Back to School Game

I put up a flipchart for a back to school edition of Oh, Really! recently. It should make a fun activity for any teacher and class in the first days back. It has one slide relating to summer, one relating to the start of school and three for general discussion.

Teachers should consider creating their own words for this one to personalize it.

As always, find all my flipcharts here.

Free Music and Audio Tools for the Classroom

I have played and written a lot of music in my life that would not have been possible without technology. I'm not a great musician, but technology can fill in the gaps and make a rewarding experience for me and others.

Here are a few free tools I've been using lately that could be used for fun classroom activities. For one, imagine students turning short poems into songs or raps and then using them as their favorite ringtones. They can also make for great background music in videos and podcasts.

Audacity - I'm sure almost everyone has heard of this free audio recording tool. It's not perfect, but excellent for almost all recording needs in the classroom.

Gsnap - This is my best find of the summer. It offers many of the benefits of the famous (and pricey) Auto-Tune pitch correction software, but Gsnap is free. I'm not a vocalist, but this helps me make sketches of my songs that I'm not embarrassed to play for the people who can perform them correctly. It works with Audacity 1.3, so you have to download that version if you want to use the two together. Supposedly you can get it to do the robotic voice effects popular in many songs, but so far I have only achieved a more natural correction, which is all I need anyway.

And this one is unfortunately dead now...
Roc - This is the music creation tool at Aviary. It can be used to easily make basic beats and loops. Check out all of Aviary's tools for great graphics tools too. I didn't have much luck with Myna, the audio recording tool.

edWeb.net - Webinars and Discussion

Last spring I joined a community on edWeb.net that is focused on gaming and education. Several other communities focus on everything from technology integration to special education are available as well. I would link to some specific resources, but almost everything at the site requires registration. From what I have seen so far, it is well worth joining.

Discussions almost always bring up a resource that is new to me or a good question to consider. The webinars that I have watched have also been useful. I haven't been able to catch any of them live, but they are always accessible after the event. I play them in the background while doing other things.

Cultivating a Learning Environment

I love David Warlick's blog. In a recent post he lists six suggestions for cultivating a learning environment. I'm going to use these as a guide for any meeting I chair or any tech project that allows me some influence. I also hope to add to the list and have a list of my own specific examples by the end of this year.

Here are his suggestions taken from his post:

1. Fill your school(s) with learners. When interviewing prospective teachers, ask “Tell me about something that you have learned lately.” “How did you learn it?” “What are you seeking to learn more about right now that is not related to your teaching – and how?” Find out how proficient they are at network learning.
2. Be a public learner. Open your faculty meetings with something that you’ve just learned – and how you learned it. Include in the daily announcements some piece of interesting knowledge that is obviously new. “Did you know that a California power utility has just gotten permission to sell electricity from outer space? Make frequent mention of what you’ve learned from your Twitter stream, RSS reader, specific bloggers you read. This should not be limited to job specific topics.
3. Introduce new ideas that are not necessarily related to school. Share links to thought-provoking TED talks or other mini-lectures presented by interesting and smart people. Ask for reactions during faculty meetings, in the halls, or during casual conversations with employees and parents.
4. Make students’ outside-school-learning part of the conversation. Find out what their passions are and ask them what they’ve just learned about it. Suggest that they write something up about it for the school web site or annual research publication.
5. Make your school a curiosity lab. Plant around the school (especially in the library) intriguing questions that might provoke curiosity in learners (How many steps does a centipede have to take to travel a foot? Who was the youngest person to sail around the world?). Reward students who answer them and video their explanations of how they found the answers for the school’s web site. With the help of creative teachers, invent a mystery for your school and plant clues around the school. Require student-participants to research the clues they have discovered in order to find their way to the next clue.
6. Make all school stakeholders public learners. Ask members of your staff to write essays about their latest vacations or hobbies and publish them on the school web site or annual research publication. Ask teachers to devote one of their classroom bulletin boards to information about a personal passion of theirs, sharing their latest gained knowledge and achievements. Suggest that they produce TED style multimedia presentations about a topic they are especially interested in and post them on the school’s web site or perform them at PTA meetings. Learn about the hobbies and travels of the parents of your students and ask them to share what they are learning and how they are learning it through essays, videos, Skyped-in conversations, etc.

Other versions of this list can be found here and here.

Video Game Programming for the Classroom

Last spring I discovered Gamestar Mechanic through the Scholastic Level Up! materials. It's a promising resource for bringing the excitement of video game creation to the classroom. More things are in the works for this fall too.

As for the Level Up! resources, I wasn't too impressed with the superficial blending of video game creation and course content, so I created a short math lesson for 5th graders based on the site. I worked with two teachers and 12 students in my district testing out the project as part of my graduate program.

