Go Beyond Challenge - Update #2 - Choosing to Press On

I haven't been great about posting the projects, but we are still forging ahead with the Go Beyond Challenge I started this school year. Here are a few things we're doing or that I've learned.

• I had to decide recently if it was still worth doing this challenge. What does it mean to "go beyond normal" when very little feels like it went back to normal this school year? Is it crazy? We are still dealing with the effects of COVID on a regular basis, both in current challenges and the lasting impacts of the previous year. In the past two weeks, our district was one of many that was impacted by the devastating school shooting in nearby Oxford, Michigan. It felt so insane to make these projects work that I considered telling teachers we'd just let it go. I'm very glad to say I chose to press on. The teachers I'm working with have been extremely encouraging. For the students and the district as a whole, we know this is important. 
• It took about three weeks longer than we hoped, but we finally are wrapping up our ebook project where 6th graders write books for younger students. The overall theme of the project was overcoming obstacles in life to use our gifts for others. That was very appropriate for this overall endeavor! We lost time when the teacher and several students were on quarantine, but we didn't give up. I'm converting student ebooks this weekend so the younger students can read them. I'll update this blog with examples once we finalize that last step.
• In high school Mythology, we kicked off a game design project. I'm friends with another educator and game designer from a different Michigan school. We put several game design "Project Packs" together a few years ago that allow students to make unique card games that tie into classroom content. You can see most examples here.  I added two other original games in the mix this time and so far it is going very well. Finished games will be published on a website for other teachers to use with students. I'm also going to put some resources up so a teacher could duplicate the entire project.
• I worked with a 6th grade science teacher to bring some technology into a paper roller coaster project he found. I helped with some prep on the project, then we're also asking students to document their work through a short video. I showed students how to use the camera on an iPad, plus the iMovie app, to zero in on how long it took the marble to go through their coaster. That will allow them to do some required calculations they have to include in the video.
• Finally, here's a first grade project I'm really excited about. The teacher wants to have the students make number story problems, then record their thinking as they solve them. I thought it would be good if we could team up with a class from another district to share problems and solutions. We connected with a teacher in Dearborn, Michigan, who is very interested. Our class has already been working on their stories. We will share with the other school after we return from break in January. Resources we used for that project will be posted when we finish up.
• Besides projects, I had a great opportunity to connect with two innovative leaders who gave us amazing direction. Dr. Sonny Magana and Dr. Scott McLeod were kind enough to connect with me and some district administrators to discuss our next steps. The time and advice they gave us was appreciated. Ongoing discussion about it is helping us sharpen our vision.

In conclusion, these projects transformed some low valleys into insightful pinnacles for me. I can see they were positive for the teachers and the students too. Each time we try a new activity, it gives us something to look forward to. As the class works, we can make observations and have discussion that is beneficial. Even when things don't work, our reflection can help us glean the useful aspects and do better next time. 

Continuing the Game Design Club for Middle School

Here are a few more resources from the virtual game design club I've been running at our middle school. If you want some background first, see my introduction and this first tip I shared with the students.

Last week I started a badge system and listed some achievements. This post explains how I make the badges and share them with students. As an example, the image at the right is a badge students can earn by telling me a few games they learned about after practicing Tip #1.

If we were meeting face to face I'd be playing new and unique games with them to help them expand their knowledge. As it is, I have to encourage research. I created this document to get them started. Some of those game suggestions came from designers I've been contacting. More information on my work with them will come in later posts.

I should add that it's been a big challenge to have to teach kids about games through reading and watching videos. I have not been effective at it so far, so I'm working on ways to improve that.

Finally, I introduced the Tip #2 video and asked them a few questions about it. The tip is to start keeping game ideas in a notebook. Not all designers do that, but it has been a practice of mine from the start and I find it invaluable. Here's the video.

And later this week I will post this video. It's the first part of an interview with Stephen Glenn, a friend and successful game designer who started taking the hobby seriously right about when I did. He's had several more games published over the past two decades than I have and I appreciated his willingness to share it with me and the club.

In this first four-minute interview he talks about why he still makes games (it's not for the money!) and he gives a little insight into how he gets ideas for games. We had some issues with video in our Google Meet, so most of the visuals in the interview are just slides summing up his points.

