In the Great War Avatar Project (GWAP) students are randomly assigned demographic information from which they are to research and build a fictional character that lives through the war. Students are assigned to one of eight ‘nation-teams’ (France, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Ottoman Empire, Greece, Serbia, Russia, or Italy) and also learn the birthplace, birthdate, and gender of their character. From there, they have to individually research what life might have been like before, during and after the war for a 25 year old woman who was born in Belgrade or a 40 year old man born in Ankara, etc. Over the course of the semester they ‘live blog’ as these characters in an online diary.
Contact me for more information about this learning simulation.