Games That Make You Smarter

Cultural content

Posts that contain material that can be taught in a classroom are tagged as “cultural content.”

Welcome to another Freebie Friday! Today’s freebie is from our game Spirit Lake. The freebie is a cultural video on the Dakota’s tracking ability. The video teaches you about the tracking ability of the Dakota and how they’re taught at an early age to never get lost and how they’re […]

Freebie Friday: Dakota Tracking Ability

August 18, 2017 in 7GenGames / Cultural content / Freebie Friday tagged 7 Generation Games / Cultural Content / Freebie Friday by Diana Sanchez

Our current Kickstarter constant push chaos (back us!) has gotten me thinking about my own experience growing up as a bilingual Latina in the United States with a non-English speaking parent. My mother came to the United States when she was 25-years-old. For a myriad of reasons she didn’t fully learn the […]

English Language Homework in a Spanish Language Home

August 17, 2017 in 7GenGames / Cultural content by Victoria Moll-Ramírez

how many apples do Meg and Joe have — One book I highly recommend for anyone who teaches math above the the fourth grade level, all the way up to doctoral students, is Writing to Teach Mathematics and Science. Connolly and Vilardi give a TON of ideas, including drawing out the problem. Students were so engaged with (meaning they didn’t […]

To Solve a Math Problem (in Spanish or English): Visualize!

July 22, 2017 in Cultural content / Educational Resources by AnnMaria De Mars

Dr. Longie — By Dr. Erich Longie, Spirit Lake Dakota Nation As was stated in a previous post … The Dakota cultivated perseverance. Traditionally, rules were rules of survival and if they weren’t followed, the whole tribe was at risk. Those who enforced the rules persevered in their chastisements until individuals conformed to the law. […]

Fear is the greatest enemy of perseverance: Video games and ...

July 10, 2017 in 7GenGames / Cultural content by AnnMaria De Mars

Screen shot from Aztech — History is written by the victors. Winston Churchill popularized this saying in the 1930s, and throughout time, there are many examples of winners writing history. As a result, official records of what happened can be distorted. For the whole story, we have to read someone like Howard Zinn, who wrote […]

History Has Many Stories — and We Can Learn More ...

July 4, 2017 in 7GenGames / Cultural content by Eric Ortiz

Ojibwa woman — Does it even make sense to talk about “native culture” when there are over 500 tribes? In a previous post, I described the math and story line involved in our project making games customized for tribal youth. (This is from a paper Bruce Gillette and I presented at the National […]

Can you customize video games for tribal youth using “Native ...

June 29, 2017 in 7GenGames / Cultural content / Educational Games by AnnMaria De Mars

Child in office — That teacher-friend of yours, Ms. Robinson, I hate her! This comment came from a very nice woman who had a child in my friend’s class, and she sounded like she meant it, too. Let’s call her Diana, because that wasn’t her name . I said, Come on, you don’t mean […]

That Parent or Teacher You Can’t Stand, Yeah, That’s Culture

June 21, 2017 in AnnMaria / Cultural content by AnnMaria De Mars

A year ago, I traveled to Flagstaff to attend the Native Innovation EdTech conference. To be honest, heading out there, I didn’t know what to expect, but the event certainly seemed to align completely with our company mission. It was an incredible conference – where we debuted Making Camp, which […]

Creating an Innovative Game at Native Innovation

June 17, 2017 in 7GenGames / Cultural content / Education: Innovation and STEM / Educational Games by Maria Burns Ortiz

badlands — From the 7GenGames TV channel, day 3 of our road trip takes us to Fort Berthold, North Dakota. Subscribe to our channel for regular updates. Thank you to Bruce Gillette for being my lovely assistant in game demonstrations with Twin Buttes Elementary School. You can get most of the […]

What you don’t know about North Dakota history

June 6, 2017 in AnnMaria / Cultural content / Reality Show by AnnMaria De Mars

At 7 Generation Games, we try to teach you about the different tribes that are featured in our games. We’re all about fun and games, but you also have learn a little bit in the process! One of the tribes we’ve talked about is the Ojibwe. The Ojibwe are featured in […]

What is a Wigwam?

May 31, 2017 in Cultural content / Educational Resources by Victoria Moll-Ramírez

It’s the end of the week, so that means that it’s time for another Freebie Friday! Today’s freebie is associated with our game Spirit Lake and it’s an authentic and copyright-free Native American photo. Our freebie is a historical photo of a Sioux girl, Red Elk Woman, in 1907. Red Elk […]

Freebie Friday: Photo of Sioux girl

May 19, 2017 in 7GenGames / Cultural content / Freebie Friday tagged 7 Generation Games / Freebie Friday / Native American culture by Diana Sanchez

Cover of The New Warriors — The book, The New Warriors, Native American leaders since 1900, was recommended to me by my friend, Dr. Erich Longie, who is the Tribal Historic Preservation Officer for the Spirit Lake Dakota Nation. Unlike most of Erich’s recommendations (sorry, Erich) I actually read this one. While Erich is, naturally, intensely […]

Book Review: The New Warriors Gives a Lesson in Perseverance

May 7, 2017 in AnnMaria / Cultural content by AnnMaria De Mars