Updated Creativity Game for 2019

This week I presented an updated version of what has been the most popular post on this blog for years. I used a different tech tool this time (Google Sheets) and I run the game part of it completely differently. (Click here for the original post and here for another recent way I've used it.)

I led this version of the activity for a class of about 30 students from grades 9 - 12. It was very well received and the teacher told me the students asked to play more the next day. 

Since I've written at length about these activities elsewhere, I will just link to the new resources below and explain this updated process.

The creativity exercise is based on a game system I designed with my friend, Kory Heath. The lesson follows this outline:

1. Talk to the class about the importance of creativity for success in today's world.
2. Lead into the creativity game Why Did the Chicken...?
3. Show them how the game works. Ideally this will include tips on how to make creative answers.
4. Run at least one round with a group of students from the class.
5. Show how students will use the spreadsheet when they play on their own.
6. Let them play the game in small groups of 3 - 5.
7. Have them complete a reflection sheet.

Resources:  (Most of these are Google files that will open as a copy in your Google Drive.)

• This is the presentation I used. Read the speaker notes for details, as I explain what I talk about for each slide.
• Here is the spreadsheet students will use to play the game. It's a sample way to generate random riddles without printing and cutting out tons of cards.
• This video shows how to use the spreadsheet to make riddles.
• Here is the reflection sheet students should complete at the end of the lesson.

Other Notes:

• I used to provide a lot more time to practice making good answers. The problem was we didn't have much time to play the game. After presenting it this last time, I plan to put a maybe five to ten minutes more practice and practical advice in the talk next time.
• There's no doubt students will find it difficult to come up with answers. Remind them that they're probably trying to get an answer that makes perfect sense. Sometimes the key is just coming up with the answer that makes the judge laugh!
• There are just over 50 words in the spreadsheet, but ideally it should be well over one hundred. Feel free to add to it. The best lists contain things from the students' school or community.
• Remind everyone to keep answers school appropriate and to be kind to each other! Everyone needs to feel safe writing down a dud response. This is an important lesson for working creatively with a group.
• Make sure students understand the role of judge passes from player to player each round. (See the detailed rules below for the flow of the game.)

Here are the steps to playing Why Did the Chicken...? this way:

• Each group of 3 - 5 students will need:
• One device to open the spreadsheet and make a copy. (I suggest sharing the link with them through Google Classroom.)
• Pencils
• Several slips of paper.
• Pick a judge for the first round. The judge will use the spreadsheet to generate a random riddle.
• The judge reads the riddle to the other members of the group.
• They get two minutes to write as many possible answers as they can think of. Each answer should go on a separate slip of paper. After writing an idea, they put it in the center of the table face down.
• After two minutes, no new answers can be started. Anyone can finish writing their current idea if still writing. Then all slips are gathered by the player to the left of the judge.
• That player reads each answer to the judge. We like to have the judge read the question aloud each time, then hear the answer. It adds to the fun of the riddles.
• After hearing all the possible answers, the judge must pick a favorite (or two favorites if they want).
• The player(s) whose ideas were selected get a point.
• The judge passes the device to the player on his or her left and the process continues.
• Play until everyone has been the judge at least twice.

Thoughts on Game Based Learning and Gamifying the Classroom

I started this blog eight years ago as part of my master's program. As it changed over the years, I drifted quite a bit from my initial purpose of sharing my classroom games on it.

Of course, the ed-tech landscape has changed a lot since 2011. In my district at the time we had just installed a big round of interactive whiteboards. Only one or two teachers had an iPad. I had never touched a Chromebook and no school I knew of was using Google Apps for Education (as we called them when they first came along).

A decline in classroom games on interactive whiteboards is just a part of the overall trend I've seen in recent years. It's been a gradual shift away from the bells and whistles with more emphasis on the learning. Even though I'm a game designer and even though I had a blast in those years using those bells and whistles for fun projects, the shift toward effective use of tech for deeper learning has always been my real passion.

After returning from Michigan's largest ed-tech conference in March, I was thrilled to tweet this observation. 

