Great Games for a Great Cause

Funagain Games will be donating all of their net sales on Friday, January 15th towards Haiti relief. If you were thinking of picking up some new games I can not think of a better time to do it than on Friday. Here are the details.

Funagain has continually been a fantastic retailer, accepting purchase orders and offering grants for schools, libraries and community organizations. Bravo Funagain, Bravo!

 

Teaching Empathy

I love the new focus in education on the skills and dispositions needed for our students to succeed in the years to come. It feels like a return to many of the fundamentals that have been passed over since the inception of NCLB which spawned a concentrated refocusing on test scores. While teachers do need to be accountable, it is not simply for student achievement on test scores but for how well the students are prepared to take on the challenges that the world presents.

The question then follows, how do we teach many of these skills? How does one teach a student to think critically or be empathetic? Looking at empathy, the most valuable way I have seen comes from experiences; from the participation in and exploration of the student’s own ideas and feelings in the context of real and meaningful experiences. While literature and media may provide opportunities for examining motives and emotions, these are one-way interchanges with fictional characters. We need to also focus on building the ability for students to relate to and understand their peers.

Group work can provide opportunities, but can often be contrived experiences that lack any genuine connections. Writing exercises can be powerful but lack a face-to-face quality that lessens the social literacy growth of students. Games can provide a good blend of authentic prompts and social lubrication which help students connect with and understand their peers on a more personal level. This is not a novel idea, school psychologists and social workers have been using games for years.

So let’s talk games! The first thing I would like to talk about is not a game but a genre of games that has become increasingly more popular, cooperative games. In these games, students are not competing against each other to win, but are instead working together to defeat the challenges of the game. These games often require a good deal of communication and trust on the part of the players. They help students understand not only the strengths and weaknesses of themselves but those of their peers as well. Leadership skills are developed and team synergy is refined as the students play to succeed.

At a younger level there are a great number of games that begin to familiarize students with these concepts. Family Pastime’s Max is a game where students are working together to move a group of neighborhood wild animals home to their tree before Max the cat catches them and makes them dinner. Here, students can’t play as anyone particular animal or Max is sure to catch up with them all. Conversations and strategies begin to emerge as students discuss which animals would be best to move each turn or if a turn should be given up to call Max back to the porch with a treat.

Herkules Ameise is a HABA game in which the players are working together to extend a trail of ants to find sticks to help them construct their anthill before the anteater arrives. Full of fantastic bits in typical HABA style, the kids actually construct an anthill up off the board, this game isn’t just gloss but fosters teamwork and tough decisions. Each turn, students roll the die and can either place/move ants at the end of the trail or flip an un-investigated tile in search of more resources. Again students are having to work collectively; discussing & sharing ideas and opinions on what is the best move each turn. These communication skills are fundamental for building towards empathy as understanding comes through listening to and respecting the ideas of others.

There are a host of other fantastic cooperative games that span the ages. Shadows Over Camelot has proven itself time and again to work well in middle school, getting students to interact and work together despite any clique barriers that may normally keep them apart. A more intense experience is available with Battlestar Galactica for the high school crowd. These games are good at helping build teamwork and getting kids to listen to and respect the opinions of their peers, but I want to focus on building and developing empathy in middle and high school students. Games provide the opportunity to create meaningful experiences that prompt reflection and consideration of the views and vantage points of their peers.

The first game that really works well at doing this is Say Anything by Northstar Games. Here, students take turns asking an opinionated question to the rest of the players (i.e. Who would you love to have dinner with?”). The other players answer with what they think is a good answer, writing it down on a dry erase board and placing it out for everyone to see. The student who asked the question then secretly selects which answer they like best. When they have selected, all of the other players place the two tokens they have on the answer they think was chosen. They can put both tokens on one answer hoping to score two points or split them between two answers if they are not as sure. The heart of the game lies in looking at the answers on the table and trying to work out which answer the student selected based on what the rest of the players know of the student. They have to put themselves in the student’s perspective, think about who they are and apply that to the choices on the table. While the questions are light and full of opportunities for fun, the potential for understanding and growth are strong.

The last game I want to talk about is Dixit, a visually stunning game that rewards creativity, imagination and empathy. In Dixit, each player has a hand of beautifully illustrated cards that are evocative of fairy tales, surrealistic painting and dream imagery. Players take turns selecting a card from their hand and creating a “little story” that describes it fairly well. Each other player then selects a card from their hand that best matches what was said and slides it face down to the storyteller. All the cards are mixed up and then laid out face up for everyone to see. The rest of the players, besides the story teller, pick one of the cards which they think was the one played by the storyteller, but because each of the other players put down cards that they thought captured the same sentiment, it is not that easy nor does the storyteller want it to be. The storyteller scores points if some of the other players guess his card, not all nor none but just some. The players score by correctly guessing the storyteller’s card as well as bonus points if other players picked their card instead of the storyteller’s. So players have to reflect on the people they are playing with and select ideas, experiences and knowledge to tell their “little stories” that is shared by some of the players. On the other side, the other players have two opportunities for empathetic interchanges. The first is by choosing a card that they think with lure others into selecting it and the second is by trying to take into consideration what they know of the storyteller to find their card from the ones displayed on the table.

