Serious Games out of Denmark has created a new game called Global Conflicts: Palestine that takes journalism into an exciting new realm.

But what makes the game stand out is its companion-piece education Web site, in which students and educators are presented with RL photos, documents, and a much more extensive version of the assignments and material presented in the game.

In Global Conflicts: Palestine, you are a freelance journalist assigned to cover an Israeli mission against a suspected terrorist. As an investigative journalist, you move through the virtual streets of Palestine, seeking out sources and contacts that will help you understand the nature of this mission. You navigate through the various aspects of this story – from watching the Israeli Defense Force at work, to moving through checkpoints – all the while determining what story shape will ultimately take hold. You create an article for a Web publication called the Avalon News and follow the story to its conclusion.

The game has been featured on CNN and other sources, and for good reason. Rather than a shallow, violence-fixated video game, the game’s companion site is a great educational tool for students. The site explores the six main teaching themes of the conflict – the military raid, the checkpoint, the settlements, martyrdom, Hamas, and the media’s role in the conflict. It gives students assignments and a nice cross-section of learning material – including documents from the UN, interviews with Hamas activists, Human Rights Watch documents, and info from Al Jazeera, the Arab-speaking news network. There is also a vital collection of peace plan and settlement maps, a selection of key quotes about the conflict, and a collection of – yes – jokes about the conflict (a list appended, of course, with a caveat stating “the below jokes may be offensive to some, but are chosen with great care…).

Teachers can also create login names to learn how to use the game and companion learning Web site as teaching tools.

If this is the future of virtual education, then its future looks bright.