syria

Syrian Journey: Choose your own route is a new BBC interactive where online users simulate — in an obviously detached way — the decisions a Syrian refugee has to make. It uses the framework of old-style “choose your own adventure” simulations.

It seems to be done relatively sensitively, and is designed to help the world better understand the plight of refugees from that conflict.

I’m adding it to:

The Best Places To Read & Write “Choose Your Own Adventure” Stories

The Best Sites For Learning About World Refugee Day

The Best Resources For Learning About What’s Happening In Syria

ADDENDUM

Rusul Alrubail, an educator whom I respect a lot, has a different perspective on this interactive, and it’s forcing me to rethink how I feel about it. I had originally thought that it was sensitively done and would be helpful to promote a discussion on an important current event/challenge facing our world in an engaging way, and therefore was different from the issues around a slave simulation “game” but, now, I’m not so sure. I thought her tweets would be important to share, and it also got me thinking about something else — simulations are used a lot in social studies classes, and I’m sure seldom, if ever, are the kinds of issues Rusul raises considered. On a narrow level, it’s a great question to consider in an IB Theory of Knowledge class and, on a broader level, it’s an important issue for all educators to contemplate…  What are your thoughts?

Rusul has also written a blog post worth reading: MY THOUGHTS ON “SYRIAN JOURNEY” & WHY IT’S PROBLEMATIC