Over the last 10 years, I have dedicated a number of blog posts to retired
Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and her passion for civics Serious
Games.
Justice O’Connor was the first female Supreme Court Justice of the
United States, serving as an Associate Justice beginning in 1981 and for nearly
25 years until she retired from the bench in January 2006.
Back in 2008, I realized that amongst the several Serious Games
categories I had been “blogging” about (academic, med & health, corporate and
ecology education), the legal stream was the least “populated”.
Therefore, the announcement made by Justice O’Connor at the closing
keynote of the Games for Change conference in 2008 about the creation of an online
civics learning program for middle school students leveraged by Serious Games drew
a lot of attention.
Over the keynote, Justice O’Connor discussed her collaboration with
Prof. James Paul Gee and other game and education leaders from Georgetown Law
School for the development of Our Courts project, later renamed to iCivics,
meant to foster national dialogue about the judiciary system and inspire young
people to be more involved in civic life.
Her keynote speech was mainly centered on how the American public had
become increasingly distant -- and sometimes ignorant -- of how government
works, and why video games and computers would be effective tools for changing
that fact.
“If someone told me before I had retired from the Supreme Court a few
years ago that I would be speaking at a conference on digital gaming, I would
have been very skeptical,” she said at that point.
(Please find more at Serious
Games To Foster National Dialogue About Judiciary System).
In August 2009, with the motto “Helping Middle School Students Learn by
Doing Civics, Rather Than Simply Learning about Civics,” Our Courts
launched the first online civics games - Do I Have A Right? and Supreme
Decision. In February 2010, Our Courts released Argument Wars,
where players argue landmark Supreme Court cases. Our Courts was
creating discovery-based learning games for students and useful classroom resources
for teachers. Georgetown University Law Center, The College of Teacher
Education and Leadership at Arizona State University and Sandra Day O'Connor
College of Law at Arizona State University were the three lead partners in this
initiative.
(Please find more at Learning
By Doing Civics Through Serious Games).
Since 2009, iCivics has
been dedicated to reinvigorating civic learning through interactive and
engaging learning resources, among them 19 award-winning Serious Games. The
2013 iCivics Annual Report showed that iCivics teacher network tripled
that year, reaching 35,000 educators across 9,000 schools while students across
the country played iCivics Serious Games an astonishing 5.9 million times,
preparing themselves for civic participation. Approximately half of all middle
school social studies teachers in the U.S. relied on iCivics – a
significant milestone to reach in four years.
Justice O’Connor continued her passionate advocacy for civic education
reform nationally. The Justice keynoted a 2013 civics education conference at
Harvard Law School entitled “Why Civics Matters to Democracy, Society, and
You”. In September, Justice O’Connor and iCivics partnered with former Senator
John Glenn to coauthor an open letter highlighting the importance of civic
education across disciplines.
(Please find more at iCivics
2013 Report: Serious Games Reaching 35,000 Educators Across 9,000 Schools and
Serious
Games Boost Civic Education In The Classroom).
Earlier this month, iCivics announced the launch of NewsFeed
Defenders, an online news literacy game created in partnership with
Annenberg Public Policy Center, the folks who bring us FactCheck.org.
Yesterday, retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, announced
her withdrawal from public life. In doing so, she made clear her wish for
iCivics to reach all our youth.
Today, in honor of Justice O’Connor, we ask you to visit iCivics.org, log in to your
account, and explore a new resource. Perhaps play the recently released
game, NewsFeed
Defenders.