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.

Learning Through Gaming - One of our first assignments

I'm helping with a dream class at our middle school this marking period. It's called Learning Through Gaming. I'm showing the students a mix of digital and non-digital games and we are learning these skills:

• Communication
• Math
• Problem Solving/Thinking
• Success

I'm really excited about that last one. The idea is we can win in life using principles that help us win in games. For example, we have to know the objective, play by the rules, play to win and play so others can do their best.

I told the students from the start that they'd have to play, then do some written reflections. Here's one of our first assignments. In it, students had to 

• Play three games that I programmed. I made them a number of years ago using Stencyl and I've written about them previously on this blog. You can see all four of my Stencyl games on this page. It's probably best to play the games on Chromebooks or laptops.
• Answer questions about each one, including opinion questions about which they liked best and why.

The students had a lot of fun with the games. I'm glad to see they held up well. They didn't do such a great job on answering the questions. I quickly gave them feedback, asking many of them to try again. It was a good exercise to convince them I want to see meaningful reflection.

Click here to get the assignment document as a Google Doc. Feel free to make a copy and edit or share it as you like. I appreciate it if your copy keeps a link back to my blog.

If you're interested, see these blog posts about other ways to use two of those games:

• A critical thinking and writing activity based on What's It to Ya?
• A game based learning activity for Pegged

Twitter Chat About Playing Games and Making Games for Learning

On April 18 I moderated #6thchat. It was an excellent hour of discussion about playing and making games for learning. I wrapped up with a video and question about my Game Design Project Packs.

Here's the Storify archive. I realized afterward I didn't always use #6thchat on my replies, so they won't appear hear. You can see all replies if you expand a tweet that's part of a conversation.

Using Games and Game Design in the Classroom - a Twitter Chat on 4/18

I'm excited to say I'll be the guest moderator of #6thchat on April 18, from 9:00 PM -10:00 PM, EST.

The title of the chat will be Playing Games and Making Games (of all types) for Learning. Where will we go with such a broad topic? To give you an idea, here's some of my background in games and education.

I've loved playing games all my life. For as long as I remember, I've had a passion for learning new ones and for creating my own.

I have created some simple computer games, but board and card games are by far my favorite. My most popular designs have been party games and couple of them have been enjoyed by people all over the world.

As a former high school math teacher and now as an instructional tech coordinator, I shared my interest of all these games with students throughout the 23 years of my career. From digital to traditional, strategy board games to party games to role-playing games, I've explored their potential for learning, both in and out of the classroom.

I've used them as warm-ups, for creativity exercises and for critical thinking activities. I have also helped several teachers lead game design projects based on course content.

I'm convinced of the power of games when it comes to teaching and learning. At the same time, though, I've seen them used ineffectively in the classroom. I know it's possible to make a fun, popular game activity that doesn't result in the learning we need to see.

It's from this cautious optimism that I generated list of questions for the chat. I hope you will join us on 4/18 as we discuss effective ways to use games for learning!

And it won't be the primary focus, but I will talk about my Game Design Project Packs. Check out this post and the quick video below if you want to learn more about this fun activity for deep learning.

What's It to Ya? randomizer for classroom presentation games

Much of this site is dedicated to classroom games based on my party game What's It to Ya? (a.k.a. Oh, Really!). You can find all the rules and ways to use the game on the Critical Thinking Games page.

This new installment to my resources is simply a randomizer that draws item cards for any of those activities.  If using this as a classroom presentation game, you'd need a response system (set of clickers) that allows students to do a sort in order question.

Update 8/8/2013:  If you like this activity and want to use the physical party game in class, my friends at Fair Play Games are selling four copies in a classroom bundle for only for $7.99!  That's enough for 32 students to play in multiple groups.  Check this post out for more information.

Just click the start button in the randomizer below.  Five cards will be randomly drawn from a set of 118 items that could spark interesting discussion or thought in the classroom.  See this page for a list of free critical thinking classroom activities that would use the cards.

(If the randomizer is not displaying correctly in your browser right click here to download the file.  You might have to open it with Flash Player or another browser.)

