Start with reviewing the teaching materials for a specific game scenario. After reviewing the topic's historical overview, have students work in pairs to play each episode. Between episodes, ask students to journal about the characters they meet, and then pose questions about them. Further tweak assignments, debriefing and following up research questions as necessary.
Have students create outlines of the different perspectives in the game and make lists of each view represented. Choose two volunteers to role-play each side of the conflict, encouraging improvisation in addition to referring to their lists. Then have the conversation again, this time with a mediator who helps guide the class to find a common ground on the issue.
Continue readingEditor's Note: Global Conflicts is no longer available.
Global Conflicts is a video-game series featuring different scenarios (e.g., Global Conflicts: Palestine; Global Conflicts: Child Soldiers; Global Conflicts: Afghanistan). The games, played from a first-person perspective in a 3-D world (with easy point-and-click controls), ask students to put themselves in the role of different characters, conducting interviews and following dialogue trees to their conclusions in order to better understand the different perspectives, viewpoints, and ethical issues each conflict raises. Each game tasks students with investigating or reporting on a particular problem: They might, for example, act as an International Criminal Court investigator interviewing Uganda’s leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army, or as a journalist reporting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In all games, students interview and converse with a variety of people, including ordinary citizens, politicians, resistance leaders, journalists, officials, and others to reach the best decisions in the game.
Real learning occurs when educators don't shy away from realistic representations of real-world conflicts. These games offer no simple answer to the conflicts presented, thereby encouraging deep investigation into, and critical thinking about, international issues, corruption, democracy, human rights, immigration, and poverty, to name a few.
Each game character is well-developed. Having students delve into the personal experiences of local residents, aid workers, police, and so on creates for the student a very social -- and personal -- narrative journey with many opportunities for self-reflection. Through all the interviews and conversations, students amass data and information essential to adequately assess each situation.