While there are many more games that feed interpersonal reflection and growth, these two are by far the standouts from my experience. They provide ample opportunity for students to better understand and appreciate their peers, a skill that is becoming increasingly endangered in this digital age.

 

Yeah, but what’s the “Word on the Street”?

Word on the Street

Designed by: Jack Degnan

Number of Players: 2 to 8

Grade Levels: Middle School and Up

Length: 45 Minutes

Curricular Connections: ELA – Vocabulary, Word Structure, Spelling

Investment: Low
Return: High

The word on the street is “SCORE” for Out of the Box. Yet another engaging game that gets students working with language. I brought my review copy of Word on the Street to work with several sixth grade classes on English and Language Arts skills and this was the runaway hit. The combination of teamwork and competition brought out the best in the students as they worked together to brainstorm and agree on the most strategic word choices each round. They listened and gave suggestions, switching between leadership and support roles organically without teacher prompts. They grew as learners and leaders… but most importantly they had fun!

 

The Return of MINDFLEX!!!!!!! (batteries not included)

Mindflex has finally made its way to my eagerly awaiting hands and I must say that its debut for any audience does not disappoint. Mindflex is a fun blend of dexterity and concentration as you work a ball around a circular obstacle course that you set up beforehand from the various accessories that come in the box. The basic mechanic has the player using their level of focus to control a fan inside the base unit. The more one “focuses” on something, anything, the higher the ball should go and vice versa. From my experience, I can’t say if it is “focus” but there is some attentive change necessary for manipulating the ball and that varies for the individuals playing. Some needed to talk to lessen their concentration while others can simply manipulate the ball with ease. In either case, the ability to affect an object with some aspect of your brain’s activity is impressive even if it is not true telepathy.

First go’s at the game usually comprise of just getting the feel for controlling the fan that makes the ball go up and down. Once you become comfortable, the next challenge is maintaining that control as you attempt the turn the knob that rotates the fan around the obstacle course. While this is the least impressive aspect of Mindflex, I will say that it still a bit of a challenge to maintain a certain level of focus while also manipulating the knob.

The obstacles are fun but can grow old after repeated uses. I can see Mattel putting out obstacle expansions to maintain playability over a longer period of time. That being said, they are good fun for you first adventures. Included in the box are posts that allow rings to be placed at various heights for the ball to be passed through. I find it much easier to maintain the high level of focus needed to  pass the ball through a higher hoop than the trickle needed to make it though a lower one. There are cages with adjustable walls and floors for making mini-mazes, as well as a few other interesting obstacles including a tube with a low entry hole that allows you to shoot the ball across the game with a “burst of focus”.

While not overly complex, each of the obstacles (and the game itself for that matter) leaves you with a sense accomplishment and wonder. It brings to reality one of those surreal moments where we dance close to our crazy dreams. Am I actually moving the ball with my mind? No… but I am actively adjusting the level of a fan with the electrical energy that is firing off in my brain and that is pretty damn good enough for me. What excites me is that this is the first mainstream foray that this technology has into the game and toy market. I can only imagine what the possibilities are as this technology matures and become more sophisticated and refined. Mindflex is an experience, one that I highly recommend everyone to at least try.

 

Hello National Gaming Day You Beautiful Thing You!

National Gaming Day is fast approaching and looks to be shaping up to be another wonderful year. While Hasbro has promised games to the public libraries, school libraries are not left out this year. There are games available for the first 1000 libraries that register and this includes school libraries! Registration will be closing soon, so school libraries interested in participation should register and get themselves on the map.

While the event takes place on a Saturday, that does not exclude school libraries from participating. If you are able to organize a student event on that Saturday there are a lot of great resources on both ALA’s Library Gaming Toolkit as well as NDG’s website. One great idea for the bold and daring is to have a “lock in” starting on Friday night. This would be a whole evening event where students, teachers and parents are locked in the school and participate in various events, programs and fun activities. What a great idea to center a lock-in around gaming with students, teacher and parents playing games all night and into NGD!

If you are unable to host an event, you can still support your community libraries that are participating by volunteering your time or helping to advertise the event in your school. Put up posters! Talk it up in your library! Give fun and informative announcements in the morning! You are a strong bridge between the students and the public and academic libraries. The memories and impressions you help establish will guide their interactions with these institutions. By being present and offering your time, your are showing your support of the services and programs they are providing.

Don’t dismiss NGD because it is on a Saturday, be creative and get involved! Gaming has withstood the initial criticism and emerged a strong and valuable resource that creates community, develops the individual and stimulates the mind.