The best thing for me about the sessions I attended at #macul19 was the focus on instruction, relationships and culture instead of the tech tools. Tech can support and amplify the things that matter most.

— Mike Petty (@mpetty39) March 24, 2019

But what does this changing landscape mean for a blog with "classroom games" right in the title? Will it necessarily be a thing of the past? I sure hope not!

As we know, right along with the other changes in the ed-tech landscape, we have heard more about gamifying the classroom or game based learning. I actually stayed away from those terms on this blog for the most part, at least in any formal sense. But now as trends change and my blog title stays the same, I figured I'd touch on them directly.

Defining the Terms

Some people have mistakenly referred to gamification of the classroom and game based learning as if they're the same thing. Gamification can be a form of game based learning, but it doesn't have to be. I'll define them this way:

• Game Based Learning - Using a game to teach a specific topic.
• Gamification of the Classroom - Using elements of successful games to increase student motivation and engagement.

So if I have students play an online game about genetics to learn about basic terms and concepts, that's Game Based Learning (GBL). In these cases the students could tell you the game they played and what they learned about the topic at hand after participating in the lesson. Though I often didn't use the term and didn't always specify the learning objectives, most of my games highlighted on this site lend themselves to these types of lessons.

Gamification, on the other hand, just borrows elements from games that make them fun and uses that in the classroom. So maybe we take something like leveling up, getting a new avatar or scoring points and we make ways to do that in science class over the course of a marking period. It might be giving students digital badges for meeting specific objectives. We don't necessarily stop and play a game to learn, but the lesson or the overall progression through the course might feel more like a game.

My Observations

After years of experimenting with these two concepts in classrooms, here are some general observations I've made:

• Students definitely learn from playing games. The challenge (and it's a big one) is to get them to learn what you want them to. I love games and I love playing them in school. They can be a distraction from the content, though, and any actual learning in that regard often is superficial.
• I maintain that gamification in education is nothing new. School has, in a sense, always been a game. What else can we call it when the players acquire points and earn scores, hoping for credit that at best abstractly reflects their knowledge and skills? One can cheat at chess and on a math test. When I would write my syllabus for high school math, I couldn't deny it felt a lot like writing rules for my game designs. So school has always been gamified. The problem is it hasn't been a very fun game. In fact by today's standards, where gaming outside of school is a huge industry grabbing the hearts and minds of so many of our kids, it's laughable to think of year-long courses and rewards of letter grades as parts of a game anyone would want to play. 
• So it isn't gamification that's new, it's that we have learned new things from modern, more engaging games.
• I have not been a fan of gamification, because it's essentially about extrinsic rewards. Certainly badges, upgraded avatars and grading systems based on big scores are more exciting than working for that A- in math. In the end, though, it's tacked on. Call me idealistic, but I still long for the day students will be excited about learning the subject because it can better their lives.
• While I don't embrace gamification as an approach to teaching, my experience with and study of it point to four very important elements of an engaging, effective learning experience. These same things come out of research that has nothing to do with games. So it's not the games that bring the magic to a good lesson. It's just that game designers have put that magic to use more effectively than most teachers have. The four elements are:
• A clear goal - Effective teachers make sure the students know where they are headed overall in their learning and what the goal is in the current lesson.
• Student agency - Students can have some choice and control in how they reach the goal (and possibly in how they show they reached the goal). 
• Appropriate challenges - Each student is learning at the point he or she needs to be learning. It's not too hard and it's not too easy.
• Timely, actionable feedback - The learner finds out quickly if he or she is on track and gets some information on how to get back on track when needed.

So there are a few statements about games on my blog about classroom games. Maybe that will provide fertile soil for further on-topic posts in the months ahead! If not, at least I had the foresight to put "and tech" in the title.

Boomwriter for Engaging Collaborative Writing

Boomwriter is not new, but I hadn't used it with a class until recently. I am presenting a session about collaborative storytelling at the MACUL conference this week, so I asked our middle school Creative Writing teacher if she'd be willing to let me run the activity in her class. After I explained what it is, she was excited to try it.

For those unfamiliar with it, Boomwriter is more or less a game where students write stories one chapter at a time. Everyone writes, then everyone votes on the submissions. The winning submission becomes the official next chapter. The process continues until the story is done.

