Simulating History

A group of senior students (Joe Peric, John Bachynski, Andrew McNiven, and Nicki Darbyson) led by Kevin Kee, are currently working on a simulation/strategy game exploration of the world of 1885 Montreal, and its devastating encounter with smallpox. The event is chronicled in Michael Bliss’s book, Plague -

the story of a horrifying smallpox epidemic that devastated Montreal in 1885, killing 3000 of its inhabitants in less than four months, turning French against English, Protestant against Catholic, and rich against poor. Troops had to be called out to guard smallpox hospitals against anti-vaccination rioters. The whole city of Montreal was quarantined by the rest of North America as a charnel-house of disease and death.

Plague is a timely and instructive story of the last smallpox epidemic in a modern city, one that resonates in this time of mysterious and alarming outbreaks.

In the simulation, one of the roles the player may take is as the city’s officer of health. Who do you turn to for advice? Do you quarantine the French? Arrest the anti-vaccination rioters? Think carefully, for the fate of the city’s population is in your hands…

Below are some screenshots from the latest build of the simulation.

Here is a movie of a walkthrough of a project which combines the online world of Second Life with the online learning management system Moodle: Sloodle!

Shawn’s presentation at Brock’s Immersive Worlds conference, held in June 2007, may be listened to here: The Virtual Archaeologist: Of Past Lives and Second Lives

Abstract:
Archaeology is about material culture, about exploring the human condition (not necessarily in the past) through how we create and manipulate objects. In recent years, the power of computers has opened up new universes for exploration, places where individuals create the world around them. Up to now, most archaeological studies with the word ‘virtual’ in the title have been aimed at teaching or at least sprucing up the graphics in the final excavation report. I would argue instead that these are worlds deserving of archaeological study, indeed needing an archaeological study in that they are pure constructions of will and imagination. ‘Virtual Worlds’ are in themselves nothing new: from the Hanging Gardens of Bablyon to the Villa of Hadrian at Tivoli, to Disneyland in Florida, humans have been creating fantastical worlds to live in, to express themselves, and to explore. What will we find when we look with an archaeological eye inside the virtual universe of Second Life? What is the role for archaeology in these virtual worlds? This paper documents some of my early explorations as a virtual archaeologist.

Henry Jenkins, interviewed for the Chronicle of Higher Education:

Henry Jenkins, co-director of the Comparative Media Studies Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was one of the first scholars to study Trekkies and other fans of popular media. For decades, he argues, those fans have been on the cutting edge of the trend of participatory culture that is now so popular on the Web. The Chronicle’s new Academic Life section profiles this media maven. And since Mr. Jenkins is at the forefront of research on digital culture, the piece also offers some multimedia features, including a podcast interview.

Welcome

Canadians are concerned about their understanding of their history, and especially about the way that it is taught. The “Simulating History” project, funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, is exploring the “ best potential” for educational computer simulations (sometimes called computer “serious games”) to teach Canadian history. Based at Brock University, and led by Kevin Kee, the “Simulating History” team is developing and testing history simulations to explore the best potential for teaching and learning history in the twenty-first century.