Overall, I can say the students really got excited about the program. It takes them awhile to work through the levels and acquire enough skills and resources to make a decent game. It might be a little difficult to justify that amount of class time, especially if there isn't some clear course content being learned as well. One of the teachers had the students do most of this at home--as if we could have stopped some of them! I wasn't completely successful with my own attempt to integrate math and programming, but it gave me some hope that it's possible.

From what I've been told, there will be a teacher community introduced this fall and from there, these issues can be addressed. I've been asked to submit my project in the next week as they prepare for the launch. Based on the enthusiasm for authentic learning that I see from this group's leaders, I am excited to watch where this will lead. Be sure to take a look at what's there now and keep coming back to check on developments.

I should add that I introduced this site to my kids at home. My daughter is going into 7th grade and my son will be in 6th. They both have a lot of fun creating the games and acquiring new sprites, tools and even the badges. There was much excitement when one of my son's games was featured and it generated some buzz in the associated, very safe online community.

Helping students at home

I remember about 12 years ago trying to use a chat room on my website to help a student with homework questions. That frustrating exercise was probably the only time I regretted having an eager learner in my class.

About seven years later a former student contacted me on Facebook and asked for help with some derivatives. We exchanged comments about each step back and forth on his status. It was just as difficult as the chat room, but at least he can refer to it still if he would want to. (Can you believe that somewhere disk space is devoted to all those Facebook comments?)

Well, now us math teachers have something that will suit our needs better. A colleague in one of my courses pointed out this site to me as one she uses when tutoring students over the internet.

Scribblar

So far I have only tested this with my wife to see how easy it is, but I really like the possibilities. Accounts are free. Yes, there's still the old fashioned chat room feature, but you can turn on audio and talk directly through your computer's microphone. Best of all, though, there's a "whiteboard" space where all participants can draw or write anything. You can even turn on a grid for graph paper.

I'm passing this on to the math department in my district. Please let me know if you find this useful for long distance tutoring.

Where Do You Find So Many Games?

Even though board and card games are growing in popularity in recent years, I still get asked from time to time about where I find so many unique games. I usually direct them to the Boardgame
Geek website. It's an amazing collection of information on all these games that never make it to the shelves of Wal-Mart.

I just put up a "geeklist" there about my flipcharts too. Check it out if you want to get started researching the games that those flipchart activities are based on.

This or That? Game

This is a great game for the beginning of the school year. By playing just a couple minutes a day, each student will get a turn to be in the "hot seat". There they can express their preferences and get a chance to see how well the other students know them.

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Donations are accepted
This flipchart game has been my most popular.  I hope you enjoy it!  If you find any resources on this blog useful, please consider donating $1 to $3.  Any money I receive this way will be used in my district to purchase resources for technology integration. I and my students greatly appreciate your support!  I would love to hear how you use the resources too.

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Details for how to play are found in the flipchart, but essentially the student who's "it" draws some random pairs of words like "Talk" or "Write". The student secretly records which one most fits his or her personality. The class votes on which one they think will be selected.

The flipchart has two slides, one showing three cards and one showing just one card. I like to play it with three, but if you want a quick round or if you're playing with Votes instead of Expressions, the slide with one card works well.

Some possible modifications to the activity are:

• Don't use Expressions or Votes. Just have students write their guesses down and the student who is "it" can tell them what he or she picked. One teacher in my district played this way and the class loved it.
• Remove words pairs that don't work well with the ages of your students.
• Make new word pairs about things that are specific to your school or community. Also, you can make words that fit what you're studying. How about a version based on the book you just read or on the social studies lesson you just completed?

The activity is loosely based on my party game Take Your Pick, published by SimplyFun. Since 2006 it has been one of their top selling games. I have played that card game with students for years and it has always proven to be very popular. In 2010 I created an expansion for the game called Take Your Pick II with Melinda Newcombe, an English teacher at the high school where I work.

Nim and Ximo Games

When I was teaching high school math I often used the first two versions of Nim that are found in this flipchart. At the start of the school year I'd use them for filler if we had five or ten minutes at the end of a class. Some students loved them and would challenge me to games throughout the year. The simple tools in this flipchart make it quick to set up and easy to play.

The third version of the game is one that I created called Ximo. It hasn't been universally loved, but it is exactly what I wanted it to be--a variation that makes each game a new challenge.

Playing "One Brain Against the Class"
This could be a fun, ongoing way to play each day in an advanced class if you have Expressions for your students. It is suggested that the individual and the class each make one move a day as part of any other warm-up for the daily lesson.

