Ready to play? - Game Based Learning

Now this was fun, interesting and my students will love it: I found more gaming websites and even made my first (very small) game with purposegames.com

It took me a little bit to figure out how to create a game that does not use the pre-settings, but once I took this hurdle, it was fairly easy. "Purposegames" is not necessarily fancy, but surely has its "purpose": especially for vocabulary reviews, warm ups, grammar drills, and geography, this tool is great. I can even see my students create games for each other.

I really just played around with it and took our recent German 1 vocabulary:

http://www.purposegames.com/game/die-haustiere-game

This is even nicer than "Kahoot", since the students can play this on their own time or when they are done with their work in class. 

Goals:

These options for gaming are very useful for reviews of vocabulary, grammar, and cultural knowledge.

The students can create their own games, therefor have to think how to design them, and which content to use.

Games in general lower the affective filter and add to frequency of words without the learner actually realizing it.

Want to play? - Game Based Learning

Let me just start with this: my high schoolers love to play. Any game really! We play German Monopoly (R), "Deutschlandreise" ("Travels through Germany", a board game), card games and many more traditional games. They also like digital games. Just lately, I introduced them to "Kahoot" and since then, they ask me to play more!

I watched the "What is game-based-learning?" video. The definitions of the different kinds of games was very helpful for further studies of this topic, which lies a bit outside of my comfort zone. I am not a "gamer" at all. I enjoy playing games, but usually don't. It seems like there is much time wasted - until now, when one can actually learn something.

For the 2nd task, I took the "Bartle Test of Gamer Psychology" and I am not surprised to find out that I am an "Explorer". Here are my results:

My all time favorite video game is "The Sims" and "Sim City". Every since they came out, I can spend days playing. Building, exploring, making social connections, having the city going - this is fun! 

Web Tools and Apps (2) in the Language Classroom (EDCI 718, SP2015)

Socrative

This is an engaging tool for students to assess their grasp of a concept. The teacher can set up quizzes, including multiple choice, short answer, and true&false. The students receive instant feedback on their answers, since the teacher may add an explanation to each question.

Socrative also provides a pre-set "Exit Ticket", that the student fill out after each class. The questions are "How well did you understand today's material?", "What did you learn in today's class?", and "Please answer the teacher's question" allows for a content related question.

Further, Socrative allows for a "quick question" with live results.

The very nice feature of this tool is that the teacher receives instant student progress results in statistics. The teacher may choose whether to create progress reports for each student (by name or any other identifier) or using percentages without individual information. This may be used at any point of the unit - as pre-test, post-test, as ongoing assessment or the final test. Especially the Exit Ticket is very useful and extremely easy to conduct.

Socrative is a webbased tool, but Apple has an app for the iPhone as well as the iPad. This makes it a universal tool for all gadgets.

The teacher sets up an account and creates "rooms" for his students. The recreated assessments can then be used as student growth and for reflection. This tool is not a creative or collaborative student tool itself. However, student teams can answer questions - or students can create their own questions as part of a presentation and keeping their audience engaged.

Using Socrative is free!!  http://b.socrative.com/login/teacher/

Web Tools and Apps (1) in the Language Classroom (EDCI 718, SP2015)

Any Carton Tool is a creative way for students to share their knowledge, apply and make it relevant to their own life. Toondoo.com is one of those free tools. It can be used on PC, MAC, and any handheld gadget despite its operating system. It's very easy to use, drag and drop.

Toondoo is a storytelling tool. Students may use the characters, pictures, backgrounds etc. to cover all standards, except for pronunciation. However, when they present their creation, they even do this then. Toondoos can be saved and incorporated into podcasts, videos, or any other tool that incorporates pictures.

The tool allows for ongoing assessment, as the students apply what they know and can even make re-dos or  continued cartoons as feedback and revisions.

The tool allows for collaboration, however, not in the true sense of real-time collaboration using different machines. The users have to sit at the same gadget and work on their creation.

Toondoos are usable for all and any subject possible.

www.toondoos.com

Web Tools and Apps (3) in the Language Classroom (EDCI 718, SP2015)

Memes are a hoot in any class! Students and teachers alike love creating them. But besides that they are funny, they can (and should) have their place in the classroom!

There are many creative activities that students can do: 

At the beginning of the school year, have students create memes about themselves. 

The teacher or the students create memes to spark discussions within a unit.

The students can create them as creative and critical thinking activity for their studies.

Students may create a "handbook to survive ... class" for the next class coming in.

Use foreign language phrases or words along with pictures to allow for yet another way of applying (and retaining) the language.

The possibilities are endless and all standards can be addressed! With each meme the students create and/or have to think about, they get deeper into the content. Why not having fun with it :)

There are several web tools and apps out there to create memes. My favorite is  memegenerator.net - accessible with any web browser. On my iPhone, I am using "mematic" which allows me to create those fun pictures on the go. This tool is not a collaboration tool, though the end product may as well be (collage, glogster etc.).

memegenerator.net