  In this paper we explain our experiences and observations on a blended world
history course which combines classical lecture and discussion elements as well
as video game sessions in which the students play strategy video games with
heavy historical focus. The course, named Playing with The Past, is designed to
experiment on how to integrate video games on teaching history especially in
order to achieve a higher understanding of the contemporary social, political,
economical, and technological context of a given era for a given nation. We ran
the course four times between 2015 - 2018 with different video game titles
having different historical models and observe the experiences and learning of
students based on the quality of their written essays and articles. Our
experiments and observations could be beneficial not only for the design of a
general world history course, but also for a history course on specific
periods, cultures, and nations.

Computers and Society