Again, you'll want to see the game's page to get all details, but basically you can use the randomizer to select the cards and then use them in any of the many ways outlined on that page.  Usually someone (depending on how you play) will rank the items from most important to least important.  Predictions and discussion can follow.  Briefly, some possible uses are:

• Have one student or the teacher rank the items and the class tries to predict his or her rankings.
• Just display five items, have the class rank them and discuss the results.
• Display random items at the end of class and assign a short writing piece for homework.  Students can express their own opinions and also make predictions on how the class would rank them.
• If students are playing in groups they could use a laptop to select the five items for their group instead of using cards.

If you're having fun with What's It to Ya? be sure to check it out at Fair Play Games.  My friends there are selling off the last remaining copies for less than $2.50 each! I'm not getting royalties for this game, so this is just my effort to help you and them out.

How to Make Games - Part 1 - Getting and Developing Game Ideas

"You might learn if you play a game, but you will certainly learn something if you design a game"

-Dr. Fred Goodman

We hear so much about game based learning, but I always like to think about how we can get students making games.  Don't forget that a board, card or computer game can be a great final product for project based learning.  Design concepts, system thinking and creativity are part of the learning process from start to finish when one makes a game.

If you or students want to learn some tips about game design, here's a new version of a lesson I posted a few months ago about how to make games.  I often get asked about how I get ideas or how to turn an idea into a published game.  I will share some of my best practical advice over the course of three videos in the weeks ahead.

Keep in mind:

• Most of my experience is with designing board and card games.
• My goal is to help anyone to take an idea and turn it into a playable game that people will enjoy.  It is not necessarily to help someone sell a lot of copies!

If you want to see all the things I have posted about creating games over the past year, click here to search for the Game Design label.  There are articles about creating and publishing several types of games.

If you have questions, please send them to me or comment below so I can improve these lessons.

Christian/Bible Resources for Oh, Really!

I finally spotted one of my games for sale in real life!

Last year I posted a Bible/christian flipchart activity.  I wasn't sure how it would be received, but the number of downloads has been comparable to some other content area activities that I made.  I have heard from Sunday school teachers and other Christian gamers who play the game or use it in lessons.  I have always included words in all the editions that bring up matters of faith and I was glad to learn that Family Christian Stores was carrying the game.  (In fact, that's the only store where I've ever seen one of my games available in the real world.  Most are sold online.)

After recent correspondence with a Sunday school teacher and a father of a home school family, I decided I should convert that activity to these other formats for those who don't use ActivInspire:

• Google Docs Christian/Bible edition of Oh, Really!
• PowerPoint Christian/Bible edition of Oh, Really!

These resources have some pre-selected sets of item cards that can be used to generate discussion.  Participants could rank them on paper and group rankings could be analyzed and discussed.  Alternatively individuals could just rank them and then explain their rankings in writing or orally depending on the needs of the group.

Discussion questions are included on the final slide that reveal how this game can open the door to some weighty subject matter.  A seminary student told me once that he uses the previous version of my game in educational and social settings.  Here's what he wrote:

"Your game provides a wonderful opportunity to talk to both teenagers and adults about things that are penultimate and ultimately about the ultimate questions of life, death, and the meaning of it all. Something our Post Post-Modern society does poorly."

"For the past seven years, I have been using your game both in large and small groups. In a game setting, issues which polarize people become somewhat disarmed, and people can laugh and talk about things of importance. Not every game...becomes a deep conversation, but it provides the opportunity. In short, the game provides a somewhat neutral forum for people to share ideas without feeling pressured into a political-religious debate."

Whether in or out of the classroom I'm thrilled to find out my games are being used for fun and learning.  If you have any comments on the above resources or thoughts on how the game might be used in other interesting ways, I will be glad to hear from you.

Creativity Exercises - Some creative games for the classroom

“Creativity is just connecting things.”  -Steve Jobs

We need to teach creativity in school and this is primarily a post about a creative exercise that can do just that.

(Update:  I posted my presentation about creativity, the exercises and how these games fit into it here.  This post goes into a lot more detail on the options for the games, but be sure to check out that newer post to see how I present it in class.)

Since most people who come here will be interested in the games and exercises I’ll start with them.  At the end I will include some thoughts about about the origin of the creativity game system that it's all based on for those interested in the design process.

