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minetest
Coding/Computer ScienceWindows

Build Block Worlds with Minetest

by Miguel Guhlin
written by Miguel Guhlin

Want to launch virtual gaming to support critical thinking at your school but find it cost-prohibitive to go with the mainstream solution? Maybe you want to avoid paying a per student cost. If that’s the case, this blog entry is worth a read. You can now deploy a block-based crafting environment with Minetest– a solution that offers a block environment, simple circuit-switching features, and visual bots.

Benefits of Virtual Reality to Children

Virtual reality offers a way to encourage creativity in children. A few of the ways it does that are highlighted in this AR article:

  • Removes geographical boundaries. It’s important that children have open-ended spaces to build and explore. Virtual reality worlds make that possible.
  • Empowers students. Allowing children to become heroes of a story they create with others is powerful. The immersive environment of virtual reality worlds engages children and hones their storytelling skills.
  • Supports visualization. Visualization makes it easier to understand complex concepts. If you can build it, you can better understand it.
  • Stimulates critical thinking. Games that allow for creative production foster players’ abilities for creative expression.

For many schools, playing, crafting, and learning have been limited to one solution that costs money, even if it offers extra benefits. But what if you could find an alternate creative space as a free, open-source solution? A solution that would be available at no cost to anyone who wanted it? That’s where Minetest comes in.

minetest

That means you can create and adapt it for your use in schools, and give it away for free to your students to take home. Isn’t that amazing? Don’t take my word for it. Michelle Wendt, in SmartBrief, writes (amended slightly for readability) the following about these virtual environments:

  • This collaborative sandbox game works well with open-ended projects where students construct their understanding and create their own adventures. For example, a middle-school teacher assigned students a pre-history project, asking them to learn about that period’s culture, lifestyle, and historical limitations and assets. The students next had to build an entire pre-history village using only the materials that would have been available during that time.
  • …Students…demonstrate creativity and showcase evidence of learning through self-created resources. 
  • [Students discuss] the authenticity of their creations with their team, defending their choices as they construct this world together. 
  • The teacher facilitates a rich debate on the types of building blocks, smelting techniques and sustainable materials in their designs. 

Did You Know?

Sign up now for TCEA’s Virtual World Builder course and learn more about game-based learning (GBL), design thinking, and more. See how evidence-based instructional strategies, the ISTE Standards for Students and GBL align. Learn more now.

As Michelle Wendt further points out:

 “Virtual reality can be incorporated into classroom lessons in so many ways now…I can use any number of tech tools to ignite my students’ curiosity, inspire them to work together and frame their learning in a way that turns them into subject-matter experts.”

Isn’t that what we are all working for?

Did You Know?

Minetest is 100% free, open source. There’s no licensing fee, allows for scripting through the Lua API. What’s more, there are no limits to customization you can do if you want to.

Note the video above is an excellent comparison of the free, open source Minetest and Microsoft’s Minecraft in Spanish. Want something in English? Here are also two tutorial videos (Part 1 and Part 2).

Introducing Minetest

Based on a free software game engine, voxel, Minetest offers access to a cube world. The cubes, like in another popular virtual world-building game, are the building blocks of the world. You can navigate the world, collect items, and make or craft items.

minetest

Minetest offers built-in modding capability.

minetest

These mods enhance the power of Minetest and what you can do in it. In the video below (credit to u/iketsj), you can see how Mesecons mod can be used to create a decoder. For those who are familiar with Minecraft’s redstone, mesecons are similar.

If you’re looking for visual programming opportunities, Minetest also has Visual Bots (or vbots for short). These are single, block, “turtle” style bots. You can program them, as you can see in the screenshot below. The interface shown works on Android.

You can find a list of a few mods worth starting with towards the end of this blog entry.

