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Major E/I Power Crisis

Posted on November 3, 2011 by Civic Mirror

The nation of United IB Empire, made up of students from Mr Justin Ambrose’s 10th Grade Civics class at Turner Fenton Secondary School in Brampton, Ontario, is in the middle of a major crisis. After the Open Marketsession last week many students find themselves lacking the necessities to survive. As Hazel describes:

Things (in the open market) went awfully horrible. Many people did not get residence and food units because only the three apartment complexes, one house and one farm were powered. Now, not only are we getting less wellbeing points, one person in our family is sure to die plus three other random deaths. Well done citizens. Of course the country is in jeopardy.

Information from Jaskiran paints an even bleaker picture:

The condition of our country is probably the worst. The gap between the rich and the poor is great – the poorest citizen is me with only $14 but the richest is Sadiya with approximately $15000. The gap is ridiculous. Many people are homeless, have no food and many do not have education.

Citizens are homeless, with no money, no education, no food and family members about to die!!! What is happening in United IB Empire? What can citizens do about their circumstances? Shefali has an idea:

The most important issue of the all, is the E/I unit crisis. Many necessary hexes are unpowered such as security. Many people spent a fortune on their hexes and since there is a shortage of E/I units the money spent will all go to waste! Due to the shortage, U IB E is in jeopardy! Something must be done about the unpowered hexes or our country’s condition will worsen!

How did this happen? Who is in control of E/I units? And why are all the necessary hexes unpowered? Richa shares her opinion:

Like in real life, financial planning and money management are very important in The Civic Mirror, and I found that everyone put themselves first before meeting the needs of others, which is expected and normal. However, some are suffering and many blame it on those who used the E/I units for development. I believe that the people with the E/I didn’t anticipate the effect that their actions would have on others, but this has definitely led to our country being in jeopardy. This relates to real life since one person’s decisions will affect many, especially when that person is in a position of power.

Are the people who own the E/I units to blame? Has urban development and bad judgement calls brought about the death of citizens? Could citizens have anticipated the effect their choices would have on the nation? These are tough questions, and sadly, I can’t answer them. In The Civic Mirror, as in real life, the decisions of one person can greatly affect many. How can we tell what effect our decisions will have?

The citizens of United IB Empire have a major crisis on their hand, but can they work through it? Will they be able to work out a way to power their country and provide food and housing for the people? Or will the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. As we wait to see how the nation deals with crisis, we want the citizens of United IB Empire to know that The Civic Mirror community hopes that you can turn everything around.

Posted in From the CM Trenches | 5 Comments

President of Catywompus Threatening Citizens With Death Penalty

Posted on October 28, 2011 by Civic Mirror

Students from Mr. Bradshaw’s 8th Grade social studies class at the Brentwood Academy in Tennessee held their first Government Event for their nation, Catywompus, last week.

Citizens of Catywompus are in disagreement as to how well the government session went, and you will soon see why.

Students like Julia C. can see the good points:

“This government event worked well, because we all pretty much knew what we were doing when it came to bringing forth a bill. This was a great opportunity to work with our classmates, and learn to work together to bring the good out of the Civic Mirror game. I’m looking forward to seeing how well this game is going to be!”

It’s great to hear that some people had a good time, but there is disturbing news coming out of Catywompus, as Joey. R says:

“Nothing worked very well. Jackson and his conspiracy passed what they wanted and stopped what they didn’t. There were other laws that were completely for the government, such as no one in the original gov. has to pay taxes.”

No one in the government has to pay taxes? How is that going to work? If the government are exempt from paying taxes, what is to stop them imposing huge taxes on the citizens? And how can the people trust the government to work in their best interests if they don’t have a stake in what happens? Carl. A has some even more alarming things to say:

“This government session did not perform well. First off, there is a government conspiracy, which made it very had to pass laws that should be passed. We citizens need power as well to prevent a corrupt government. Already the president is sending death threats, so the group of citizens should have the power to call the vote to impeach the president. We really need to get organized and turn Catywompus into a thriving modern day nation.”

The President is sending death threats?! To who, and for what reason we are not sure yet, but if you have any information regarding the matter, we promise that if you step forward to expose the President no harm will come to you.

Over the coming weeks, can the government and the people pull together to turn Catywompus into a thriving nation? Will the citizens listen to one another and work together for the good of the people? Or will the threat of a corrupt government and a secret conspiracy bring about the end?

Posted in CM News, From the CM Trenches | 2 Comments

“CM World News Feed” is Live!

Posted on October 26, 2011 by Civic Mirror

There is so much activity going on in Civic Mirror classrooms across the continent each and every day, it’s hard to keep track. From political scandals to contractual lawsuits and outraged citizens, there are enough story-lines coming out of the CM Trenches to fill an hour long, daily video show (hey, there’s a great video reality TV show idea).