Overall Thoughts

If this sounds at all interesting, definitely try it out. The students really enjoyed the activity. Due to a number of circumstances, the teacher and I had to rush much of the activity. I'm not thrilled with the quality of the writing that came out of it, but I am looking forward to trying it again. So are the students!

What We Did

Our class had 27 students in it, mostly seventh graders. I divided them randomly into groups of 5 or 6 students. The site allows students to dress up their "Boomer" avatar using Boomer Bucks. More Bucks are earned through writing and winning the votes. I wasn't sure how seventh graders would take to this, but our group was definitely into this feature.

With five groups, that means we had five stories. I provided a single sentence as a story starter. Boomwriter has several initial chapters to choose from and, judging by the ones I saw, they expect the first chapter to provide a lot of detail. I didn't want to give them a long passage to read, so my first "chapter" was just one sentence. For example, one of them was The main character is trapped in a video game. I wanted the students' imagination to drive the direction as much as possible.

I set the length of our stories to five chapters, so that meant we had four rounds of writing and voting. The teacher and I were very impressed with how the students were engaged by the activity. Almost all the chapters they submitted were fairly short, but the teacher provided some feedback on the second round of writing and I saw an improvement.

We had many snow days this semester, so we have been pressed for time in all classes. For this activity we really rushed a few rounds. In a couple class periods we just rapidly went through as many rounds as possible (usually two writings and a vote). This amounted to a lot of frantic clicking on my part as I approved chapters, called for some revisions and moved stories along to the voting stage.

When the stories were almost done, we gave the class a survey about the experience. When asked how they liked Boomwriter for collaborative stories, 68% gave it five stars and 20% gave it four stars. Some were disappointed when we didn't immediately start a second story!

Before we did the activity, I wondered if the voting process would discourage students who didn't get picked. Well I did see some sign of this, only 12% said on the survey that it affected them in this way.

Be aware that Boomwriter hopes you and the students' parents will buy the stories as books when they are done. Because of this, I didn't find any way to view the complete stories. Maybe I missed it, but the only solution I came up with to see the whole story was to copy and paste each winning entry into a single document. (While I'm not against them selling a product and I would consider buying one in the future, this time around our stories were not good enough for that.)

What I'd Do Differently Next Time

We plan to use the activity again next marking period. If we do, I will have larger groups and fewer stories. I was hoping to keep the number of submitted chapters down, so students didn't get tired of reading several. Since there was very little sign of that problem in our class, I am going to aim for about 10 students per group in the future, which means three stories.

This should help with what I considered to be the biggest negative on the site. The students' submissions were organized by story, so I was constantly clicking on a story, then clicking through the submissions to approve them. I had to keep going out of one story and into another to find the students who were ready to be moved along. It would have been much easier if there was another view where I could just approve any student regardless of the story he or she worked on. Having fewer stories will at least make this a little less frantic.

And along those lines, I also hope we will have a lot more time to work on each chapter. My plan would be to use the activity along with other things we are doing in the class. After several days of having the chapter open for writing, we would close it then vote. That way I could send back revisions and raise expectations on what they are submitting (in content, spelling, grammar, etc.).

I'm looking forward to our second attempt with Boomwriter and I hope to share some of the stories next time around!

Using Say Whaaat!? in the Classroom

Images from DrawLab Entertainment
and used with permission

My party game Say Whaaat!? will be released this month from DrawLab Entertainment*, but I made the original version long ago. I have had years of experience playing it in different ways with students and as a classroom activity. It has proven to be a fun icebreaker or an engaging warm-up for lessons about opinions, priorities or leadership.

At the heart, this is a game about ranking random things order of importance. Words like Underwear, Justice and Coffee might turn up, for example. There are ways to do that in class that look a lot like what’s described in the rules. Others suggestions below are more innovative, like having the class imagine how Abraham Lincoln or Hester Prynne might rank the items.

Most of the ideas below are based on my experience, but some come from other educators who have enjoyed the game with their students. Instead of explaining all the rules of how to play here, I will just describe the changes to what’s written in the game rules.