Nifty Features for Players and Developers

Minetest also enjoys features for both players and developers. Here’s a short list:

Features for Players

  • Many games to choose from. There are many games to choose from. You could survive in a harsh environment, build creatively, or fight other players.
  • Huge maps. With 62,000 × 62,000 × 62,000 blocks, there’s no running out of space. You can mine 31,000 blocks down, or build 31,000 blocks up.
  • Map generators. There is a wide variety of options to generate maps. The maps generated are stunning and can be shared. There are ways to convert existing Minecraft maps to Minetest, although it will require GNU/Linux access.
  • Multiplayer support. Play by yourself, locally with your friends, or online with dozens of players on a server.
  • Texture packs. There is a huge collection of textures for your maps.
  • Add sensors, lamps, and circuits. Use Mesecons to add all kinds of sensors, switches, solar panels, detectors, pistons, lamps, and sound blocks to advanced digital circuitry like logic gates and programmable blocks.

minetest

Features for Developers

  • Game coding. Create your own voxel game using the Lua API. Write scripts to add items and control game play.
  • Design content. Publish your creations to an online gallery.
  • Over 1100 mods available. You can use, adapt, or learn from mods others have created and they are all free, open source.

Get Minetest for Windows, Mac, GNU/Linux, and Android. It’s available in a portable format, making it a great addition to your USB flash drive. (I can see technology directors rolling their eyes at that. Imagine students walking in with their USB flash drive version of Minetest. They are ready to plug in on a school machine and begin worldbuilding).

Creative Mode: Be a World-builder

Minetest enjoys a Creative Mode, which allows for the creation of new worlds you can use. You can add a wide variety of themes and mods to a new world, as well as access seeds from others that can give birth to a new world.

Minetest for Education

“It would be great for a classroom environment to play and teach with as well!” says Clayton Errington. He goes on to say:

“I always like the FOSS programs and saw Minetest was free and thought to give it a try. Much impressed with similarities and ease of use.”

If you’re thinking, “How might this work in the classroom?” You are not alone. While Microsoft’s Minecraft: Education Edition offers a lot of lesson ideas, look again. Minetest has its own education servers as well if you’re not running it in your computer lab. It wouldn’t be difficult to set Minetest up to run as a server in a school district environment. This would enable students to access a school Minetest server from home.

FraMinetest.org offers one vision of an education gaming learning experience. Based in France, they describe themselves in this way:

Framinetest Edu is a sandbox game world Minetest (world of blocks to edit) dedicated to education, pedagogical activities and the serious gaming. (source)

They even offer a guide for server installation (GNU/Linux) you can follow.

CERN offers Craft the Web. This describes an event that took place in November 2019. The goal was to celebrate the 30th Anniversary of the World Wide Web. CERN members and the Minetest community co-designed “Craft the Web.” This was an open-source gaming experience. It let players re-enact the invention of the Web. The game was played in a classroom setting. An instructor guided students on their journey. You can see a press release online.

minetest

Escape the Castle at the Inside the Box server

At Inside the Box, you can solve and create puzzles. If you are into digital breakouts, then this is your Minetest server to explore. It comes with extensive tutorials and information.

Of course, you can always set Minetest up for use in your own computer lab, or district server.

Preventing Online Server Access

Want to prevent access to online servers in Minetest? Edit the minetest.conf file in the Minetest folder. Add this line without a hashtag (#) in front of it. The folks at Minetest suggest you set the IP address for serverlist_url to empty. This will prevent access to external servers:

serverlist_url=

You may need to put a # in front of the line that says “address = ctf.rubenwardy.com”

Classroom Tools

One of the big add-ons that captured people’s attention with Minecraft was the Classroom Mode component. This allowed the teacher to view a map of student locations, limit player damage and use of TNT (explosives), cycle day and night, and the game’s difficulty settings. Minetest offers a similar tool.

minetest

Minetest’s Classroom mod offers teachers the ability to…

…move players, grant/revoke privs, and more. A list of built-in actions can be found in the readme, but you can add more actions using the API for this mod.

