educational, why would you even assume school is more educational.

I would agree the knowledge given is not worth much, but experience and environment to explore is there. The best nation builders are rather intelligent people, you learn personal and social aspects from meeting other people, and you learn from simply [i]doing[/i] (I suppose the neuroplasticity argument).

Running various projects in my alliance has taught me about remote cross collaboration and adapting software systems to technological, environmental, and personnel limitations- And I'm still learning and drawing new experience. It reminds me of when i was writing my thesis, as a systems engineer the technical aspects weren't particularly as interesting as group dynamics, concept of operations, feasibility studies, models, and so on- I've tried and thrown out 3 operational models based on directly observable feedback.

The adage you get out what you put in probably applies. I found an angle that interests me, and this is a good environment for it.

Edited September 13, 2010 by The Iggy