First, here's a video that sums up the system and uses rules of one particular game as an example:


In all of these game activities below, some random words are selected and from them the players must come up with creative responses based on those words.  In terms of Steve Jobs’ quote, they will practice creativity by making connections between seemingly unrelated things.  For example, in the game Why Did the Chicken...?, two random nouns are used make a riddle and the players must write funny answers to the riddle.  In the haiku games, random nouns must be used in haikus.

If you are playing the game with a group of friends, one player will judge each round and pick a couple winning submissions.  In the classroom games below, the class can vote using a classroom response system like the ActivExpressions.

Traditional Games

Only one of these games is a product you would have to purchase.  The others can be played with just a pencil and some paper.  For use in class, students could play in groups of four to six.

• Why Did the Chicken...? - This is the boxed version of the game system where players make creative, funny answers to riddles.  I wrote more about the game and have a short video here.
• The Haiku Game - I made this game using letter cards for an old game that is no longer available.  You could play it with Scrabble tiles or any game that has letter cards.
• Cartoon Chicken - This is by far my favorite of the creativity games.  Players make captions for two randomly paired drawings.
• The Chicken Game System - This is Kory Heath’s page for the generic system.  It is a great read for any serious game designer.  From here you can learn to make a playable version of any of the creativity games mentioned here.
• Abe & Einstein - This game doesn’t exist in any published form as of yet, but you can play if you’ve read the rules to the game system above.  For this game, the prompts are two random famous people or characters.  Players write what the two people would say if they just met.  It’s hilarious.
• Get Paul That Promotion - This is my twisted anti-creativity game based on the system.  It is available for free at the link.  You can read about how it was invented with the help of my students here.

Playing in the Classroom

It seems many people are referring to these classroom games as "class presentation games".  If that's what you are looking for, I have several.

I used to make flipcharts that use Promethean software and I'll list those below, but more recently I started these more generic versions as webpages.  All of these games are based on this general system that uses random prompts, creative submissions and a selection of the winner.

• The Classroom Creativity Game - Combines several versions of the creativity system into one webpage.
• Coming Soon - The Creativity Game of Great Movie Trailers - Students compete to come up with the best ideas for a movie.  This can be used to teach the elements of a great story.

And these are the original versions that were designed for ActivInspire and ActivExpressions, but you can adapt them to be used with any computer/projector setup and any classroom response system (including a show of hands).

Note:  Most of my games were taken down from Promethean Planet.  The links below are currently not active.  You can still find Split Decision.  See my Games page for more information.

• The Haiku Game - Students compete to write haikus based on generic nouns.
• The Mythology Haiku Game - The same game, but with words related to Greek myths.
• The Halloween Haiku Game - And the game with words related to Halloween.
• Split Decision - This game is a little different than the others, but players are encouraged to write creative responses based on a randomly chosen topic.  The goal is to present tough decisions to the class.

Of course any of the traditional games mentioned above could be adapted to classroom play.  You can play with a few contestants, like the classroom flipcharts above, or you could have all students write responses.  Determining a winning submission could be handled with a vote or a single judge as appropriate for your class.

The birth of the creativity game system...

I wrote a few weeks back about my friend Kory Heath and how we met up at Protospiel.  That was in 2003 when my passion for game design was probably at its highest point ever.  I was in love with games and in the pursuit of something new in the hobby.  Protospiel was an annual convention, but it was also a growing group of creative friends.  I remember hanging out that summer with Kory, James Droscha, Stephen Glenn and others.  We talked at a deep level about games and and fun in general for hours on end.  I left with my brain buzzing with ideas.

Over the course of those few days Kory and I discovered we had both created games where  the winner of a contest was chosen by a judge rather than some objective rules.  In other words, instead of quantifying everything and determining a winner by points, a player would just pick the winner or a winning entry that he or she liked best.  But having a judge pick a winner was not the focus of the game.  Instead it was the creativity of the players and the “problem” posed to them that they were trying to solve.  In my game the players were writing funny things about each other and in Kory’s they were trying to come up with analogies.

In the weeks after Protospiel, Kory and I continued discussing these ideas and some like them.  We realized (he first, actually) that we really had a generic system for creativity games.  I loved playing those games because I enjoyed the process of making fun responses.  Kory was impressed with the power of how two random items could generate so many creative ideas.