Actions available include:

  • Bring Teleports users to your position
  • Look Rotates the users to look at the teacher
  • Mute/Unmute Grants or revokes the ability to use chat
  • Fly/No fly Grants or revokes the ability to fly (key: K)
  • Kick Remove from the server
  • Ban Permanently exclude from the server
  • Audience Move to the crosshair location, spread out and facing you

You can get the Minetest Classroom mod and learn more about it.

Minetest Mods To Get

minetest

Stuck in a cave without a torch?

Wondering what are some mods worth getting and adding to Minetest? Here are a few I’ve tele-gathered after a bit of searching (fortunately, not in a cave without a torch). To be honest, there are MANY fantastic mods you can add once you open the game. It’s mind-boggling. My exploration only took me 27 screens in of the over 300 available.

  • Advanced Trains: build elaborate railways. You will need to get Basic trains, Moretrains, and dlxtrains mods as well.
  • Awards: This mod adds achievements to Minetest. Use the inventory tab or /awards to see your awards.
  • Basic Machines: in-game automation.
  • Basic Robot: programmable in-game robots.
  • Classroom: An easy way to manage students in-game, with support for bulk actions and macros.
  • Digilines: Allows in-game programmable controllers to talk to each other.
  • Farming_Redo: Comes with many new crops. New foods need only be planted on tilled soil, so no seeds are required.
  • GlowTest: This mod adds a glowing forest biome and decorative crystals to Minetest.
  • Mapfix: Fix some map errors (light and flow problems) simply by typing “/mapfix <radius>”.
  • Mesecons: Electronics mod, create electronic circuits.
  • Mobs_Redo: Mob API for mods to add monsters, animals, and more.
  • Unified_Inventory: An extensible inventory mod that allows searching crafting and browsing for recipes in the same dialogue.
  • WorldEdit: An in-game world editor. Use it to repair griefing, or just create awesome buildings in seconds. X-Decor: It adds a bunch of cute cubes, various mechanisms, and stuff for cutting, enchanting, cooking, etc.

Want to learn more about modding? You may want to read the Minetest Modding Book:

minetest
Minetest Modding Book

Here’s a quick overview of what is covered in the book:

In Minetest, a game is a collection of modules which work together. They provide the content and behaviour of a game. A module, known as a mod, is a collection of scripts and resources. It’s possible to make a game using only one mod, but this is rarely done. The reason why is that it reduces the ease by which parts of the game are adjusted and replaced independent of others. This book will cover the main parts of the Minetest API, and is applicable for both game developers and modders.

The Modding Book explains about Lua scripts that can be used to create mods:

Minetest uses Lua scripts to provide modding support. This book aims to teach you how to create your own mods, starting from the basics. Each chapter focuses on a particular part of the API, and will soon get you making your own mods.

Want to learn more about programming with Lua? Check out this video for beginners. Tutorials for creating Lua scripts for Minetest are also available.

Need Help? Read the Wiki and Follow the Hashtags

You can find quite a bit of information in Minetest’s wiki. Minetest also has an active presence on social media networks. You can find a wealth of educators and others discussing #MineTestEdu and #MineTest.

This image and others below are courtesy of Olm-e.

These conversations are taking place on two popular social media networks. Find links below to see what others are crafting:

minetest

The Fediverse (a.k.a. Mastodon)

Twitter

Minetest WorldBuilding

Can’t afford Minecraft EDU for your school or lab? Check Minetest as an alternative. You can add Mineclone to Minetest via mods, and get a Minecraft-like experience. What’s more, you can take advantage of some powerful project ideas shared in the past. And, while you are unable to use Minecraft world seeds in Minetest, you can adapt some of the lesson and project ideas on Minecraft’s education site.

Feature Image Source

Image credit: https://mastodon.uy/@jorge/108153430975562511

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Baamboozle
Good TeachingWeb 2.0 Tool

Engage Your Students with Baamboozle

by Diana Benner
written by Diana Benner

Baamboozle is a web-based tool for creating fun and engaging games. As we all know, games serve an essential purpose in classrooms. They promote the idea that learning is fun, and they enable teachers to reinforce concepts and involve all student in the learning process. Are you ready to Baamboozle your students?