Up until now, however, Civic Mirror has not done a good job of showcasing all these awesome stories for everyone within the CM Community to see. But today we are proud to announce the release of CM2.0’s “CM World News Feed,” which feeds the most recent discussion topics, updated wiki pages, and simulated country news into one easy-to-use page. The CM World News Feed will allow students and teachers to check out one another’s hotly-debated legislation, controversial Town Hall topics, political/social initiatives, and more.

To give you an idea of the great stories coming out of Civic Mirror classrooms just today, check out the image below:

 

 

While you need to be an educator or a student with a Civic Mirror account to see the CM World News Feed, we’ll do our best to keep everyone up-to-speed with the most interesting ones coming out of The CM Trenches with this blog.

And seriously, if you’re a social studies teacher (of history, government, economics, civics, law, etc.) and haven’t requested a Free Trial, what are you waiting for? You’re missing out!

 

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Advice for New Nations

Posted on October 25, 2011 by Civic Mirror

8th Grade students from Ms. Jamie Samione’s social studies class at Maplewood Middle School in Lynwood, WA, who make up Snorlax Sity, have just completed a Civic Mirror simulated year, and have valuable advice to students just starting the game.

The reflections of this class really stood out to me, and impressed me a lot. The class has had some great insights about life and the real world from what’s happened within the game, which is really exciting to see. The students are willing to learn from their mistakes instead of hide from them, and I can see that this will make their next ‘year’ of CM even better, as well as being a skill they will take with them from the game.

Emily shares:

“In my opinion the most important civic responsibility for every American citizen is to manage your money. If you do that then that helps you create a shelter, provide food, healthcare, security, and education for your family.”

While Sydney Boland thinks that:

“the most important responsibility is to speak up if you think something is not going good. I think this is important because if you don’t speak up nothing is going to change. I learned this in Civic Mirror because there was something i didn’t like that was going on and i just thought that someone else was going to bring it up but no one did and nothing changed.”

This is so true Sydney! We often spend so much time complaining about all the things that we see going wrong, but rarely step up to work to change it. There are always going to be things that happen out of our control, but if you have an opportunity to create change, go for it! It might start in the classroom, but this is the very essence of active citizenship, and what a great place to start learning about it.

Clayton reasons that:

“I think the most important thing is to not focus too much on a single part of your life. You need to be aware of everything you need to get and the status of getting it. (Mostly units). Also, you need to really think about your hidden agenda.”

Josie also has some great advice:

“After playing Civic Mirror, I think that if you want to have a great and fun time playing this game, you need to be active with the game and contribute your ideas. When you play Civic Mirror, you have to make smart decisions, for instance, keeping your family alive by feeding them and giving them a place to live. Similar to real life, you need to keep your family alive and supply them with the right needs. In this game, you don’t always get what you want and you have to live with what you have.”

We certainly don’t always get what we want, but it can take some people a while to figure this out. Working with what you have, making smart decisions and providing for your family, sounds like a good plan.

Snorlax Sity residents have completed their first year, and now have an opportunity to stand up, make changes where they see a need, continue fighting for their family,  and rise up as a nation. Will they take this opportunity??

Posted in From the CM Trenches, Student Reflections | Comments Off on Advice for New Nations

CM Showcased in the Dimensions Newsletter

Posted on October 5, 2011 by Civic Mirror

Dimensions, the newly overhauled newsletter for social studies teachers in British Columbia, now edited by Ms. Amber Rainkie, has chosen the Civic Mirror to be its first monthly showcase article.

If you’re a BC educator and want to keep up to speed on what’s happening province-wide in the subject area, stay plugged into Dimensions.

Thanks Dimensions!

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Civic Mirror 2.0 Is Live!

Posted on September 13, 2011 by Civic Mirror

After 2 years of hard work, we are proud to announce the release of Civic Mirror 2.0, a complete overhaul and reorganization of civicmirror.com!

Much, Much Better Layout

Civic Mirror now has 3 key spaces, making it clear where you are (within the program) and how to get to where you want to go. There’s (1) a Me & My Family space, e.g. “Michael” as shown below; (2) a Country space, e.g. Shire; and (3) a CM World space where teachers and students can interact with one another and talk all things government, economics, and Civic Mirror. Additionally, instructors have access to an “Educators Space” where they can share, discuss, and collaborate.

Also, each space contains sub-spaces with one or more pages attached (e.g. Michael would “Trade” for his CM family). The old layout didn’t do this at all, resulting in users often asking, “Where am I?”

 

Getting Started Tutorials

Back in the day, teachers and students who want to use the Civic Mirror almost had to attend a workshop or two in order to figure out how to use it. With CM2.0 there are video tutorials that show students and teachers how to get the most out of the program in the least amount of time.

