Jeremiah McCall - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Articles and Chapters by Jeremiah McCall

Thersites, 2024

This essay builds on the Historical Problem Space framework for histori-cal game analys... more This essay builds on the Historical Problem Space framework for histori-cal game analysis by comparing the ways that two historical video games set in the Archidamian War (431 – 422 BCE) present the past. There are three main goals. First to position the Historical Problem Space framework as a useful analytical method for practicing a historiography of historical games. Second, to offer more detailed examples and exploration of how two particular historical games present the past as historical problem spaces. Finally, to demonstrate that historical game genres shape the historical problem space of these, and by implication other, games and thus the history they present. Comparing two games set in the same period and place but with distinct genres should help illuminate these points

is a veteran history educator, historical game studies scholar, and author of Gaming the Past: Us... more is a veteran history educator, historical game studies scholar, and author of Gaming the Past: Using Video Games to Teach Secondary History. His website gamingthepast.net provides all sorts of materials to help educators use games effectively in history education and he has written a number of articles and essays on historical games and their effective use in history education. For more information, see Jeremiah McCall's Work | Gaming the Past or reach out to Jeremiah

Game Studies, 2020

Historical games need to be analyzed holistically as games rather than tasked to fulfill the func... more Historical games need to be analyzed holistically as games rather than tasked to fulfill the functions of some other medium. The historical problem space (HPS) framework offers an approach to analyzing historical games more holistically as games rather than text, useful both for academic and educational historical analysis. It considers how all historical games present the past in terms of player agents with roles and goals that are contextualized within a virtual gameworld whose features enable and constrain player action. In response to this space, the player crafts strategies and makes choices. The purpose of this article is to provide a more detailed overview of the HPS framework and how it can be usefully employed to understand gamic histories. Ideally games scholars will be able to conduct their own analyses of historical games as historical problem spaces and educators use this framework to structure their classroom analyses of games. http://gamestudies.org/2003/articles/mccall

Talk given for Computer Games in Society Class, University of California, Irvine, 4/10/2020

Classical Antiquity in Video Games, 2019

An exploration of video games as formal models of history using two current games modeling the ba... more An exploration of video games as formal models of history using two current games modeling the battlefield tactics of the Roman Republic: Total War: Rome II and Field of Glory II.

Epoiesen, 2013

To play Path of Honors https://gamingthepast.github.io/Path%20of%20Honors.html

Journal of Geek Studies, 2019

A survey of historical games, the kinds of histories they offer, their potential value in formal ... more A survey of historical games, the kinds of histories they offer, their potential value in formal history education, and the debates they spark over the past, especially over matters of inclusion and representation.

David Dean, ed, Companion to Public History, Wiley, 2018

(Privately available from author, jmc.hst@gmail.com) From the initial planning and research to th... more (Privately available from author, jmc.hst@gmail.com) From the initial planning and research to the gameplay and public discussions, historical simulation games are an important participatory form of public history. The games themselves offer interpretations of the past in the form of simulations. Indeed it is the interactivity inherent to the medium of video games that most shapes how developers take their ideas about documentable history and adapt them for their audience. The participation of players is not limited to playing, however, and passively accepting the play experience. Rather players can and do actively engage not only by implementing their own rules of play and creating mods, but by debating the historical accuracy of the game in the internet forums. In this final arena, the game forum, players engage in their own historical debate and conduct their own form of public history.

(Privately available from author, jmc.hst@gmail.com) Writing about the theory and best practices ... more (Privately available from author, jmc.hst@gmail.com) Writing about the theory and best practices of using history-themed video games in the classroom stretches back at least to the 1980s. However, the literature on the subject is scattered, making it difficult for history educators considering the use of historical games. This article provides an introduction for history educators to the use of computer-based historical games in history education. In this article, I provide differing definitions for types of historical games and discuss the importance of such distinctions for the history educator. I provide the strengths and biases inherent in the medium of computer-based historical games. This article surveys best practices from the literature concerning the use of historical games in history class and concludes with a brief survey of potentially useful historical games.

