Did you miss the final session of the Co-designing games to teach Indigenous and rural history course? Just curious to know what the course is like?

We don’t do the exact same presentation every time and, of course, different cohorts have different participants and interests, which leads to different discussions.

Here for your viewing/ listening pleasure are all the videos from the last session with our very first cohort.

• Some instructor and cohort introductions, housekeeping issues – how to get graduate credit. If you need the syllabus or link for registration for credit, email – https://youtu.be/Kjr64yysGf0?si=ykZ-rTu3rksQtxg2 
• What’s in your final project? We discuss the requirements and present an example of a lesson where students research rural artifacts https://youtu.be/d_pswtTixno?si=k-KcX2kQeZ2bl_8v  
• Game design – Seeds of Sustainability Dr. Daniel Conn presents an example game design based on Buffalo Bird Woman’s garden and including traditional songs as primary sources. Zac King provides his perspective on non-Indigenous developers or game designers creating games around Indigenous culture and stories. https://youtu.be/-tenawyendM?si=ccoJn8bqcrZzyWzJ
• Lesson example – Dr. Dan Conn gives a lesson example for middle school using the Seeds of Sustainability game and learning about Hidatsa culture, specifically their agriculture along the Missouri River. Dr. Annmaria De Mars discusses choices in what should be in a lesson and what topics are appropriate for different grade levels. She doesn’t have definitive answers but she made some decisions about including positive stories and role models in the younger grades and putting off the more nuanced and complex histories until middle school at the earliest. https://youtu.be/MPeFFoWOXgw?si=AA_J47nE9bhWMDgq
• What happens next – course wrap up: Dr. Dan Conn talks about the importance of curriculum, how much we value your feedback. Dr. Annmaria De Mars shows an example of another game about saving seeds that was coincidentally done as part of a US – New Zealand game jam. She also discusses the fact that not everything is appropriate for a game and that just because your idea hasn’t made it into a game yet, doesn’t mean you won’t see it in the future. https://youtu.be/wo0Hpj60tkg?si=ov54nJBPthKo8AVE

What makes this game special?

First of all, your students may be the first kids in the world to play it! This was made as part of the Global Game Jam, an annual challenge in which developers make a game over a weekend. Yes, we started on Friday night and released the game on Sunday. 

 (Read to the end for a second feature that we hope you don’t notice.)

As well as our in-house game testers, we do have a focus group of actual kids who play our games but, being kids, they were busy this weekend with important things like Cub Scouts and meeting their new baby cousin. Since, as part of the game jam, we had to release the game on Sunday, we thought it might be fun for some classrooms to be the first kids in the world to play a game.

Lesson:

A fourth-grade Common Core standard is:

Write opinion pieces on topics or texts, supporting a point of view with reasons and information.

Even if your state has not adopted Common Core, we are guessing that you teach something similar. In my experience, students are more motivated and excited about an assignment when it has a real world application.  

Here is one recommended assignment . Feel free to copy and modify it to suit your class.

Objective: We are going to be one of the first classes in the world to play a new game. Write an opinion piece about the video game “Follow the Bubbles.” Explain what you liked and didn’t like about the game and provide recommendations for improvement.

1. First, pass out the assignment in advance so students can be thinking about this as they play the game.
2. Have students play the game, Follow the Bubbles.
3. If you think it would be more motivating for your students to really send their opinions to the developers and get written feedback, you are welcome to email admin@7generationgames.com with their papers attached. You can even take pictures on your phone and text us at (310) 804-9553 and we will respond to your class. We won’t grade your papers (sorry) but we will send a response to each suggestion and let you know if we are working on it.

Content taught or reviewed in the game

The mathematics in Follow the Bubbles is multiplication of one-digit numbers, multiplication of two-digit numbers and division. In two mini-games (tic-tac-toe and caves and trees), they need to answer math problems to win. This is a review of mathematics students should already know, simply practice to retain information.

Social Studies content includes discussion of primary sources and examples of primary sources from the Lewis and Clark expedition. There are three hangman games where students need to guess a vocabulary word related to the expedition or primary sources.

What else makes this game special?

As we mentioned, we made this game over a weekend, but that’s not what’s special about it. We created it to be equally accessible to students who were visually impaired, hearing impaired or have a reading disability. To design the game, we worked with a teacher for visually impaired students who is herself blind. We started with what games her students could play. Then, we tested the entire game with a screen reader. For students who have a reading disability, we added a speaker icon to almost every page that reads the text in the voice of one of the characters. This feature can also be used by visually impaired students. For hearing impaired students, information and instruction on each page is given in text as well.

The First Workshop is Over but You Can Still Join Us

On August 2nd, Professors Juliana Taken Alive and Annmaria De Mars led an online workshop on an introduction to primary sources available from the Library of Congress, with educators from North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Colorado and California. You can see a rough draft of the game we designed here. We started with the introduction to what are primary sources and a module on Native American veterans of World War I.

You can play the game online here.

We will continue working on it during the workshop at Fort Yates in October.

That’s great but what if I missed the online workshop?

You’re not alone. Some of the educators who signed up had technical difficulty. We know how unreliable Internet can be in some places.

Sign up on this Google form

Not Sure? Check out the first workshop

You can see the play list with videos from the first workshop here.

Next workshop dates

• October 5, 2024 – Fort Yates, ND – 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. Lunch and mileage reimbursement provided. Lodging funded for those more than 60 miles from Fort Yates who have completed workshop one and assignments.
• December 9 – Online, 6-8 pm Central time

Educators who attend and complete the assignments – lessons you can use in your class because we are all about hands on and being practical – can receive one graduate or undergraduate credit from Sitting Bull College or Minot State University.

You keep mentioning assignments. What are those assignments?

After you have completed workshop one, either the Zoom meeting or the recorded version, you need to complete the following assignments:

• Visit getting started with primary sources
• Sign up for Teaching with Primary Sources Teachers network
  • Visit free to use and reuse sets and post review of one set to TPS network. Email link of your post to the instructor.

We’ll send you more information on the assignments for the remaining two workshops when we receive your sign-up form.

We’re very excited to announce that 7 Generation Games has received a grant from the Library of Congress Teaching with Primary sources program. We will work with educators to create games and lessons teaching Indigenous and rural history using primary sources. Of course, if these lessons included math or science, we would be thrilled. Educators will work with facilitators, Professors Annmaria De Mars, Juliana Taken Alive and Dan Conn in a series of three workshops, two create game designs and lessons using those games.

Games will then be created by 7 Generation Games. Participants receive credit from Sitting Bull College.

Image is Tex Northrup, a Paiute rancher, from Library of Congress collection

The first cohort will give priority to teachers from North and South Dakota and kicks off with an online meeting August 2nd – Did you miss the August 2nd session? You can still sign up. Learn about upcoming sessions and how you can get involved here.

For more information, and to apply, see the post Co-designing Games to Teach with Primary Sources from Indigenous and Rural History or just

Go to the application form to sign up.