Note: While this project is no longer maintained, it’s still a great idea.
“Pfefferhausen is an Imagined Community Simulation. Students from various German courses at Rhodes College have been and are creating a virtual city as part of their learning experience. Not all aspects of this simulation are publicly viewable here. Pfefferhausen.org is merely the city web site that is slowly growing. Other parts include, for example, various narratives, tasks, and quests delivered through different channels, such 3d game lab or our course management system, social media, and in-class activities.”
– from the project website
Pfefferhausen is the brainchild of Dr. Felix Kronenberg and colleagues at Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee where Kronenberg is Director of the Language Learning Center.
Starting with an empty “city” website, this group of German language instructors encouraged their students to create the missing information. This included content for the city website itself but also for other businesses located within the city.
Click on some of the locations on the map below to see the kinds of websites students chose to build: restaurants, bookstores, art galleries, and more.
All these sites were built with free website creation tools. Even the clickable map was created with a free tool called Thinglink which is both handy and easy to use.
One of the more memorable quotes from Kronenberg’s presentation related to the idea that, Pfefferhausen is a new city so everyone is new there.
“I’m an immigrant in Pfefferhausen so I can make these sort of mistakes.”
Some of the tasks students were given in 1st year were:
- create a Google Form
- make a video of your “cocktail party”
- post a bio
- create an answering machine message for your business
- beer coaster design competition
Oh, and they even created some real-world swag advertising their city.
What I like most about this project is that it is something that can be built over time and can expand to accommodate future classes. There is always room for new restaurants or tire shops, but there might also be the possibility of adding: advertisements for upcoming performances or events, polls for a new city mascot, sports teams, and so on.