Category: Games/Simulations

Reading is defined as “the action or skill of absorbing written or printed matter silently or aloud.” Sounds dry, maybe even boring, but once a child learns to read, they get much more than an understanding of words, sentences, paragraphs, grammar, syntax, and vocabulary. They get an escape from reality, exercise for their brains, a closeness to like-minded souls, answers to problems–and reading can even predict success in school. It alleviates boredom in the bits of free time that pop up between soccer and dinner and it can be done alone or in a group.

“Books are the quietest and most constant of friends…”
― Charles William Eliot

Teachers and parents know all this and still, the Literacy Company reports that most teachers in classes of twenty+ students spend only five minutes a day reading, and 46% of American adults cannot understand the label on their prescription medicine. Not a surprise, Statistic Brain says 80% of adults did not buy a single book in the past year (Pew reports it as 77%).

I am constantly on the hunt for good tech reading tools. There are hundreds–thousands–of them, but I’m picky. Here’s what I look for:

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Education has changed. Teachers don’t lecture from the front of the classroom. Work isn’t an individual effort. Drills no longer hold pride of place in lesson plans. Now, teachers expect students to engage: be part of the solution, not a passive recipient of the process.

Does this sound boring? Not if you’re a kid. Then, you call it ‘games’ and choose it for free time, as a study break, and with friends. Look at Minecraft where millions of kids voluntarily learn geology, work in virtual groups, and seek out knowledge to build a virtual world.

Here are three apps that gamify education:

Kahoot

Kahoot is a response system that has taken over classrooms all over the country to assess student learning. Using a gameshow format, students compete against classmates, themselves (in Ghost Mode), or any student group around the world, to answer questions based on a specific theme. It is fast-paced, energetic, with scintillating music and a real-time scoreboard that shows student progress. It’s more like the games students love than the tests and quizzes traditionally taken at school.

Kahoot is simple to use. The teacher creates a quiz or survey on the Kahoot website. S/he invites students to join with a game pin, which they enter into pretty much any digital device used in the classroom (smart phones, Chromebooks, iPads, or another). They read the questions off the class screen and answer on their device. Points are earned not only for right answers, but speed of play.

Pros

Kahoot works on any device with an internet connection. The learning curve is negligible: no player accounts, no set-up, just the join code.

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Collaboration is the new rigor in the classroom. Who hasn’t been mesmerized by children gathered at a table engaged in a high-level discussion, making shared decisions, and demonstrating deep, scaffolded learning? When students share organic ideas and peer review projects, they build authentic knowledge that everyone takes ownership in, but the saying is easier than the doing. You can’t just break students into groups and expect a collaborative workflow. It takes practice. The rudimentary teamwork availed by Google Docs and online tools like Subtext is a great start, but what’s better is projects that inspire, motivate, and teach students skills for speaking and listening.

Here are three activities I use in my classroom to achieve this goal:

Three Then Me

Every activity in your classroom includes how-to questions. Before answering, have students ask three classmates before asking you. For example, if they can’t find the tech tool they want, check with three neighbors before putting their hand. Kids love helping each other and spotlighting their talent. Not only does ‘Three then me’ get the student’s question answered faster, it engenders a sense of cooperation and collaboration in the class, that students are resources to each other.

A note of caution: This works best with self-correcting facts, like how to do something, but if it’s a definition or the spelling of a word, students could get the wrong answer and not know it. As you’re training students in ‘three then me’, remind them to evaluate answers, critically think about them before implementing, and trust their own judgment. Does it sound right? Does it fit what else they know about the question? If it does, go for it!

Educational Activities

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Every week, I share a website that inspired my students. This one is perfect for Hour of Code. Make yourself a hero for an hour:

Age:

Grades 3-8 (or younger, or older)

Topic:

Problem-solving, critical thinking, building

Address:

Minecraft

Review:

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Most elementary age kids I know love math, but that changes when they matriculate to middle school. If you ask seventh and eighth graders what their hardest subject is, they’ll hands down tell you it’s math. And that opinion doesn’t improve in high school. In fact, Forbes reported that 82% of public high schoolers in the well-to-do Montgomery County Maryland failed Algebra. US News blamed math knowledge for a 33% failure rate by Oklahoma high school seniors on their exit exams.