Kevin Kee, ed. Pastplay: Teaching and Learning History with Technology, 2014

What does an effective use of a simulation game in a history class look like? For too many intere... more What does an effective use of a simulation game in a history class look like? For too many interested in the games and learning field, it is not entirely clear. While the theory delineating the potential of games as learning tools is growing steadily, discipline-specific practical applications are still too few and far between. Developing practical uses of games as learning tools requires two components: the formulation of discipline-specific theories and classroom-specific implementations. As an early offering in the area of practical uses for games, this chapter proposes a theory for effectively using simulation games in the history classroom, a theory developed through my training as a historian and experiences as a high school history teacher who uses simulation games. Subsequently, this theory is translated into practical guidelines for using simulations in a history class.

This book covers relevant issues such as gamification, curriculum development, using games to sup... more This book covers relevant issues such as gamification, curriculum development, using games to support ASD (autism spectrum disorder) students, choosing games for the classroom and library, homeschooling and gameschooling, working with parents and policymakers, and choosing tools for educational game development. Each chapter provides an overview of the relevant frameworks and research findings, as well as practical case studies and useful resources. Learning, Education & Games: Bringing Games into Educational Contexts is the second in a series written and edited by members of the Learning, Education, and Games (LEG) special interest group of the IGDA (International Game Developers Association).

Edited Collections by Jeremiah McCall

This book covers relevant issues such as gamification, curriculum development, using games to sup... more This book covers relevant issues such as gamification, curriculum development, using games to support ASD (autism spectrum disorder) students, choosing games for the classroom and library, homeschooling and gameschooling, working with parents and policymakers, and choosing tools for educational game development.
Each chapter provides an overview of the relevant frameworks and research findings, as well as practical case studies and useful resources.
Learning, Education & Games: Bringing Games into Educational Contexts is the second in a series written and edited by members of the Learning, Education, and Games (LEG) special interest group of the IGDA (International Game Developers Association).

Books by Jeremiah McCall

... Authors: McCall, Jeremiah. ... to help social studies educators effectively use computer simu... more ... Authors: McCall, Jeremiah. ... to help social studies educators effectively use computer simulation games to teach critical thinking and historical ... and implementing instructional strategies; (5) Identifying and avoiding common pitfalls; and (6) Developing activities and assessments ...

Talks by Jeremiah McCall

A talk about a variety of areas of research and practice. Topic Breakdown Start: My history and ... more A talk about a variety of areas of research and practice. Topic Breakdown
Start: My history and how I came to the work on history and games in education
4:45 What makes a historical game a good fit for learning and classroom use?
8:15 Have you had any experiences where students didn’t actually want to play the game?
10:30 Tell us about Res Publica, a tabletop game you designed for Roman History class I have designed. (also gets into principles of historical game design).
14:40 How can we as game developers assess/judge the knowledge students acquire when playing historical games?
21:00 My work with interactive text design tools by students; for students; by historians. Twine and choice-based games. Parser based games.
28:00 Historical Problem Space Framework in some detail and the philosophy
36:00 The historical problem space framework as a useful guide for historical game design.
39:00 Where are you headed next?
42:20 What are the challenges and benefits of getting realtime feedback on a game you have designed from students in the class?

Talk delivered in 2018 for Digital History at the Ramapo College of New Jersey

Thersites, 2024

This essay builds on the Historical Problem Space framework for histori-cal game analys... more This essay builds on the Historical Problem Space framework for histori-cal game analysis by comparing the ways that two historical video games set in the Archidamian War (431 – 422 BCE) present the past. There are three main goals. First to position the Historical Problem Space framework as a useful analytical method for practicing a historiography of historical games. Second, to offer more detailed examples and exploration of how two particular historical games present the past as historical problem spaces. Finally, to demonstrate that historical game genres shape the historical problem space of these, and by implication other, games and thus the history they present. Comparing two games set in the same period and place but with distinct genres should help illuminate these points

is a veteran history educator, historical game studies scholar, and author of Gaming the Past: Us... more is a veteran history educator, historical game studies scholar, and author of Gaming the Past: Using Video Games to Teach Secondary History. His website gamingthepast.net provides all sorts of materials to help educators use games effectively in history education and he has written a number of articles and essays on historical games and their effective use in history education. For more information, see Jeremiah McCall's Work | Gaming the Past or reach out to Jeremiah

