Global Pandemics: Plague of Athens

Global Pandemics: Plague of Athens Chromebooks Web App Next Gen Digital Learning | Applied Educational Research Prepared for Academia.edu March 21, 2022 Spencer Striker, PhD Associate Professor of Digital Media Design Northwestern Qatar | Education City e. spencer.striker@northwestern.edu m. +974 3397 6855 Project Description Introducing Global Pandemics: a cutting-edge, browser-based, digital learning experience—designed to enhance student understanding of the role of pandemics in world history. One year in the making, and involving a talented, interdisciplinary team from around the world—including 5 skilled Northwestern Qatar research assistants—the new product features cutting-edge digital learning design, web animation, interaction design, and digital storytelling. Global Pandemics explores five major pandemics in world history: Global Pandemic Region Time Period The Plague of Athens Classical Greece 5th C BCE The Black Death Europe, Asia 14th C Smallpox Empire of Anahuac (Mexico-day Mexico) 16th C The Spanish Flu Western Front, Global 1918-1920 HIV/AIDs Global 1980s-present 1 We are presenting Chapter 1: “To Do No Harm,” the story of Nikos of Athens, a physician during the Plague of Athens, 429 BCE, who struggles to treat the multitude who fall ill during this world-upending ordeal, causing him to question everything he holds dear, from his faith in Apollo, healer under the gods, to the meaning of his Hippocratic Oath, and what is truly at stake in medical ethics. The Global Pandemics prototype consists of over 50 uniquely designed, animated web pages featuring over 2 hours of engaging, rewarding learning material for students to explore. The product combines digital storytelling with interactive learning design to craft a rich, complex pedagogical experience that immerses students in the power of story—narrativizing the experiences of diverse people, around the globe, who lived through history’s worst pandemics—interwoven with rich, multimodal learning content. Creative/Research Questions Global Pandemics provides historical context for students about the challenges COVID-19 has presented to people around the world. The design of Global Pandemics is positioned at the nexus of innovative pedagogical, theoretical, and technological practices—including narrative studies, multimodal literacies, and game-based learning research. Synthesizing the best of history games, visual learning, interactive textbooks, and history apps, Global Pandemics introduces novel features, design elements, and affordances—demonstrating the effectiveness of applied educational research to enhance learning outcomes. The central question posed is whether—and to what degree—the innovative digital learning design of Global Pandemics will result in a measurable increase in student interest, 2 engagement, and understanding of key concepts in epidemiology as well as the role of pandemics in world history. A secondary question is how to iterate product design to improve engagement and successful learning outcome metrics even further. Topic/Project Significance and Creative Design Building on a rich tradition of digital media and learning research, Global Pandemics immerses and engages students through meaningful choice and multimodal interaction design; provide systems-based interpretations that emphasize complexity, interdependencies, and causal connections; played out within a problem space that encourages students to perceive connections between past and present—making that understanding more visceral, tangible, and real—and in the process sparking enthusiasm for learning about the past. Global Pandemics offers a truly innovative solution for engaging millennial students and inspiring curiosity for learning about history. This browser-based digital learning experience introduces multiple novel technologies, including: ● ● ● ● ● ● ● 3D Motion Design to Recreate History Advanced Web Animation to Simulate Pathogens Immersive 360 Panoramas of Historical Locations Animated Historical Timeline & Maps Choice-based Narrative Design Interactive Original Historical Documents Media-Rich Adaptive Assessments 3 Narrative and Character Design has already been developed for the remaining 4 chapters; please find links to preproduction stories and character art below: Character Design Narrative Design Location Year Nikos of Athens Ch 1: "To Do No Harm" Athens 429 BCE Giana (animated) Ch 2: "Forty Days " Venice 1378 CE Xoquauhtli Ch 3: "Breath of Life" Tenochtitlan 1520 CE Achraj Singh Ch 4: "Red Pepper and Black Pepper" Western Front 1918 CE Brian Ch 5: "Positive" San Francisco 1987 CE 4 Global Pandemics, Chapter 1: “To Do No Harm,” Plague of Athens, 4th Century BCE Playable Prototype (live demo build) Developer notes for Demo Build: please open in up to date Chrome browser on a computer with good specs; initial load is up to 1 minute, after which all the animations and assets will be preloaded; explore the product as you like, following the story and educational content; if a page freezes or crashes, please simply reload the page; otherwise reload the first page and start again there; if lost in the non-linear navigation, open the menu icon in the upper right to reveal the interactive map, which you can use to situate you in overall product flow. Feel free to reference the full walkthrough below, (presented as an HD video), to get a sense of the optimal flow of the User Experience. Full Product Walkthrough (HD video on YouTube; showcases product/user flow) 5 Global Pandemics - Poster Featuring all 5 Characters 6 Scholarly Research on Digital Media & Learning Chapman, A. (2016). Digital Games as History: How Videogames Represent the Past and Offer Access to Historical Practice (Routledge Advances in Game Studies (Book 7)). Routledge. Cope, B., & Kalantzis, M. (2013). “Multiliteracies”: New literacies, new learning. In Framing Languages and Literacies: Socially Situated Views and Perspectives. Taylor and Francis. Gee, J. P. (2004). What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy. Palgrave Macmillan. Gee, J. P. (2007). Good Video Games and Good Learning: Collected Essays on Video Games, Learning and Literacy (New Literacies and Digital Epistemologies). Peter Lang Inc., International Academic Publishers; 1st edition. Halverson, R. (2009). Rethinking Education in the Age of Technology: The Digital Revolution and Schooling in America (Technology, Education--Connections (The TEC Series)) . Teachers College Press. Itō, M. (2010). Hanging out, messing around, and geeking out: Kids living and learning with new media. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press. McCall, J. (2016). Teaching History With Digital Historical Games: An Introduction to the Field and Best Practices. Simulation & Gaming. McGonigal, J. (2011). Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World. Penguin Books. Squire, K. (2011). Video Games and Learning: Teaching and Participatory Culture in the Digital Age (Technology, Education--Connections (The TEC Series)). New York: Teachers College Press. Steinkuehler, C., Squire, K., & Barab, S. (2012). Games, learning, and society: Learning and meaning in the digital age. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139031127 Thomas, D., & Brown, J. S. (2011). A new culture of learning: Cultivating the imagination for a world of constant change. 7