Tech Toolkit: Mission U.S are you ready?

Today is all about Mission U.S; Mission U.S allows middle school and high school students, to interact with American history. It has four key games, which range from 1770 until 1907. The site is free, and has activities for both students and teachers. Its goal is to get students thinking in the mindset, of someone who lived during the time, which the mission is taking place. In using Mission U.S, the creators hope, that students can learn to care about history, by seeing it through the eyes of their peers.  All of the characters are young teenagers, portrayed in a typical setting for the topic and time frame. It allows students to see how people lived in the past, and the concerns and realities that were common.

http://www.mission-us.org/ 
The goals of Mission US are to help students:

• Learn how Americans struggled to realize the ideals of liberty and equality

• Understand the role of ordinary men and women, including young people, in history

• Develop historical empathy 

• Build understanding and critical perception to think like an historian.

When you register as a teacher, you can access additional information. This information helps you to form lessons around the game, which meet the common core standards. These missions are not intended as an introduction to a topic. As a teacher, the site provides lesson information, to help you introduce the time period and vocabulary. Once these have been introduced, Mission U.S gets students thinking and talking about history, from the perspective of those who lived it.

Use these activity suggestions, to introduce your students to the subjects. The activities for Mission 1 "For Crown or Colony?", may center around things such as the Liberty song, the Stamp acts, or the Townshend acts.

Look under the background tab to see what you students may want to know, before starting the game. There are some opportunities within the game to gain more information, but it may be more immersive for your students if they already know it.

The overview of the game, tells you about the mission, its characters, tips for teachers, learning goals, and the nation standards.

Use these additional resources to help enhance student learning.

 

This technology helps students to start thinking on a broader scale, about history and how it still applies to us today: “Research has shown that, by assuming the roles of peers from the past, students develop a more personal, memorable, and meaningful connection with complex historical content and context” – Mission U.S website. This tool allows students, to start making connections that would be difficult through reading alone. I would use this game, to start discussion in my classroom on history, and how it relates to us.

Here is a quick video on Mission U.S: