Teaching with The BC Game

The BC Game (TBCG) is an educational game from Vancouver-based Duet Software (http://www.duetsoftware.ca). (Duet Software is a small company made up of two Vancouver elementary teachers (Doug and Peter), who develop software that they've found meets their students and colleagues needs). Duet states: "Students visit 60 communities learning facts about the area, viewing photos and videos, and earning money to continue their trip. Students playing The BC Game are involved in problem solving, budgeting, and map reading as they learn about our province. The BC Game is suitable for grades 4 - 8 and is highly motivating."

They're right! At my school, I use TBCG with students from grades 4 through 7. Most enjoy it; many play it for fun during their choosing times. It's a good fit with BC's grade 5 social studies curriculum, in particular.

Like other Duet Software educational programs, TBCG is not available for sale to individuals; it is sold only to schools, CDN$400 buying a school-wide license. Versions are available for Windows or Mac (Power Mac only).

On Windows systems, Direct X 7.0 is required-- if you play the game on systems with no Direct X (or an earlier version), the program will start, but many screens will be blank. A copy of Direct X 7.0 is included on the program CD and can be installed if needed. Of course, later versions of Direct X will work fine-- and if you try to install Direct X 7 on a system that doesn't need it, the installer is smart enough to do nothing rather than nuke the newer files.

Use a network

While the game can be installed to play without problem on stand-alone systems, better is to install it so that student records and video files can be saved onto a server-- even a low-tech peer-to-peer server. (See my tutorial on setting up and using a Windows peer-to-peer network). Saving student records on the server lets students access their saved game from any computer in a lab or throughout the school. The video files take up a lot of space-- by default, they're run from the CD disc... which is not practical if you have one CD and a lot of computers. You could install the files on each workstation-- but that uses up a lot of hard drive space. Since students access the video files at different times, I've found it's not a problem having them run across the network-- even my low-powered network.

For best performance, I install the actual game onto each workstation, with the video files and saved games residing on the network.

640x480 resolution

If your computer is set for the minimal 640x480 screen resolution, you may have some problems... the game window is also 640x480 pixels... the standard Windows taskbar (the strip along the bottom of the screen with the Start button, etc) will cover the bottom part of the BC Game screen, which can be a problem.

The best solution is probably to have a higher resolution screen: 800x600 or larger. Then TBCG shows up in a smaller window that floats around the screen. That might not be practical, especially using older computers or monitors. In that case, there are a couple of things to try:

• shrink the taskbar. To do that, point the mouse at the top edge of the taskbar. The cursor will change to a double-headed arrow, letting you drag the taskbar to the bottom of the screen. Of course if you do that, you need to remember to pull it back up after quitting TBCG.
• set the taskbar to get out of the way. To do that, right-click on an unused piece of the taskbar, and choose Properties from the popup menu. You'll see an option:

[  ] Auto hide

Adding a checkmark to that item will make the taskbar disappear when not in use... it will reappear whenever the mouse points near the bottom of the screen. Personally, I find this confusing and don't like using it-- especially with young children, but it may be the best way around this problem!

BC Game Utilities

In order to use the network in this way, you will need to change the default paths on each workstation. To do this, start up The BC Game, and click the option reading BC Game Utilities. You will be asked for a password... the first thing you should do is change the master password from the default. Note that as with the other utilities, you will need to do this on each workstation that has TBCG installed!

Afterwards, you can change the Player Scores Path to a new location-- either one that has a standard drive letter/folder name or a folder that's shared across the network. If you are using a folder on a mapped drive, I would strongly suggest making it a hidden folder after you have set it on all your workstations. That makes it less likely that students can wander to at other times!

Similarly, you can change the Path to Movie Files. Of course, you'll need to copy all the movie files from the CD to that location! (You'll find the movie files on the CD in a folder called BCGameMovies... just copy that entire folder to the location of your choice).

You can also use the BC Game Utilities choices to add, rename, and delete players... but there is an easier way to do that. If you are saving player files to a central location like a folder on a server, if you browse to that folder, you will see that there is an individual file for each saved game, with the filename the same as the player's name that displays in the program, ending with the file extension '.ini'. Renaming that file changes the player's name. And if your double-click one of these files, it opens up in Windows Notepad-- it's a plain text file. It looks something like this:

[Info]
Limo=4
Account= 2893
Comfort Level=5
LastPlace1=38
LastPlace2= 4
Password=blah
Comfort=5

[Map_Owned]
SI=False
NI=False

Note that it shows the amount of money the player has, what level of transport they're currently using, and perhaps most important-- their password. (Setting passwords is optional; if used, passwords are limited to 4 letters or numbers). Students often forget their passwords... checking their INI file lets a teacher remind them of their password. (And yes, it can be used to change the amount of money a student has-- another reason to keep that folder hidden!)

