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CM Educators had to learn how the online program worked by watching our “CM Online Tour for Educators” that was very out of date … like check out the old design!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

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.

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.

In roughly 6-weeks time, 13 performance-based learning modules will be available on civicmirror.com for a variety of courses. These modules have been designed to be dynamic and organic (instead of linear and static) so teachers can pick and choose what learning modules best fit their course content and happenings in their students’ simulated countries.

Each module opens with an “Understanding By Design” performance task, which are real world tasks that will require students to (1) utilize the course content and (2) what they’ve learned from their Civic Mirror experience in order to (3) understand something about the real world more deeply.

For example, in the Market Forces module, students become economists who will use what they learned about the principles of supply, demand, and price to pre-value their economy’s properties before an auction. Or, in the Global Issues module, students become geographers who must rank their simulated country against the UN National Index, and then compare their country’s results to United States’ real-world rankings.

What’s really exciting, though, is that these learning modules will include all the academic content students need – Civic Mirror-using educators will no longer need textbooks for these units of study!What’s also exciting is that ‘select CM educators’ will be given ‘author access’ to update these modules in their digital form. In other words, the content and quality will continually get better and better and better!

The following 10 learning modules will be usable by any teacher in any country:

• Power and the Political-Eonomic Spectrum
• Rights/Responsibilities of Citizens in Democracies
• Justice and the Judicial Branch
• Market Forces: Supply, Demand, Price
• Government and the Economy
• Global Issues and Citizenship
• Dealing With Conflict
• Viewing Your World (What’s My Perspective?)
• Financial Planning & Goal Setting
• National Pursuits of Happiness

Stay tuned!

It’s been a little over a month since the specially-selected beta testing educators have been using the new Civic Mirror with their students, and some superstars have definitely worked diligently with us to make it bug free and excellent.

Mr. Dan Ballantyne, a social studies educator from Bluevale Collegiate Institute in Waterloo, Ontario, and arguably the most tech-savvy CM Pioneer to date (definitely the first to “Tweet” anything related to CM), was the first educator to use the Civic Mirror’s new “Job Board” feature. The new Job Board allows teachers and students to post services they’d be willing to pay CM$ for, or (in only the case of students) services they’d be willing to perform in return for CM$. While this feature is in its early stages, the plan is that this feature will evolve into an awesome CM service economy.

Dan’s post in the country “Sunbeam” was the first-ever CM Job Board post, it capitalized on the token economy CM provides teachers with, and it read as follows:

Recycled Products Transfer Engineer Needed

I am looking for a reliable, self-motivated, and intelligent person to be responsible for emptying the fine-paper and plastic/aluminum recycling bins in our classroom each week or as needed.

If you think that you have the “right stuff”, please send me a message via CM mail and we can talk about compensation.

Educational requirements:
– all Civics assignments are completed

– – –

Dan followed this post with a second one that capitalized on the constructivist nature of the Civic Mirror with this one:

National Historian Needed

Are you a keen observer of human behavior? Do you enjoy writing? If so, why not apply for the position of National Historian?

Duties include:
-writing daily, professional postings on the Sunbeam wiki
-regular interviews with important Sunbeam personalities

Benefits:
-gain initiative marks
-possible salary from government if negotiated

Send an email describing your qualifications to MrBallantyne and cc Sunbeam Prime Minister Nick B.
– – –

This was followed by Mason of Sunbeam’s legal services advertisement, one of the first CM job board posts made by a student:

I Am a Lawyer

I will fight for you in court, with an undefeated record in court your putting your trust in the right place.
just send me a message if you require legal sevice i will be charging $500 or we can work out a deal.

– – –

Thanks for all of your contributions and innovation Dan. The Civic Mirror is lucky to have educators like you blazing pedagogical trails for others to follow.

– – –

Select Teachers Beta-Testing the New! Civic Mirror

This coming September we’ll be launching Civic Mirror 2.0, complete with a new design, classroom video tutorials, 13 learning modules, and enhanced online community tools and features. This is an exciting first step in (1) making the Civic Mirror the first game-based, full-package learning resource for social studies education, and (2) a platform that will allow teachers and classrooms to connect with other teachers and classrooms in an educationally rich, simulated world.

Below is a sneak peek into what Civic Mirror 2.0 will look like:

*      *      *

Civic Mirror Beta Testing Team

14 teachers across the United States and Canada were invited to join the Civic Mirror Beta Testing Team. These teachers have a track record of taking the Civic Mirror to incredible heights with their students, and their feedback over the next six weeks will be invaluable to making CM2.0 as amazing as possible.