Game Studies, 2020

Historical games need to be analyzed holistically as games rather than tasked to fulfill the func... more Historical games need to be analyzed holistically as games rather than tasked to fulfill the functions of some other medium. The historical problem space (HPS) framework offers an approach to analyzing historical games more holistically as games rather than text, useful both for academic and educational historical analysis. It considers how all historical games present the past in terms of player agents with roles and goals that are contextualized within a virtual gameworld whose features enable and constrain player action. In response to this space, the player crafts strategies and makes choices. The purpose of this article is to provide a more detailed overview of the HPS framework and how it can be usefully employed to understand gamic histories. Ideally games scholars will be able to conduct their own analyses of historical games as historical problem spaces and educators use this framework to structure their classroom analyses of games. http://gamestudies.org/2003/articles/mccall

Talk given for Computer Games in Society Class, University of California, Irvine, 4/10/2020

Classical Antiquity in Video Games, 2019

An exploration of video games as formal models of history using two current games modeling the ba... more An exploration of video games as formal models of history using two current games modeling the battlefield tactics of the Roman Republic: Total War: Rome II and Field of Glory II.

Epoiesen, 2013

To play Path of Honors https://gamingthepast.github.io/Path%20of%20Honors.html

Journal of Geek Studies, 2019

A survey of historical games, the kinds of histories they offer, their potential value in formal ... more A survey of historical games, the kinds of histories they offer, their potential value in formal history education, and the debates they spark over the past, especially over matters of inclusion and representation.

David Dean, ed, Companion to Public History, Wiley, 2018

(Privately available from author, jmc.hst@gmail.com) From the initial planning and research to th... more (Privately available from author, jmc.hst@gmail.com) From the initial planning and research to the gameplay and public discussions, historical simulation games are an important participatory form of public history. The games themselves offer interpretations of the past in the form of simulations. Indeed it is the interactivity inherent to the medium of video games that most shapes how developers take their ideas about documentable history and adapt them for their audience. The participation of players is not limited to playing, however, and passively accepting the play experience. Rather players can and do actively engage not only by implementing their own rules of play and creating mods, but by debating the historical accuracy of the game in the internet forums. In this final arena, the game forum, players engage in their own historical debate and conduct their own form of public history.

(Privately available from author, jmc.hst@gmail.com) Writing about the theory and best practices ... more (Privately available from author, jmc.hst@gmail.com) Writing about the theory and best practices of using history-themed video games in the classroom stretches back at least to the 1980s. However, the literature on the subject is scattered, making it difficult for history educators considering the use of historical games. This article provides an introduction for history educators to the use of computer-based historical games in history education. In this article, I provide differing definitions for types of historical games and discuss the importance of such distinctions for the history educator. I provide the strengths and biases inherent in the medium of computer-based historical games. This article surveys best practices from the literature concerning the use of historical games in history class and concludes with a brief survey of potentially useful historical games.

Kevin Kee, ed. Pastplay: Teaching and Learning History with Technology, 2014

What does an effective use of a simulation game in a history class look like? For too many intere... more What does an effective use of a simulation game in a history class look like? For too many interested in the games and learning field, it is not entirely clear. While the theory delineating the potential of games as learning tools is growing steadily, discipline-specific practical applications are still too few and far between. Developing practical uses of games as learning tools requires two components: the formulation of discipline-specific theories and classroom-specific implementations. As an early offering in the area of practical uses for games, this chapter proposes a theory for effectively using simulation games in the history classroom, a theory developed through my training as a historian and experiences as a high school history teacher who uses simulation games. Subsequently, this theory is translated into practical guidelines for using simulations in a history class.

This book covers relevant issues such as gamification, curriculum development, using games to sup... more This book covers relevant issues such as gamification, curriculum development, using games to support ASD (autism spectrum disorder) students, choosing games for the classroom and library, homeschooling and gameschooling, working with parents and policymakers, and choosing tools for educational game development. Each chapter provides an overview of the relevant frameworks and research findings, as well as practical case studies and useful resources. Learning, Education & Games: Bringing Games into Educational Contexts is the second in a series written and edited by members of the Learning, Education, and Games (LEG) special interest group of the IGDA (International Game Developers Association).

This book covers relevant issues such as gamification, curriculum development, using games to sup... more This book covers relevant issues such as gamification, curriculum development, using games to support ASD (autism spectrum disorder) students, choosing games for the classroom and library, homeschooling and gameschooling, working with parents and policymakers, and choosing tools for educational game development.
Each chapter provides an overview of the relevant frameworks and research findings, as well as practical case studies and useful resources.
Learning, Education & Games: Bringing Games into Educational Contexts is the second in a series written and edited by members of the Learning, Education, and Games (LEG) special interest group of the IGDA (International Game Developers Association).

