Graham, Shawn. “Rolling Your Own: On Modding Commercial Games for Educational Goals.” In Pastplay: Teaching and Learning History with Technology, edited by Kevin Kee, 214-27. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2014.
The members of online communities, who are dedicated to modifying commercial games, use debate among themselves to develop realistic scenarios to use to modify commercial games. The author is attempting to foster the same in his history students. While there is success, in realistically modifying commercial games in these online modding communities, educators have not been able to garner the same success in the classroom. The author’s aim in this chapter is to explore why success is not found within the classroom, despite the use of online, distance education undergraduate courses as it is found within these online communities. The chapter begins with a definition of the term “modding” and an introduction to the game Civilization, which is the game the author uses in his teaching. The author continues with a description of how he used it in his first year undergraduate online classroom. He offers examples from his attempt with his online classroom and the failures. The chapter continues with an assessment of the educational value of using online discussion forums and a description of how online learning is social learning. The author concludes the chapter with the lessons he learned from the experience.