Resources for Teachers - Video Games

A Day in the Life of the Jos

A Day in the Life of the Jos is a comprehensive digital citizenship tutorial that prepares students in grades six to eight to deal with all of the issues they face when using digital technology – from online privacy, to cyberbullying, to recognizing what’s real and what’s fake online.

10 Tiny Ways You Can Make the World a Better Place Today

Today is Pink Shirt Day, a national initiative to end bullying both offline and online. Since 2007, Canadians have been donning pink shirts to show their commitment to ending bullying in all forms.

Talking to kids about media violence

Talking to kids about violence in the media they consume – television, movies, video games, music and the Internet – can help them put media violence into perspective and perhaps diffuse some of its power. 

Video Game Verbs

In this lesson, students learn that video games are unlike other media because they are interactive, allowing players to do things and make choices. They then explore the idea of affordances and defaults by considering the “video game verbs” that different games allow you to do. They consider the commercial, technical, and genre reasons why some verbs are more often possible than others and then create a simple design for a video game in which players are able to do a wider variety of things.

Miscast and Seldom Seen - Lesson

In this lesson students consider how well their favourite TV shows, movies and video games reflect the diversity of Canadian society.