On my teacher-workstation, I've made a shortcut to the network folder with the Student Games... this lets me easily get to these files when needed. When students start new games, I ask them to name them starting with their division (class) number, followed by their real name or initials. Periodically, I check the folder, and rename identifiable but mis-named games, and simply erase any with names that might be offensive or where the owner can't be identified (Yes, I'm a meanie! ) Students generally learn to follow instructions!

Post a map

Players travel around BC. When they choose a new city to travel to, they see a map of that area, and get a chance to 'purchase' the map. They can access any purchased maps during the quizzes. But I find it useful to keep a BC roadmap tacked on my wall. This gives students the opportunity to learn to find locations using the map's Index. It also forces them to visualize the location on the road map in order to find it using the onscreen map. I try to help them put a location into words: "Pentiction is at the bottom of a long skinny lake that looks like a worm" "See how Abbotsford is where the road curves like the letter U"

Students may have trouble clicking on locations close to Vancouver... there are many dots, and they are very close together. With practice, students learn to click carefully, and that Burnaby is the first dot to the right of Vancouver, that Richmond is the dot underneath Vancouver, and so forth.

Write stuff down!

In general, I find that students take educational software much more seriously if they are asked to write down what they doing. It slows the process down and keeps them from racing through it. Even though the game gives students the opportunity to 'purchase notes', most don't do this left to their own devices. Moreover, learning increases if students are expected to read something and then write it down.

Currently, I give students two types of handouts... the first lists the 60 locations, and asks students to write down the date when they visited each city and the score they got on its quiz. The second includes a sheet to write down the 5 facts given for each location, along with the 5-10 quiz questions and answers. Obviously, with 60 locations, students will use a lot of the second sheet! (Alternatively, you might ask students to write the facts, and just record their scores on the quizes-- in fact, I'm leaning towards doing that. Here's the handout!).

Quiz questions are sometimes repeated... especially in the early stages of the game when students haven't learned many facts. I tell students that they only have to write a quiz question once. As well, they obviously can't write much for the mapping questions. (You can download copies of those handouts by clicking on the links in the preceding paragraphs, along with a handout with a map showing the 60 BC Game locations. Feel free to print them out, or modify them for your own use!).

Work in groups

Many students do well working in groups of 2-3. This is especially helpful if you're asking students to write down their facts... students can take turns recording facts and using the mouse. I point out to classes that if individuals do not work well with the rest of their group, they can be 'voted off the island' by the other group members, and have to play on their own.

Getting started

After students create a new game, they are shown an inital screen with information about the Province of British Columbia. They will see a picture, with a fact underneath. It is important for students to learn to click on the blue arrows to navigate through the set of five pictures and facts. Unless this is pointed out to them, students tend to click the Done button without getting all the facts-- and then they do poorly on the quizzes.

Following the facts about BC, they will be asked to choose an initial location, then will similarly see a screen with a picture and fact about that city-- again it is important to train them to view all 5 pictures. (That's one of the reasons I ask them to write down the facts).

After clicking Done they get a choice of restaurants, at different price levels. The restaurants are wacky... note that students will be asked to Click Here to continue... meaning to click anywhere in the voice bubble.

Next, they get a quiz. They have to click the Spin button to get a new question. If they answer correctly, they win a variable amount of money, but if they make a mistake, they lose that amount, so the pressure is on! The questions are derived from the previous facts, or from the map that they saw. There are five questions for the first few cities visited, then there are ten questions in a round.

After the quiz they pick a door to win a souvenir, and see their souvenir on a screen that will slowly fill up with 60 possible souvenirs-- letting them see how far along in the game they are. Next, they get to pick a hotel for the night, again with three wacky choices at three different price and quality levels.

Finally, they can choose where to travel next, choosing from four nearby locations. Cost of travel varies with distance. At first, players go by bus. As they accumulate money, they get a limo, light plane, helicopter, private jet, ultimately, travel by UFO. If they lose money, however, their transportation options drop down as well.

Bonuses?

In some of the restaurant or hotel sequences, students may be asked a trick question... the answer is to click somewhere in the picture. For the question about 'looks like blood', the answer is to click on the ketchup bottle, for instance. "The healthy alternative" is the salad. Another answer requires clicking out the hotel window where the moon might be-- except the curtains are closed.

Expect many students to be confused by these questions. Be prepared to help them. After they've played for a while, they'll get used to Doug and Peter's sense of humour.

Da judge!

Wrong answers in the quizzes cost money, and students need to spend money on meals, hotels, and travel. It's possible to be in the red, with a negative score. If a player gets down to -$500, the judge kicks them out of the game. Their user file is deleted, and there's no appeal-- all that's left is to start over. In general, students who pay attention to the facts should do fine... but kids who don't take the time to look at all 5 photos and read the facts for each location may find themselves before the judge!

Planning

Ideally, students will plan their route so that they can travel around the Province with minimal repetition... use of the map may help with that.

Sometimes, kids may find that all four of the cities listed have the bullet in front of the name-- indicating that they've already been there. In that case, they're sort of stuck... all they can do is go back to a city they've already visited, and hope that from there, they can get somewhere new. In some cases, they may need to go to several cities before they can break out.