The Civic Mirror 2.0 Beta Testing Team Members are:

• Allen Von Eye, Sonja Karp, Newcastle HS, WY
• Kelly Devenish, Cheryl Payne, The Woodlands School, ON
• Ken High at Hudson HS, MA
• Amy Munro at Heart Lake Secondary, ON
• Ryan Niman at Mountlake Terrace HS, WA
• Dan Ballantyne, Sherry Freund, Emily Schmuck at Bluevale Collegiate Institute, ON
• Lizanne Foster at Queen Elizabeth Secondary, BC
• Kirsten Anthon at Gordon Graydon Secondary, ON
• Jeff Stone at Alderwood MS, WA
• Kristin Greatrix at Turner Fenton Secondary, ON

If you have any ideas, suggestions, or questions about CM2.0 and the Beta Testing Team, please feel free to contact us.

A Teacher’s Early Civic Mirror Reflection.

Scott Kemp – a passionate educator, blogger, and teacher at Cameron Heights Collegiate Institute in Kitchener, Ontario, who just started using the Civic Mirror with his Grade 10 students this past semester – shared some incredibly insightful ideas and thoughts about the Civic Mirror and – more importantly – the effectiveness of games in education.

Check out Scott’s post here, and be sure to read and comment on some of his other thought-provoking ideas in his The Radical Tactical Shift.

For those teachers and students inside Civic Mirror World, keep an eye out for Mr. Kemp’s simulated country called Rawcopia in the forums, an intriguing name to say the least.

This month’s showcase teacher is Matt Anderson of the Community College of Allegheny County (CCAC) in Pittsburgh. Matt began using the Civic Mirror at The Urban Assembly School of Design and Construction in New York City, he then took a position teaching education methods at CCAC where he continues to use the Civic Mirror. Matt uses CM to expose education students to new and innovative ways to instruct and keep kids engaged in learning.

Through Matt’s tutelage these education students are learning valuable lessons about innovative teaching methods in the classroom. Research proves that what teachers are exposed to and use in the first four years of teaching predicts what they’ll continue to do for the rest of their career.

In Matt’s CCAC country of Beautopia he made great use of the online discussion forums, posing questions and assignments for his student teachers. By using the forum he not only opened the door for great discussions, but also exposed them to an cutting edge teaching and learning tool.

For example, Matt challenged his students to do the following:
“As educators, it’s our job to create learning experiences that promote student understanding and there’s no better way to do this than using material that relates to the students.

Your assignment is to create a lesson using connections from the Civic Mirror. Make sure to be specific and include examples so we know what you are trying to do!”

His students’ ideas were fantastic:

Natalya would use CM in a science class for a unit on geography to emphasize how human actions affect our environment: “They [the students] would try to make businesses into trees and such. They would do activities on how in real life this affects the earth and the life living on it. Then, they would do the opposite. They would destroy all green hexes and see how that affected them. They would look into what we are doing to the environment by destroying rainforests and farming on land and depleting it of its value. They would then compare and contrast what they discovered.”

Bunny, a congress member in Beautopia, would use the Civic Mirror in an English course: “Civic Mirror would be a great tool to use for an English Unit in which students would monitor the game experiences and write several personal reflections regarding emotional effects of humanistic behavior, personal beliefs on government control as well as a predictive paper on hidden agendas.”

Both Natalya and Bunny “get it,” students learn better when they:

a) experience what they’re learning, and
b) reflect on how what their learning relates to their life and the world they live in.

Kudos to Matt for promoting educational change for the next generation of teachers!

In a recent interview with Education News Colorado, Peter Levine, Director of  CIRCLE, outlines several of the myths surrounding civic education in the United States, and convincingly argues why the topic is vitally important for the future of American democracy. Levine explains:

• collaboration and problem-solving are in decline
• people without college education are not participating in civic work and duties
• there exist vast gaps in civic engagement and opportunties
• civic education can improve life-outcomes for youth

Thanks to Peter Levine for the outstanding work and research, and to Education News Colorado for the great interview. It only encourages us to work harder to grow and develop the Civic Mirror and contribute to the improvement of civic education across the continent.

Listen to the podcast, or read Alan Gottlieb’s podcast summary and comments on the Education News Colorado website.

In this talk, Ali Carr-Chelman highlights how our school system is out of sync with the world of ‘boys’ (i.e. “active kids”), and how games can be used to re-engage them.

For all of us using the Civic Mirror, this talk totally validates the excitement and engagement games add to the learning process. What do you think about this talk?