Update

Library of Congress Looks to Games for Civics Education

The Library of Congress will spend nearly $1 million to bring three new digital learning games to classrooms over the next two years.

The Library of Congress will spend nearly $1 million to bring three new digital learning games to classrooms over the next two years.

In yet another example of the federal government’s increasing interest in using digital tools and games for education the Library of Congress announced this month that it would be spending nearly $1 million over the next two years to create civics applications for the classroom.

The Library announced it had awarded grants to three organizations to build the tools, including one game developer, Muzzy Lane.

The three proposals that the agency chose to back were:

  • Muzzy Lane Software, whose “KidCitizen” project will deliver extensible cross-platform apps for iOS and Android devices and web browsers designed for children in grades K-5 and that explores civics and government concepts through historical sources, and connects what they find with their daily lives.
  • Indiana University Center on Representative Government’s “Engaging Congress” project will create a series of game-based learning activities for secondary-level students to explore the basic tenets of representative government and the challenges it faces in contemporary society.
  • Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media at George Mason University will deliver an engaging, online and mobile-friendly interactive for K-12 students focused on Congress and civic participation. The Center will also be working with National History Day (NHD) and educational media designer Big Yellow Taxi to present students with thought-provoking questions to draw them into careful analysis of Library of Congress resources.

The three selected were from 33 proposals submitted to the LOC and the Library’s Lee Ann Potter, Director of Educational Outreach, said the three they funded “reflected both creativity and enthusiasm for providing students with engaging tools to learn about Congress and civic participation.”

For Massachusetts-based Muzzy Lane it was another win in a year of good news. Late last year the company reorganized and brought in veteran educational technology executive Conall Ryan as CEO and the company has landed key funding and development gigs since then.

At the time Muzzy Lane’s Dave McCool told us, “We want to raise the profile of Muzzy Lane as an established leader in this… space. We need to expand our strategic partnerships and explore new ones. You’ll see plenty of exciting enhancements to our technology platform as well as improvements to our key product offerings. By that we mean better production values, simplicity, and ease of use — the stuff that’s easy to talk about but fiendishly difficult to produce consistently at scale. We need to get there.”

The Library of Congress award seems to be an indication of that working, as the project is a partnership with professors at the University of South Florida and the staff of the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement.

We asked Bert Snow, VP of Design at Muzzy Lane, to answer a few questions about the deal and what to expect from their new “Kid Citizen” project.

Gamesandlearning.org: So it seems like you are building something a little bit different with Kid Citizen — I noticed it was not specifically a game-based application. Could you tell me a little more about Kid Citizen as you envision it now?

Bert Snow: It is game-based learning, but it’s not just one app: What will be developed will include both a set of 12 game Episodes, and an Authoring service and tools that will allow educators all over the country to build their own episodes using primary sources from the Library of Congress.

Our creative concept is to combine age-appropriate interactions with primary sources, (based on learning research from experts on our team) with excellent game and interaction design.

In designing game mechanics, we’ll look at how elementary-age children approach and process images and media and think about past events. While the actual design will be done with the team once the project gets underway, some of our initial concepts are:

  • Relate the history to children’s present lives
  • Have children role-play with an avatar, taking on a “detective” role, finding answers to questions about civic involvement, working with a friend/mentor character.
  • Authentic interaction with primary source materials like photographs – the core activity will involve observing, exploring, and thinking about the source itself, using interactions to draw the children into the images and other sources in age appropriate ways.

Gamesandlearning.org: I see that you are the only game developer who received one of the three grant and the other two were more academic organizations. What do you think it says to get the LOC to back a developer versus a more traditional history group?

Bert Snow: The other teams do have application developers as part of their teams, but not in the lead role. Because the Library of Congress stressed wanting high-quality applications, we thought it was appropriate for Muzzy Lane to be the lead. We do have a very strong academic team surrounding us. So – I’m not sure they viewed our group as being different that way.

Gamesandlearning.org: How does this build on the work Muzzy Lane has been doing in both the school and commercial space in developing history apps and games?

Bert Snow: This project will make great use of work we are doing now to allow educators to author their own game-based learning experiences. This is going to really help with one of LOC’s goals, which is to get educators working with the amazing resources the Library is making available digitally.

We firmly believe that exploring historical stories and themes can be the basis for engrossing and enlightening game (and learning) experiences. We’re also excited that in the project we’ll get to work with two eminent and forward-thinking historians: Spencer Crew and Ed Ayers.

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Lee Banville Lee Banville is editor of Gamesandlearning.org. He is also an Professor of Journalism at The University of Montana. For 13 years he ran the online and digital operations of the PBS NewsHour, overseeing coverage of domestic and international stories.