The Interactive Pasts Conference 2: Patrick Jahnke
4Video presentation for the Interactive Pasts Conference 2, October 8-10 2018, Center for Sound and Vision.
Patrick Jahnke (Universität Greifswald)
Learning by Gaming: The image of history in games and its potential for teaching history
It seems to be evident that no other school subject has a potential library of video games as plentiful as that of history education. Popular and widely successful games like Call of Duty WW: II or Battlefield 1 are only two examples of the booming of historical settings throughout the genres. We as teachers can or even must use games in today’s classrooms, for subjects like “World War” become a part in pop culture and influence the image of history in the everyday life. With this realization comes the responsibility for us teachers to use this fact as a potential. Via video games, we can easily reach most pupils of the digital age – so what are the best ways to do so in a productive way that furthers their historical understanding? In my presentation, I will explain how to identify a game that is suitable for history education and how to best process it for creative and critical usage in the classroom by working with its historical narration. The historical narration always expresses the underlying awareness of history and thus allows the students to develop a critical perspective not only on different epochs and events, but also on their modern interpretations. To do so, it is important to use this medium as intended by the producers: by interacting with it as a player. Only the perspective of a player (supported by a didactic preparation) grants a direct access to that historical image and its production, thus enabling a media-critical thinking.