The Undocumented: A Serious Game

Serious games can be a great way to intrigue and engage your students by using flow and fiero while they are still utilizing important strategies and skills. The game I decided to play and blog about is called The Migrant Trail which is based off of the documentary The Undocumented by Marco Williams on PBS. 

THE MIGRANT TRAIL presents a first-person journey through Arizona’s desert borderlands.  Play as an undocumented immigrant attempting to cross the Arizona desert and/or a border patrol agent attempting to secure the border.  Playing the game offers an alternative  platform to further engage conversation, investigation and inquiry, into the themes and questions raised by the documentary.

Migrant Mode Intro: Every year an unknown number of migrants cross through the harsh Sonoran desert from Mexico into Arizona. They pay $1500-$2500 to join a crossing party, that is led by for hire guides referred to as Coyotes. If one cannot keep up, twists ankle or runs out of water, he or she is left behind and many die. On average, the remains of 200 dead migrants are found each year.  It’s not known how many are never found.

Border Patrol Mode Intro: Every day U.S. Border Patrol agents patrol the Sonoran Desert along the Arizona-Mexico border. Their job is to apprehend undocumented border crossers, provide first aid to the injured, and locate the remains of dead migrants.

After gathering background knowledge about the documentary and the game I played the game four times; two time as Patrol officer Anderson (because when I returned to the game it didn't save my progress) and two times as a Migrant (once as Diego and once as Adriana). 

First I played as the patrol officer Anderson. The first thing you hear is some haunting music which really sets the tone for the game. When you click on your character it gives a back story about the officer using prologue as seen above. You are given 5 hours on patrol (5 minutes). You drive around a car using a similar method to the Escape the Room Games. While you are pointing and clicking you are looking for foot prints which will go out of sight once the car moves past them. Then once you see a foot print and have to click on it quickly (this game is much easier with a mouse). Once you click on the foot prints you will see a dialogue box which you must respond to. Sometimes you will follow the foot prints to a dead body, sometimes you have to chase them, sometimes you will find them and have to administer first aid or you can just bring them in sick in which case they have a higher chance of dying but it also wastes a lot of your time. The best part is that you get to make the choice, choose the direction you want to go in or if you even want to click on the footprints. At the end you will get a total of migrants apprehended, died, applied first aid, miles traveled. At first you feel good about saving people because you administered first aid and were careful about clicking all of the footprint but then upon seeing the other statistics you then realize how many died and you feel like you should have been able to save them.  

Then I played as a migrant. First you are given a back story with a prologue similar to the patrol officer. Your objective is to cross the desert and meet with your coyote so you can see your family again. With the migrant you first need to go shopping with only $100 to get you through the trip; you need to plan strategically so you have enough supplies but are not overloaded. Then you are on your way and it's a constant struggle. You are always eating and drinking things to keep up your hydration and energy but they keep going down. Sometimes you will have popups and you need to decide if you want to take them or not because they will effect your health. You also have to be aware of patrol cars but they are mostly unavoidable. It's such a relief when you arrive to the safe point but it's so scary at the same time because I only had one jug of water left.  

There are so many language learning objectives that can be met by watching the documentary and then playing the game. I think an important standard being met would be Standard-ESL3: Language for Critical Analysis and Evaluation. To meet this standard students must use English to express their opinions and judgement on experiences, messages, ideas, information, and issues from a variety of perspectives. This game makes meeting this standard very easy! After watching the documentary students can write their own opinion of the migrants trying to cross the boarder. Then the students can play the games as a patrol officer and a migrant and compare and contrast their varying view points. 

Students can complete these objectives through Kyle Mawer's task types. Problem solving: Analyzing actions & consequences of the game sequence as well as discussing game strategy. Personal: Describing personal preferences/ opinions of the migrant trail. Storytelling: narrating the story of the patrol officers and the migrants through their points of view.  

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Gamif-what-ion?

Now, what exactly is "gamification? Well according to 7 Things to know about Gamification, gamification is when there is a application of game elements in a non-gaming situation. These elements often motivate or influence behavior in a classroom.

According to this article there are 7 important things you should know about Gamification:
1. Gamification elements often motivate and influence behavior
2. Competition will spur students' concentration and interest to lead to more effective learning
3.Used in higher ed. but adaptable to many
4.Helps build connections among by drawing in shy students, supporting collaboration, and engaging interest in course content that might have no otherwise.
5. But there are downsides: it can be difficult to employ effectively
6. If it is properly supported it can really be of use and grow!
7.Implications?: Offers instructors numerous creative opportunities to enliven their instruction.

I think the scenario is very intriguing in this article. I know that I would love to participate in an activity like this in a class and I would also learn a lot from it in the process. Personally I have used an idiom game where students must find native speakers of English and ask them what the idiom they have means and to use it in a sentence. I awarded points to the students for achieving this goal quickly and in ranking order. This gave incentive to the students and they found it fun, like a game. I really want to discover ways that gamification can be applied specifically to the ESL classroom.

In order to gain clarity on what exactly games do to engage students I read Sculpting Flow and Fiero: Daily MTG. I think the most interesting points of this article is about flow and fiero. So, what is flow? Flow is displayed in the moments where the challenges we face match up almost exactly with our ability to overcome them.
The psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi defines it as "the satisfying, exhilarating feeling of creative accomplishment and heightened functioning."  Csikszentmihalyi found that there were three factors essential to making flow: clear goals, rigidly defined rules of engagement, and the potential for measured improvement in the context of those goals and rules.

So, now that we understand flow, what exactly is Fiero? According to Dr. McGonigal, fiero is "possibly the most primal rush we can experience." It's the feeling we get when we conquer an obstacle that, for whatever reason, is emotionally important to us.  McGonigal describes it as "a craving for challenges we can overcome, battles we can win, and dangers we can vanquish."

These strong emotions and feelings are what tie us to these games, make them engaging and intriguing.

Now that we know the benefits of gamification how can we include them in out classroom?!
Well, luckily there is an article called 10 Gaming Genres to Adapt to Class. This is a lovely resource of ten gaming genres and how they could be used in the classroom.

The three I found the most interesting and want to use in in the classroom are as follows:

5. "Strategy Games- This is a game in which the gamer is presented with a number of possible choices in game play which will effect how they progress in the game...With these games students can practice activating prior knowledge, making inferences, and predictions."

6. "Adventure Games- Adventure games are a sub genre of point and click games but usually differ in that the game has got strong narrative elements. There is usually a central character, a storyline, objectives to be achieved, an enemy and an outcome at the end".
These types of games can be used in replacement of books! They have all of the same aspects of a novel and then students can apply literary elements to them.

8. "Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs)- Is a computer role playing genre in which a massive number of players interact with one another within a fictional virtual world. The player assumes the role and takes control of the actions of a fictional character."
These types of games are great for working on collaboration and cooperation As well as handling money and peer relationships.

All of these are great ways to engage students while still meeting standards and teaching students skills.