1. On the game setup, label the rows of the setup r1, r2 and r3. (If you're playing the Tactix game, label rows and columns.)
2. The player who is taking on the class (which should probably be the teacher the first time) takes a turn as usual.
3. For the class' turn, start a Text Entry question using Express Poll.
4. Students can enter their move suggestion on the Expressions. No discussion allowed! For example, with the 3-row version of Nim if they wanted to remove two disks from row 2, they would enter r2,2. It's important that they use strict conventions on entering moves. See the note below for trying this with Tactix.
5. After the vote, view the results. Remove the dots that were suggested by the most students. For example, if r3,4 was the number one response, take 4 dots from the third row. Again, students need to follow the exact format on entry so that the results are counted correctly.
6. If there's a tie for the number one move suggestion you can either randomly select one or have the class vote on the tied moves using Express Poll again.
7. Play until the individual player or the class wins.

Tactix is more complex for entering the moves. Label the rows and columns. Players will indicate which dots are removed by row or column number, then a number range for the dot(s) removed. To take the first three dots from column 1, for example, they would enter c1,1,3 (first column, dot 1 to dot3). r4,3,4 would take dots 3 and 4 from row 4 and c3,5 would be used to take just dot 5 from column 3.

Be sure to check out the entry at Wikipedia if you are unfamiliar with the game. Several other sites can be easily found that allow you to play online.

This one at Math.com has been entertaining.

Tips for using the games and activities

• My games are posted here at Promethean Planet.
• Time is precious in most courses, so consider how to break the activity or game up into short pieces. For example, the games that pit contestants against each other can be played one round or even one player's turn per day for just minutes at the start or end of the class period. It's always better to leave students wanting more and looking forward to the next play rather than extending a game beyond its welcome in one long session.
• All games and activities are loosely based on the subjects and content specified at the site. I expect teachers will tweak them by changing words or other content in the games. All rules are open to change as well so that they fit your needs. They're best viewed as starting points for activities. Please let me know if you come up with some great variations!
• Focus on the thinking and the possible discussion that can emerge from the games. There are a lot of ways the competition aspects can break down, so make sure the students know that the emphasis is on fun and learning. Cutthroat competition can turn into cheating and hurt feelings quite easily.
  
• Most of my games posted at Promethean Planet can be useful even if you have minimal equipment. Usually a projector connected to a computer is enough. You'll need to download ActivInpsire and install it as the Personal Edition (for free) and you'll be able to take advantage of many features of my games. With a little creativity you can make them work even if students do not have response devices to vote with.

Also, since I'm posting general information, I should mention that not every activity and game that I post has been played with students in the exact form that I posted online. I used games in the classroom when I taught for 13 years, I ran our high school game club and designed party games that are sold worldwide. I have a good feel for what students will enjoy and what will be useful for discussion and assessment. Still, my current position doesn't allow me to test every flipchart activity fully. They are always based on variations of things I have used in the classroom and I do take opportunities to test them (or my colleagues test them) whenever possible.

Consequently, I value any feedback you might have on what works, what doesn't and what could work better. I'd love to partner up with any educators to create quality games, so feel free to send ideas and input my way!

Split Decision Classroom Game for ActivInspire

This fun game about creating tough choices can be downloaded from here.

Overview
Three students will compete to create tricky decisions for the class to vote on. Each round a topic will be selected and they will pose two options to the class. For example, if the topic is Food a student might write, "Eat a whole onion or eat nothing for two days." The class will vote on which they'd choose and the student who wrote the decision will score depending on how evenly the results are divided.

See notes at the end about how this game came about.

How to Play
Pick three creative students to be the contestants. If you're playing the game in one sitting, they probably should sit at the frong of the class. Each of them needs a piece of paper and a pencil. You can go to page 3 of the flipchart and record the players' names on the Score page at this time.

The rest of the class will vote, so hand out the Expressions or Votes to them.

The game is played in three rounds.

Round Overview:
1) Draw a random prompt for the round. On the Decision screen (slide 2) you'll see 10 red dots at the bottom. Draw one or have a student draw one. Move the word to the black rectangle in the lower left so all students can see it. That's the topic for the round.

2) The three contestants now write a Decision based on that topic. Here are some details:

• The Decision consists of two options and they have to make up the options.
• The goal is to make the two options equally appealing in some way so that the class vote will be evenly split between the two.
• Enforce a time limit if you think it will be necessary. Any student not done at that time must quickly write something
• Two bad choices can be more fun and challenging, so you might want to require these kinds of Decisions. Alternatively, you can keep it open ended and let the contestants decide how they want to approach the topic.
• When they finish, the students must pass their papers to the teacher. Before presenting them, read the submissions and be sure they're acceptable. Any student who wrote something clearly off topic or otherwise inappropriate should either quickly fix it (if that's reasonable) or have the Decision disqualified. In that case, he or she will score a 50 point penalty. (Points are not good in this game.)

