

Themes: Education, Native American, Racism & Racial Identity

The Oregon Trail is now an I-Phone App.

Because interactive computer games like The Oregon Trail are encyclopedic in the amount of information they offer, and because they allow students a seemingly endless number of choices, they may appear educationally progressive.

But like the walls of a maze, the choices built into interactive computer games also channel participants in very definite directions. They are programmed by people—people with particular cultural biases—and children who play the computer games encounter the biases of the programmers (Bowers, 1988). Just as we would not invite a stranger into our classrooms and then leave the room, teachers need to become aware of the political perspectives of computer simulations, and need to equip our students to “read” them critically.


Lesson originally published by Rethinking Schools | Zinn Education Project