Daniel, CM Lead Programmer

This is the first in our new series of Developer’s Blogs, where we show you a little bit of what goes on behind the scenes and under the hood of Civic Mirror.

With the recent launch of Civic Mirror 2.1.0 you’ll soon be noticing our new Learning Module platform and soon-to-be-released content. While this is front and center in our new version, there are over 70 bug fixes and feature additions in this update including.

2.1.0 Highlights

• A new Educator’s News page
• Numerous Improvements to the look and functionality of our CM Library of teacher-made resources for other teachers to use.
• An improved Getting Started page for educators with clearer steps on how to get CM up and running in the classroom.
• Better Tooltips (the blue question marks throughout the interface that offer help on various topics)
• Better Mouseover functionality (visible among other places on the Maps)
• Character counts on long text fields (for example, landlords no longer have to guess whether their tenant’s contract description is going to fit)
• A wider possible range for the percentage class in the minority culture.

Many of the changes you’ll see are directly thanks to our Educators and Students – fixes for bug reports get rolled into each version, and the amazing ideas that get submitted to us are discussed at our regular meetings, and often incorporated into our Roadmap (our ‘Master Plan’ for the next year’s worth of Civic Mirror development).

Our team is now hard at work on Civic Mirror 2.2.0, which will include a lot of behind-the-scenes improvements to our code, and improvements to make the lives of our Educators and ‘Keymasters’ better. CM 2.2.0 will also lay the groundwork for an exciting upgrade to the CM Educator experience in CM 2.3.0, scheduled for release for next School Year.

Sincerely,

Daniel Lindenberger, Civic Mirror’s Lead Programmer

As the number of students and teachers using Civic Mirror continues to grow, so is the noise it’s creating on Twitter. In fact, severals teachers from the Waterloo Regional District School Board, like Dan Ballantyne for example, are having their students back-channel (i.e. Tweet) while watching their classmate politicians debate legislation in their simulated Government Event. Incredible!

Here’s just a snapshot of our mentions and tweets today, and follow us at @CivicMirror!

The Civic Mirror web-programming team isn’t your typical run-of-the-mill group of coders… quite the opposite in fact. They are not only passionate about all things gaming and code, but today, in their own leisure time, they virtually attended the “Virtual Worlds: Best Practices in Education”  Conference to learn, get better, and meet other like-minded digital educators and developers.

The current CM Programming Team consists of lead programmer Daniel Lindenberger, and Ben Weston and Derek Lam. They have tons of ideas in store to make Civic Mirror bigger and better, and today’s event provided awesome amounts of steam to catapult things forward.

Pictured to the right are Ben Weston and Daniel Lindenberger, basking in the virtual sun in their spiffy CM t-shirts.  Awesome!

click picture to see CTV News video coverage

The Governor General of Canada, David Johnson, chose to visit the one and only school in Calgary area using the Civic Mirror as part of his Western Canadian tour supporting innovative education programs.

CTV News Calgary covered the story, reporting:

“Arbour Lake has been put on the map for developing programs that use cutting-edge technology and focus on community development that really could be replicated across the country.”

“(an) … important stop was a Civic Mirror classroom discussion where students tackled important topics like citizenship, leadership, and personal development.”

The Calgary Herald also covered the story, and in their interview with Governor General Johnson, he shared this about Ms. Bogensberger and Mr. Thompson’s use of the Civic Mirror in their Grade 9 Social Studies classroom:

“It was marvelous, the Civic Mirror class is a group of students who have created their own utopia called ‘Beautiful Paradiso,’ and they have competing parties to form governments, and they can develop their own industry, and they are developing public policies to develop their community – or their country – as attractive as could be.”

To learn more about the Governor General’s visit to Arbour Lake School in Calgary, click here.

Everyone here on the Civic Mirror team would like to thank and congratulate Ms. Kyra Bogensburger, Mr. Brady Thompson, and their students for the super-incredible use of our program – they have taken it to incredible heights, and they deserve the Governor Generals attention and ALL the credit!

Jami Samione, a teacher from Maplewood Middle School in Edmonds, WA who has been using the Civic MIrror with her students the last couple of years, received a teaching award for her efforts in promoting American history, traditions and institutions, to teach and reinforce citizenship education topics, and to promote democratic values and beliefs.

Newspaper coverage here!

Nominated by a parent who was thrilled to see her child coming home day after day pumped up about Ms. Samione’s social studies class, Jami remains humble and soft-spoken about the honor. To quote her:

“Ugh… I am honored but also don’t love the attention.”

Sorry Jami: We know there are lots of other super-awesome educators in Edmonds using Civic Mirror in their classrooms and taking it to great heights like you are, but this is worth showcasing!

And her students’ posts in the Civic Mirror discussion forums back up the accolades from her award.

Check out some her students’ replies to Ms. Samione’s question:

“Given what you have learned in Civic Mirror, what do you think is the most important civic responsibility of every American citizen?”

Nikki of Snorlax City wrote:

“I think that one of the most important responsibilities for citizens is that people need to speak up and say what they believe in and if their voice isn’t heard enough then they need to do something about that, like becoming part of government or something like that. I think people need to be more involved and share what they have to say!“

Cami of Unicornville wrote:

“After playing Civic Mirror, I think I can use the things I learned in the game and use them in the real world by not just sitting there watching everyone else do the work but actually trying to do something for our country and not just ourselves. I know to make our country better we have to stand up for what we believe in and that’s just what I’ll do.“

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!

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!

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, !

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!