Using one copy of the game for multiple groups

This could allow a class of 25 - 35 students to play in small groups using one copy of the game. Be sure they understand the ranking process before breaking into groups.

• Divide them into groups of 6 or 8 students. 
• Shuffle the 100 Word cards and divide that roughly evenly between the groups. 
• There won’t be enough Ranking cards for all the students, so you could make additional sets on colored notecards. Alternatively, the students could just secretly write their rankings on paper. 
• When playing this way, they could use the standard rules (with one Judge ranking the items and the others guessing) or the partnership variation (as long as groups have an even number of players). If playing with a Judge, the Judge should use Ranking cards from the game even if all the Guessers are just writing the words down. This makes it easier for everyone to see his or her rankings.
• After a few rounds, groups should exchange their decks of Word cards so everyone can play with as many as possible.
• If scoring is important, students or partnerships can just keep their points on paper. 

Everyone ranking the same Words

Sometimes it will work best for the lesson to have the class rank the same five Word cards. Here are different ways for them to do the actual ranking. Ways to select the five cards are also listed below.

Same Words, Many Groups
All students play in groups of 6 - 8 exactly like above. Any of the options and changes can be used. The only difference is the students rank the same 5 word cards that you display to the class. My friend John Golden has his students play this way as an icebreaker. He gives the judges time to explain their rankings to the others in their groups.

One Judge, Many Guessers
This is how I used the game before starting a lesson on priorities and goal setting.

• Choose one student (or the teacher) to be the Judge.
• The five Words are presented and all other students try to guess how the Judge will rank them. They record their guesses by listing the Words in order on paper.
• If a score is important, the students (on their honor) can record it on paper. They get a point for each Word they had in the same place as the Judge.

Getting the Class Rankings With Digital Tools
I have used tools like Google Forms or class response systems (clickers) to let students send their rankings digitally. This is a fun way to see how the group thinks.

Different tools allow for different ways to do this. Most simply, you can just have five “questions”, each being one of the Words. A student’s answer for each question would be a number, 1 - 5. For example, if they wanted to rate Coffee as least important, they would pick 5 for that Word. Students would just have to remember not to use a number twice when choosing the numbers.

After all rankings are submitted, these tools usually display a graph that shows how each Word was ranked. After looking at the class’ responses, students can give themselves a point if they matched the majority for a Word’s ranking. For example, if “Justice” was ranked in the first (most important) position by most of the class, every student who had it as most important would get a point.

If two or more Words all tie for a position, all of those Words would count for a point, even if they also end up most in another position. That can happen, so don’t get too caught up in the details of scoring!
One fun idea for this method is to have everyone predict how some other person would rank the words. But this person doesn’t have to be in the class! They could be a historical figure or a character in a book...or maybe not even a person.

With carefully selected Words central to the lesson theme, this can result in a short reflective writing assignment. Students would have to explain their ranking and what they thought of the class’ overall ranking.

John Golden sometimes has his class rank by criteria other than importance. For example, he will have five concepts for discussion and ask them to rank them by how much they understand them. Another option is to rank them by personal preference.

Ways to Choose the Word Cards

Regardless of which of those methods you use, here are some different ways you can choose the five Word cards for each round. Most will help you more or less focus the type of thinking and discussion you want to encourage.

For any of these, you can actually draw those cards in the moment and display them under a document camera or write them on the board or screen. Or you might want to save class time by forming the lists in advance.

• Random - Just shuffle the deck and draw five, randomly choosing one side or the other on each card.
• Random from Subset - Choose several cards from the deck ahead of time that fit your lesson theme to form a smaller drw deck. Then when you play, draw completely randomly from that deck.
• Semi-Random - Draw 7 - 10 cards at random, then choose which 5 you will use for the round from those.

Of course, you can also just make Pre-Arranged Lists ahead of time by selecting the exact Words you want to use. Feel free to add in words that aren’t in the game, if they’d be beneficial for your lesson or discussion.

Conversation Starters

As one last suggestion, a college professor told me he just kept the Word cards on his desk in his office. When students stopped in to talk, he would draw cards (or have a few pre-selected) to generate some conversation.