Quake III and gaming addiction

I put an entry form in for a competition on http://nz-interface.co.nz a magazine which comes out to school promoting good ICT skills and management in the classroom. The game I submitted was Quake III Arena. I use this as a tool in my classroom for when I am teaching year 12 programming about the societal implications of gaming addiction.
The following is a conversation that is happening between the magazine and myself, I am finding it interesting and its good having to put my thoughts down on paper (oh well on a keyboard).
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Interface's email

We had lots of entries and an amazing number of games were mentioned, with hardly any appearing twice. It seemed too good a resource to ignore – and I was wondering if you could help us?

I thought it would be good to introduce these games to other readers. Would you be willing to write a brief profile of the game you use? Nothing huge, 100-150 words or so covering:
the name of game and where it can be found (is there a trial/demo version?)
a brief description of the game and how it’s played
an outline of the educational values you see in the game – the reasons why you like it

I hope you can help and look forward to hearing from you.

Thanks and regards

INTERFACE
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oneteachersview response

Game I have used in the classroom – quake 3 demo, multiplayer,

1. Quake 3 Arena Demo
http://www.idsoftware.com/games/quake/quake3-arena/index.php?game_section=demo

2. First Person Shooter, keyboard/mouse. We mainly use the multiplayer function.

3. We use this in Year 12 programming class as a reward as well as a educational experience for my programming class, we run two servers and they combine as teams to achieve a common goal (teamwork). We also use it as part of social implications as part of the Technology Curriculum, as we look at addication to gaming to meet the Achievement Objectives.
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Interface's response

Thanks oneteachersview.

Just one question: You mention you use the game for Year 12 - what age range do you think it’s suitable for?

Cheers

INTERFACE
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oneteachersview response

That is really a good question, although most of these games have a rating of M or 18+, in New Zealand it came with a rating of R16. Most of my students have played Counter Strike (cannot install on school network due to licensing issues, Quake III arena comes as a demo which I am able) and other first person shooters and get heavily involved in MMORPG’s, in a way that it causes them to miss school, I let them experience a fps (first person shooter) and take notes of there actions throughout the lesson, this is taught in conjunction with gaming addiction unit that looks at the societal aspects outlined in the technology curriculum. I have questions and a discussion at the end of the lesson, which does give me some interesting thoughts about how they perceive the gaming world and gaming addiction; I would have had 2 students in the class who had not played quake III before.

I have attached some of the work that the students go through for this as well, see gaming addiction task.pdf (not in this blog...sorry).

Students work through the gaming addiction task which is marked as part of there Achievement Standard in Technology,
The video that is described in the task is First Person Shooter the video (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7530211269500857329)

Using this knowledge and understanding they then create an educational game on a teenage issue using some game development software called gamemaker http://www.gamemaker.nl as part of there Achievement Standard Technology 2.1 and Achievement Standard Technology 2.2 and Achievement Standard Technology 2.7 see www.ncea.govt.nz for more information.

Will wait for more