Learning Games Hub

Interactive games and learning labs for practicing historical inquiry, media ecology, source evaluation, technoskepticism, and pedagogical friction in the age of generative AI.

Playable public scholarship

Games for practicing judgment.

Each game turns a concept into a decision space: players do not simply receive the framework, they try it, calibrate it, and notice what changes.

2026 Pedagogical friction ⏱ ~25 min 🎓 Doctoral study & teacher PD Media ecology / learning science / research literacy

The Friction Atlas

Work through a literature review as seven stations. Judge whether a polished essay still proves learning, watch three conditions break across Ong's arc, build the friction framework in the only order that holds, sort ten scenarios where some have no clean answer, and meet the strongest objections.

Play The Friction Atlas Badges, progress, and a 105-source codex that unlocks as you go. The dissertation's Chapter Two literature review, made playable.
2026 Pedagogical friction ⏱️ ~10 min 🏫 Grade 9-12 Reconstruction unit / Unproductive success

The Schema Constructor

Construct a 6-lesson unit on the Reconstruction era. Choose between scaffolded manual inquiry and effortless AI shortcuts, and discover how hollow polish fails under transfer stress.

Play The Schema Constructor Visual simulation illustrating active cognitive connection building vs. AI-bypass.
2026 Pedagogical friction ⏱️ ~10 min 🏫 Grade 9-12 Argumentation / Existential Authorship

The Dialectical Crucible

Construct a vertical argument tower to support your thesis. Defend your evidence joints, and see if your stone foundations can withstand objection catapults that shatter gold-clad AI shortcuts.

Play The Dialectical Crucible Interactive physics blueprint game on evidence grounding and structural integrity.
2026 Media ecology ⏱️ ~10 min 🏫 Grade 6-12 Source validation / lateral reading

The Algorithmic Stream

Navigate a flowing river of historical and generative information. Use Friction Dams to slow the current and Corroboration Lenses to expose fabricated sources before your bibliography fails the audit.

Play The Algorithmic Stream Flowing river simulation for lateral reading, source audits, and tertiary algorithmicity.
2026 Historical inquiry ⏱️ ~15 min 🏫 Grade 8-12 Rhetorical friction / AI

The Devil's Advocate

An AI argues fluent, one-sided historical theses; players rebut with sourcing, context, corroboration, and counter-evidence — and learn when to push back and when to concede a fair point.

Play The Devil's Advocate Pairs with the "devil's-advocate bot" move and the rhetorical-friction dimension of the deck.
2026 Pedagogical friction ⏱️ ~15 min 🎓 Teacher PD Teacher PD / C.O.R.E. & H.E.A.R.T.

Common Ground: The Polarized Classroom

Step into the teacher's chair: navigate charged classroom moments with C.O.R.E. and H.E.A.R.T., balancing civil discourse, academic rigor, and student trust.

Play Common Ground Best for teacher PD and the "balanced history in a polarized world" session.
2026 Historical inquiry ⏱️ ~10 min 🏫 Grade 6-12 Social studies / AI

Keepers of Inquiry

Players respond to a polished AI-generated historical claim by choosing inquiry moves that protect sourcing, context, corroboration, agency, and access.

Play Keepers of Inquiry Best paired with the NCSS historical inquiry deck and algorithm-audit activity.
2026 Historical inquiry ⏱️ ~20 min 🏫 Grade 8-12 Contextualization / anti-presentism

Out of Time

Four charged moments — 1774 Boston, 1787 Philadelphia, 1961 Anniston, 1943 Manzanar. Assemble what actors could actually know, dodge anachronism and hindsight traps, and appraise hard decisions without presentism or easy exoneration.

Play Out of Time Best for historical empathy, contextualization, and "should we judge the past?" discussions.
2026 Civic inquiry ⏱️ ~15 min 🏫 Grade 8-12 C3 / informed action / AI

Informed Action

Take a civic issue from question to proposal: gather evidence, map stakeholders, resist frictionless AI shortcuts, and audit the machine-drafted plan before your name goes on it.

Play Informed Action Pairs with C3 Dimension 4 (taking informed action) and AI-policy conversations — watch the Owned / Borrowed / Outsourced chip.
2026 Source literacy ⏱️ ~10 min 🏫 Grade 6-12 Historical thinking

Keeper of the Source

A historical inquiry simulator focused on source judgment, evidence, and the interpretive moves that make historical claims defensible.

Play Keeper of the Source Use when the learning goal is sourcing, verification, and careful evidence work.
2026 Friction ⏱️ ~10 min 🎓 Teacher PD Instructional design

Friction Lab

A calibration challenge for distinguishing productive friction, exclusionary friction, and context-dependent difficulty in learning design.

Play Friction Lab Best for workshops on pedagogical friction, AI policy, and instructional design.
2026 Media ecology ⏱️ ~15 min 🎓 Higher Ed Ong / orality

Keeper of the Word

A playable media-ecology journey through the shifting sensorium, helping players feel how communication technologies reorganize thought and culture.

Play Keeper of the Word Use with media ecology, Ong, secondary orality, and tertiary algorithmicity conversations.

Connected hubs

Part of the larger public ecosystem.

The games are companions to presentations, writing, and research-facing resources. They are public-facing learning spaces, not participant-data systems.