To turn those numbers around, parents and teachers alike are looking to technology. This goes well beyond Khan Academy’s online video training,  into fantasy worlds of trolls and wizards, the type of activities most parents have tried to keep their kids away from. Now,  they want to use their kids’ native interest in online gaming to scaffold math knowledge. Here are three wildly-popular choices that have made kids choose math practice for their free time:

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Coding has become the poster child for a tech-infused classroom. Over 15 million kids participated in Hour of Code this past December. So many teachers took students to Code.org’s curriculum offerings, the website crashed.

So what is ‘coding’? According to the Urban Dictionary, it’s another word for ‘programming’ which means:

The art of turning caffeine into Error Messages

Let’s go to Webster’s definition instead:

The act or job of creating computer programs

Not much better. To techies, ‘programming’ or ‘coding’ is

a series of symbols, used synonymously as text and grouped to imply or prompt the multimedia in the games and programs that happen on computers, websites, and mobile apps.

This complicated definition is why–historically–programming, IT, and Computer Science have been of interest only to the geekiest of kids. But there are good reasons why kids should like this activity. According to Computer Science Education Week:

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There are a lot of online math systems to help students through one of school’s toughest subjects (if not science). Each one proclaims they have the way to teach students while having fun, in ways that are aligned with state and national standards. How do you decide what is best  for your class? Here are guidelines, culled from top education sites like Edutopia, Google Education, Educational Technology, and EdWeek that are valuable when evaluating any website:

• free or small fee
• support the ‘4 C’s’–creativity, critical thinking, communication, collaboration
• offer compelling content (this is subjective; ‘compelling’ varies teacher-to-teacher and student-to-student)
• are not distracting or overwhelming in colors, music, or activity
• offer levels that become increasingly more difficult, providing differentiation for student needs
• stand the test of time–do students stay engaged even after playing it over and over
  
• positive parent reports
• few ads–and those that are there do not take up a significant portion of the screen
• intuitive to use with a short learning curve
• encourage independence
• easily applied to a variety of educational environments
• doesn’t collect personal information other than user credentials or data required to operate the app
• includes age-appropriate content
• fulfills intended purpose
• aligned with Blooms Taxonomy, Common Core, ISTE, or other state/national/international standards
• received awards/citations

Here’s one I think meets all these basic requirements as well as makes students want to practice their math:

Prodigy Math Game

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Every week, I share a website that inspired my students. This one is perfect for Hour of Code. Make yourself a hero for an hour:

Age:

Grades 3-8 (or younger, or older)

Topic:

Problem-solving, critical thinking, building

Address:

Minecraft

Review:

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I was reading an article–Five Real Reasons Why Teachers Don’t Use Technology More–from eSchool News listing the reasons why teachers don’t use technology. Included were some that probably resonate with educators at your school–

• it keeps changing so how do you decide what to choose
• too much to do, too little time
• teachers are pulled in too many directions
• unreliable technology
• no respect for the teacher’s voice in this tech ed process

I was nodding, thinking of people the reasons fit perfectly–and then I noticed: The article was written in

1999!

That’s right–fifteen years ago and nothing’s changed.

Have you been giving the same reasons for fifteen years too, hoping the tech demons will just go away and leave you to teach in peace? Every June, do you say, I got through another year without this or that tech tool–and everything went well.

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What are we as parents and teachers most worried about over the summer? That kids will lose that education sharp edge. It will be dulled by sun and sand and something else.

Worry no more. Here’s your cure: learning disguised as play (inspired by the fascinating website, Playful Learning). Kids will think they’re playing games, but they’ll actually be participating in some of the leading [mostly] free simulations available in the education field. A note: some must be downloaded and a few purchased, so the link might take you to a website that provides access rather than play:

• Bridge Builder—learn how to design and test bridges
• Dimension U–games that focus on math and literacy–fee-based
• Electrocity—how does electricity contribute to the growth of communities
• iCivics—experience what it means to be part of a democracy
• Second Life—simulates just about anything if you can find it
• West Point Bridge Building Contest–build a bridge for the right price and win a contest

Economics/Money

• Admongo–explore, discover and learn about online ads while playing a game
• Coffee Shop—run a coffee shop business
• Lemonade Stand—run a lemonade stand business

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