... Authors: McCall, Jeremiah. ... to help social studies educators effectively use computer simu... more ... Authors: McCall, Jeremiah. ... to help social studies educators effectively use computer simulation games to teach critical thinking and historical ... and implementing instructional strategies; (5) Identifying and avoiding common pitfalls; and (6) Developing activities and assessments ...

A talk about a variety of areas of research and practice. Topic Breakdown Start: My history and ... more A talk about a variety of areas of research and practice. Topic Breakdown
Start: My history and how I came to the work on history and games in education
4:45 What makes a historical game a good fit for learning and classroom use?
8:15 Have you had any experiences where students didn’t actually want to play the game?
10:30 Tell us about Res Publica, a tabletop game you designed for Roman History class I have designed. (also gets into principles of historical game design).
14:40 How can we as game developers assess/judge the knowledge students acquire when playing historical games?
21:00 My work with interactive text design tools by students; for students; by historians. Twine and choice-based games. Parser based games.
28:00 Historical Problem Space Framework in some detail and the philosophy
36:00 The historical problem space framework as a useful guide for historical game design.
39:00 Where are you headed next?
42:20 What are the challenges and benefits of getting realtime feedback on a game you have designed from students in the class?

Talk delivered in 2018 for Digital History at the Ramapo College of New Jersey

Presented to the Interactive Pasts Conference, 2017 hosted by the VALUE Foundation Leiden University

Gaming the Past Designer Talks Podcast, 2019

Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research), Apr 21, 2019

Historical games need to be analyzed holistically as games rather than tasked to fulfill the func... more Historical games need to be analyzed holistically as games rather than tasked to fulfill the functions of some other medium. The historical problem space (HPS) framework offers an approach to analyzing historical games more holistically as games rather than text, useful both for academic and educational historical analysis. It considers how all historical games present the past in terms of player agents with roles and goals that are contextualized within a virtual gameworld whose features enable and constrain player action. In response to this space, the player crafts strategies and makes choices. The purpose of this article is to provide a more detailed overview of the HPS framework and how it can be usefully employed to understand gamic histories. Ideally games scholars will be able to conduct their own analyses of historical games as historical problem spaces and educators use this framework to structure their classroom analyses of games. http://gamestudies.org/2003/articles/mccall

Historical games need to be analyzed holistically as games rather than tasked to fulfill the func... more Historical games need to be analyzed holistically as games rather than tasked to fulfill the functions of some other medium. The historical problem space (HPS) framework offers an approach to analyzing historical games more holistically as games rather than text, useful both for academic and educational historical analysis. It considers how all historical games present the past in terms of player agents with roles and goals that are contextualized within a virtual gameworld whose features enable and constrain player action. In response to this space, the player crafts strategies and makes choices. The purpose of this article is to provide a more detailed overview of the HPS framework and how it can be usefully employed to understand gamic histories. Ideally games scholars will be able to conduct their own analyses of historical games as historical problem spaces and educators use this framework to structure their classroom analyses of games. http://gamestudies.org/2003/articles/mccall

The History Teacher, Nov 1, 2012

AT iTS Core, A SiMulATioN is a simplified working model of one or more aspects of the real world,... more AT iTS Core, A SiMulATioN is a simplified working model of one or more aspects of the real world, especially systems and processes. This definition encompasses the models used in the sciences to represent the universe from the astronomical to the microscopic. It also covers training systems used to teach humans to perform real-world tasks effectively, such as flight simulations and business simulations among many others. 1 A simulation game, on the other hand, is a game, a rule-based, artificial conflict or competition that simulates dynamically one or more real-world systems. The concept of simulation game is an expansion of the regular use of the term by video-gamers, which has tended to refer to complex simulations of mechanical systems like aircraft and race cars. In this expanded definition, the digital historical simulation game includes any number of commercial and non-profit computer games that represent the past, placing the player in historical roles, ranging from traders and subsistence farmers, to rulers and generals. 2 The interest roused by historical simulation games is readily explained. These games offer immersive, interactive, multimedia representations of the past that are radically different from other forms of media. They engage players through multiple modes of communication: visual, textual, aural, and tactile. Through these modes of communication, compelling problems are presented that invite the player to engage and make world-changing

Routledge eBooks, Sep 6, 2022

Routledge eBooks, Sep 6, 2022

Routledge eBooks, Sep 6, 2022

Routledge eBooks, Sep 6, 2022