What it is: Those of you who were in school or teaching just as schools were starting to get computer labs will appreciate this post. Remember Oregon Trail? The original Oregon Trail? It still exists!! Virtual Apple 2 has an online space where you can play games from the Apple 2 days. I loved Oregon Trail as a student and now it is back in all of its glory. No need for a mouse you type in a number to make selections, or “Y” for yes and “N” for no. I can’t tell you how excited I was to find this great game just the way I remember it! For those of you not familiar with Oregon Trail, this is a game designed to teach kids about pioneer life. The player assumes the role of wagon leader and builds a team and purchases supplies that will help to make it from Independence Missouri to Oregon by way of covered wagon in 1848. It was a great role playing game that had a lot of learning packed in!
How to integrate Virtual Apple 2: Oregon Trail into the classroom: Students today aren’t nearly as impressed with this game as I was/am. At first, they will not appreciate playing the game for the sake of playing the game. In my classroom, I like to introduce this site to students to give them an idea of the history of technology and what computer graphics and games looked like when I was a student. They enjoy comparing and contrasting Apple 2 Oregon Trail with the games that they like to play today. This site is a great way to start discussions with students about where technology has come from and where they predict it will go. (What will games look like when they have kids?) After knowing the history of this game, my students appreciate it SO much more. They really get into it and ask the same questions I asked as a kid, “what is yellow fever?”. The difference being that today they can go to Wikipedia or World Book Online and discover their own answers.
Tips: Virtual Apple 2 has all of those games that you remember playing when having a colored screen instead of orange or green was really something. Take a look through and re-discover those games again!
Leave a comment and tell us how you are using Oregon Trail in your classroom.
This is so cool! Thank you for sharing.
Oh, this is wonderful! My first job in an SE Minnesota elementary school was teaching kids how to play Oregon Trail. We had it on 5-inch floppies that really were floppy. It was only one of many Minnesoata Educational Computing Company Games we had. Another one was The Pond. Has anyone see that around?
Very cool. I had a 4th grade teacher ask about this game last year. I just forwarded her the website link. Thanks!!
Wow! I remember this game. I was excited to see that there was an app. created for the iDevices this past year, but its just not the same as the old monochrome days. Now if we could just get the kids to like the old Logo…