3) Now mix the Decisions so the class does not know who wrote each one and perform the following steps for each:

• Read the two options from a contestant. It is important that from this point on the class does not discuss the options. Some reaction will be inevitable, but comments and conversation need to be limited.
• Write them on the board with one option in the A box and one in the B box. If they are long, wordy options, you might want to just summarize them when putting them in the boxes.
• Start the vote and and have students select one. In every case, the students must pick one even if they'd like neither. Encourage them to choose the best or the one that's least bad. If a few students take too long to vote you might choose to stop the vote early for the sake of time.
• After the vote, view the results and score the Decision for the contestant accordingly. The score is the positive difference between the percents (rounded to a whole number) of students choosing A and B*. So, for example, if 37% chose A and 63% chose B, you'd take 63 - 37 to get a score of 26 points for the contestant. Always subtract the higher minus the lower so the scores are positive. Remember that a 50-50 split is the ideal, which means the student would score 0 points. So low scores are best.
• Record the score on the paper next to that Decision. Repeat step 3 for the other two Decisions.

4) Go to the Score page and write in the Scores. After round 2 and 3, total up the scores so far.

For round 2 and 3, return the papers to the contestants and repeat the above steps.

The game ends after round 3. The player with the lowest score wins. If there's a tie you can choose to have a tie breaking round between the tied players or you can just allow multiple winners.

Some example Decisions

• Meet Shakespeare or Meet Edgar Allan Poe?
• Get a great job with low pay or Get a dull job with good pay?
• Write an 8-page report for Science class or Read a 200-page novel for English?
• Camp alone at the South Pole or Camp alone in the middle of the Sahara Desert?
• Witness the signing of the Declaration of Independence or Hear the Gettysburg Address?

Notes
This game was born out of an activity that I did with a group of students in a Mythology class. We were making a different game that posed two choices and I noticed how challenging yet fun it could be to create balanced options. When thinking about activities that used the Expressions or Votes, a class vote seemed like it could be a great way to test the students' creativity.

*Years ago I read over the rules to a game called Ostrakon. I have never played it, but I know the goal is to pose a balanced philosophical question to the other players. As I said, I came up with my game from a different direction, but I don't know how much Ostrakon influenced my thoughts. So I want to mention that game since people who enjoy Split Decision might want to check it out.

Please let me know if you have any comments or suggestions for Split Decision!

Oh, Really! Games for the Classroom

I made the game that became Oh, Really! about ten years ago. It is based on the simple idea of ranking random items in order of importance. You can learn a lot about people by seeing how they rank things and that's where the fun of the game comes from. Do I know my friends as well as I think I do? Do they know me?

When I was teaching, I used the game as a warm-up activity for lessons on priorities and goals. The students loved it. During game club or when we had some extra time at the end of the hour we would play the card game too.

The Games for Promethean's ActivClassroom
When I saw the Sort in Order questions in ActivInspire for the Expressions, I knew right away Oh, Really! would work well as a flipchart activity. I put together the first version in the summer of 2010 and posted it. It contains all 200 cards from the game. (Permission was granted from the publisher, Find It Games, to use the artwork in these flipcharts.)

The original Oh, Really! game for the classroom can be downloaded here.

More recently I started doing the editions for specific classes. Each of these have sets of five pre-selected items that fit well with the indicated courses. Most words are straight from the original game, but some are modified to work best for the subject matter.

Oh, Really! game for Government class
Oh, Really! game for Family and Consumer Science classes
Oh, Really! game for Vocational and Career classes
Oh, Really game for Speech and Debate classes

All my games and activities for flipcharts can be found on this page.

And if you or some of your students are interested in the story behind how the game was created, I have an article here about how the original game grew from an Einstein quote to something played the world over.

Games and Activities for Promethean's ActivClassroom

I started this blog to highlight my games and activities that I'm posting at Promethean Planet. As they develop and as I create more of them, I will want a central place to present information. Other learning activities and creations will likely show up here as well.

For now, here is my author page at Promethean Planet:
http://www.prometheanplanet.com/en-us/Search/resources/?Author=1005530

Most of the activities are based on my party game Oh, Really!, published by Find It Games. I created some versions that can be played in the Government classroom. Also, there are some tailored toward Speech, Debate, Vocational Skills and Family/Consumer Ed.

I also have two activities based on a Haiku game that I made. One of them would work well in a Mythology classroom.