This presentation was given at the 2016 Serious Play Conference, hosted by the UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School. Matthew Farber share how students remixed the social deduction game, One Night Ultimate Werewolf to align with course content, in this case, the Salem Witch Trials. Participants will have an opportunity to play! He will also show how students created American Revolutionary War-themed interactive historical fiction stories using Twine.

1. Getting Students Engaged in
Historical Topics Through Games
Matthew Farber, Ed.D.

2. mattfarber1@gmail.com
@MatthewFarber
MatthewFarber.com
Slides: goo.gl/Sdpkor

4. Social Deduction

6. Syrian Journey: Choose your own
escape route
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-32057601

8. 1979 Revolution

9. The Spielberg Test
“Movies are the most powerful empathy machine in all the arts.”
-Roger Ebert
Video games will prove their worth as a potent storytelling art form “when
somebody confesses that they cried at level 17.”
-Steven Spielberg
Reddit: Life is strange Episode 5; did you cry?

10. Life is Strange

11. Life is Strange

12. Spent, and Empathy
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/sound-science-sound-policy/201512/when-good-intentions-go-awry

13. Iterative Design

14. State of Being Game Jam

17. Challenge
• Redesign One Night Ultimate Werewolf to be about the
Salem Witch Crisis.
• Use above grade level Lexile range books, like The
Crucible.
• What would Ted Alspach do?

29. Other Social Deduction Games

30. Gamifying History?
“The slave mission was built on the idea that user could ‘understand what a
real slave felt’ while walking around in Lucy’s shoes. Unfortunately this is also
where the game failed because one cannot simulate the emotional scars of
slavery” -Rafranz Davis, 2015.
WNET responded with an editorial on EdSurge, citing several social historians
who advised the design of the game:
The mission portrays enslaved African Americans with agency and personal
power (even when social, economic, and political power was non-existent), and
as central actors in their own destinies. Our goal is for all students to develop a
greater respect for African Americans' struggle and African American history as
a part of American history. Although we regret to hear that some people have
found the game to be problematic, we stand by it.

31. A Game as a Model

32. Midnight Ride

33. Level Design in Saratoga Sim

34. Valley Forge Sim

35. Play Creates the Zone of
Proximal Development

37. mattfarber1@gmail.com
@MatthewFarber
http://MatthewFarber.com
Thanks You!
Related Edutopia articles:
• New Tools for Interactive Fiction and
Engaged Writing: http://edut.to/23CaZmo
• History, Empathy, Systems Thinking, and
Gaming: http://edut.to/1Rwks8c
Gamify Your Classroom: A Field Guide to Game-
Based Learning
(New Literacies and Digital Epistemologies)
https://amzn.com/1433126702