 

To-Do Lists for Every Event

One of the Civic Mirror’s greatest strengths is its ability to extend learning outside the classroom walls. No joke, teachers often have to tell their students things like, “No discussing CM legislation after midnight on a school night.” What was missing with the online program, though, was a system to remind  students what the really important things to do were at each step of full CM Event Sequence. The new To-Do Lists do just that.

Also, students (i.e. citizens) are also able to see the items in their Government’s To-Do Lists. We did this in case elected leaders start slacking or failing to live up to their election promises. Fun stuff indeed!

 

New Discussion Forum Platform

While the old discussion forums did the trick, Civic Mirror’s new forum platform is awesome! While in its infancy, these forums are going to allow us to display all sorts of cool things, like real-world information (school, grade, etc.) and Badges of Civic Mirror Honor (e.g. President, Most-Posts, Status Points Leader, etc.). But most of all, they just look better and work better.

 

New, Interactive Event Overviews

And the last exciting CM2.0 feature we’re going to showcase today: interactive event overviews of every simulated event that make up the Civic Mirror education program.  Learning how to use a government or economics simulation can often be daunting and confusing, and we wanted to eliminate any such worry. Therefore, we created these event pages, complete with classroom video footage, summaries, planning and implementation tips for teachers, to-do lists, and relevant discussion links, so teachers and students could head into them with 100% confidence.

 

Request a free trial to get started with the Civic Mirror today, !

 

Posted in CM News | Comments Off on Civic Mirror 2.0 Is Live!

Welcome Back!

Posted on September 8, 2011 by Civic Mirror

2011/12 Will Be A Great Year!

School should be fun and exciting, not painful and boring. Whether you’re a teacher or student, parent or curriculum coordinator, and whether you’re using the Civic Mirror this year or not, we hope this coming school year is a great one for you.

Welcome Back!

We’re excited about 2011/12. From a whole new web design and layout, to new discussion forums and 13 new learning modules,  the Civic Mirror will officially grow up this year. To date over 130 educators have used the program in over 70 schools across the world, and this is just the beginning. We hope we can all look back on 2011/12 and say that it was a great year for us educationally, professionally, and personally.

Welcome back!

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New Video Tutorial Development Underway

Posted on August 13, 2011 by Civic Mirror

For roughly 2 years too long, CM Educators had to learn how the online program worked by watching our “CM Online Tour for Educators” that was very out of date … like check out the old design!

We’re happy to announce that, in the next 2 weeks, we’ll be releasing the first set of video tutorials touring students and educators through CM2.0, with it’s universal navigation features, and super slick design – see below!

Here’s hoping the new design and video tutorials make using this simulation-based program for government, economics, history, and character education teachers that much more enjoyable!

Posted in CM News | Comments Off on New Video Tutorial Development Underway

Professor’s Henry Jenkins on Game-Based Learning

Posted on August 7, 2011 by Civic Mirror

If you hesitated with the Civic Mirror – or any game-based learning resource for that matter – because you thought it was pedagogically unfounded, don’t even go there. Thanks to the Guardian Games Blog for this outstanding interview with Professor Harry Jenkins. While almost 2 years old, the points he drives home about the benefits of using a game-based approach to learning are outstanding, and he also identifies some road blocks we can all work to overcome too (like schools blocking YouTube … argh!).

For specific information on teaching and learning with the Civic Mirror, check out this page.

Posted in CM News | Comments Off on Professor’s Henry Jenkins on Game-Based Learning

Mr. Ken High ~ Beta Testing Idea Guy!

Posted on August 3, 2011 by Civic Mirror

The coolest thing about cutting-edge learning resources like the Civic Mirror is that they attract cutting-edge teachers. Mr. Ken High, from Hudson High School in Hudson, Massachusetts, is one of those teachers. He discovered the Civic Mirror at the NCSS Conference in Atlanta in 2009, began using the program with his two colleagues (Ms. Ryan and Ms. Klotz) in their Civics courses shortly after, and has been an incredible contributor since.

As a member of the Civic Mirror Beta Testing team, some of Mr. High’s ideas (that hadn’t been brought up before) included:

  • a “Register of Deeds” feature that would publicize and archive the sale prices of hex sales (i.e. real estate sales)
  • the “Hand of God” admin feature where teachers could remotely operate their students’ accounts
  • clarifications around wordings of ‘human services’ (esp. health units)
  • hiding Hidden Agenda info on certain pages,
  • a unit consumption idea where a pop-up window would appear when a citizen buys a unit, asking whether they want to save it for later use, re-sell it, or consume immediately

While we won’t be able to implement all of these ideas immediately, they have all been added to our development docket and will make the Civic Mirror a better program into the future.

We were sad to learn that Mr. High won’t be using the Civic Mirror in 2011/12 as he was given a 100% World History assignment, but his contributions have not gone unnoticed, he will be presenting the program at the NCSS 2011 Conference in Washington D.C., he will officially go down as the first teacher to use the simulation with the Massachusetts social studies curriculum.

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