As Steve Jobs stated, creativity comes from making connections.  When playing these games, some people feel they are not creative enough to come up with a response.  It really is an exercise, though, because with repeated practice (and once they realize failure isn’t so bad) they usually improve.  This observation speaks volumes for what the classroom experience should look like.  I hope these games provide teachers with exercises that encourage students to think creatively.  We need more students who are confident in their ability to create and who find enjoyment in the process.

With our respective groups Kory and I worked on many ideas in this system.  He lived on the East Coast and tested his games with established game designers.  I tested mine with students in the high school game club.  There, we had a ton of fun, but his group was better at the work side of things.  They developed a polished system and had a better focus on quality results.

Some examples of my games are the haiku game and the wacky, almost anti-creativity game, called Get Paul That Promotion.  My students and I had a blast exploring this creative model of play.

Kory’s group eventually created a published version called Why Did the Chicken...?.  Playing off that title, they developed what they called Chicken Games and Kory formalized some of the rules at this site.  The most notable feature that emerged from their play is that players can write as many submissions as they want in two minutes.  It was a great insight that contributes immensely to the excitement and creativity of the game.

This game system is amazingly entertaining and to this day I think it would be my preferred game if I had to choose only one for life.  Quite possibly the best thing about it is that it can be played with nothing more than some pencils and paper.

Critical Thinking Game for the Classroom

I know this game has been referred to throughout this blog, but I wanted to centralize some of the resources  for both high tech and no-tech variations are described below.

Years ago I made a game that I used in the classroom for lessons about goals and priorities.  If used properly,  it can be an excellent starting point for critical thinking and other higher level thinking skills in any subject area with any students from about age 10 and older.  

I have played it with many students from middle school through college (here is a video I made with some former students at one campus) over the years and I have come to respect the power of the question that it raises.  Whether it is used as a game or a classroom activity, participants are simply asked the question What matters most?  By carefully choosing the items and guiding the discussion, this can be a powerful catalyst for self-evaluation and problem solving.

Using the game without technology
The game I created can be purchased as a traditional (card based) party game.  This is the version I used most in class. I would use a select subset of the cards based on the purpose of the activity. From that, I’d randomly draw five cards and have students rank the items on the cards from most important to least important.  We would usually try to guess how another person in the room would rank them.

After such an introduction, students can play the game in groups of up to 8.  It works best when students can play in pairs.

The Inexpensive Option - Right now a friend of mine is selling the old edition of the complete game (called What's It To Ya?) for less than $4.  I no longer get royalties from that edition, so this announcement is not meant to pad my wallet!  If you want to pick up a few copies (5 copies would allow up to 40 students play), check it out on this page at Fair Play Games while it’s on sale. This is a bargain, believe me.

The Newer Edition - If you want the newer version, it’s probably easiest to find it here on Amazon.  The new publisher created a version that uses a board and score sheets.  It sells for around $20.


Here's a video overview created with the Videolicious app on an iPad.




Using the game with technology

I posted several free activities on Promethean Planet based on this game.  They work easily with Promethean’s ActivExpressions for ranking, but you can run the activity with any response system or the students can rank them on paper.  A free version of ActivInspire will allow you to display these without actually using their other products, so any computer and projector will be sufficient.

Here is the original, generic activity that allows students to draw random words for the original game.

Oh Really Flipchart Activity

And the versions below are targeted toward a specific subject area with pre-selected sets of words and questions in context.  By examining these as samples it will be obvious how you can adapt them to your needs even if these don’t fit perfectly.

Government
Family and Consumer Science
Vocations and GoalsDebate
Christian/Bible Studies


The version with the most downloads so far is this "Back to School" edition. It can be used as an ice breaker in the first days of school or of a particular class:

Back to School

And finally, here is a simple Google Presentation version that you could change to use the activity in any subject.  You can put the question of what matters most into context, such as What makes a good citizen? Then list items related to that. Or you can keep it general. See the above flipchart activities for ideas. (Even if you don't want to install the free version of ActivInspire to view them you can see a preview at the site that will be useful in adapting the free Google Presentation version to your needs.)  


And if anyone is interested in the history of the game, here is a video I created a few weeks ago about my experience with bringing a game idea into reality.