I’ve been looking for more ways to engage my students recently. Google Classroom is a great tool that is useful for lots of things, even if it has a few issues, but it isn’t engaging. When I was in my masters program at Boise State I took a class in educational games and simulations. The class really made me think about my teaching and how I do things, but up until this point, I haven’t implemented large pieces of it.
With the recent Hour of Code I noticed how engaged my students were by playing games. As I am typing this my kids are playing/learning in CodeCombat. In the half hour that they have been playing it I’ve heard more vocal problem solving, collaboration, and interest than I’ve heard at any point this marking period. Play is important according to my students, so I need to give them ways to play while still meeting my curriculum and standards.
About a week ago I started working in Rezzly, formally 3DGameLab. I’m familiar with the software as I used it in my Boise State days but before you can jump in and start doing, they make you take quests and challenges on everything from mindset to COPA laws. I’ve actually learned a good bit by completing these quests and I’m still in the process of working through some of the quests to complete my training and “win” the game.
This post is actually of the challenges needed to complete a quest that I am working on. The badge shown above so to show that I have completed my teacher training part of my Rezzly experience. I still have lots to do. Guess that I’ll be super busy during winter break.
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