Benefits of Baamboozle

The great thing about Baamboozle is that there are so many benefits to using it in the classroom. Look at a few below:

  • Questions are never in the same order and are pulled from a bank of questions that you create. Therefore, no two games are alike.
  • The games can be customized to meet your student’s needs. For example, you can set a timer. Time limits help keep students focused on the task at hand. Be sure to check out these online timers. You can also allow your students a chance to pass on certain questions.
  • Students can create team names, which promotes team building. You can then edit the game you create to include the team names.
  • The game can be easily projected on a screen in your room which means that your students do not have to have a device to play the game.
  • Students do not need accounts or codes to play the game.
  • The games are easy to create. Furthermore, there are thousands of games already created by other teachers that are available to play whenever you want. Visit the built-in library of games and play one to try it out.

Creating a Game

To create a game, you will need to sign up for a Baamboozle account at https://www.baamboozle.com/. Once you have created an account, follow the steps below to build your first game:

  1. Click on the My Games tab.
  2. Select New Game and add the details. Make note that you cannot hide your game with the free version.  
  3. Click Make Game.
  4. Add your questions, answers, and point values. Multiple choice questions are not available on the free versions.
  5. Click Close once you are done adding all your questions.

Playing a Game

To play a game, select the game you want to want to play. Then, follow the steps below:

  1. Click Play.
  2. Customize your play options by selecting how many teams you have.
  3. Next, select the game mode you want. You can choose Quiz, Classic, or Classic Jr.
  4. Students will take turns choosing questions. They will say the answer and then you select the Check button to check the answer.
  5. If the answer is correct, click OK. If the answer is not correct, click Oops.

Another great feature is the ability to view any game in Study Mode. Use Study Mode to view each question as a flashcard. Share the link to any game with your students so they can review concepts.

Free Basic Plan

The basic plan is free to use. Who doesn’t like free? I know I do. Here is what you get with the free version:

  • Create your own games
  • Make one folder
  • Upload 1 MB images
  • Play with four teams
  • Add up to 24 questions per game

Baamboozle+ offers more features for $59.88/year, which is not a bad price.

Give Baamboozle a try. Create a quick lesson review or create a vocabulary building game. Your students will be engaged.

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Fall maple leaves with Happy Thanksgiving.
Web 2.0 Tool

Thanksgiving Digital Resources

by Peggy Reimers
written by Peggy Reimers

If you have ever watched daytime television, you know one tagline is “take a little time to enjoy the view.” With Thanksgiving squashed between the pumpkin spice of Halloween and the eggnog of Christmas, let’s take a little time to savor Thanksgiving with a cornucopia of tantalizing treats for your students at school, your teachers in the faculty workroom, or your family members on a Zoom call. 

Thanksgiving Brackets and Randomizers

Thanksgiving Randomizer with 4 categories. On display are the principal, the last donut, Thanksgiving Day, and in a corn maze.
Screenshot by author.

Flippity takes a Google sheet and converts it into all kinds of useful things. You can make flashcards, PD certificates, and digital badges for students. In my opinion, the most fun Flippity tools are the quiz show, Tournament Bracket, and the new Flippity Randomizer. 

If you are looking for a story starter or a creative writing prompt for students themed around school and Thanksgiving, then this who, what, when, and where randomizer can get the creative juices flowing. Check out the randomizer (above) I created for this holiday season.

You have heard of the NCAA brackets for March Madness. Now, with Flippity, you can design a bracket challenge for Thanksgiving. Check out the pre-made bracket I designed here for the holiday that you can play with your family or students. The bracket will determine the winner of – Which food could I do without on my Thanksgiving plate? Or you could flip this around and say, What food could I not live without on my Thanksgiving plate? 

An example of the Thanksgiving bracket with pumpkin pie vs. cornbread, brussel sprouts vs. cranberry sauce, etc.
Screenshot by author.

Bingo

Thanks to my friend Janet Corder, who showed me how you can easily create online bingo games with Bingo Baker. There are tons of Thanksgiving games available. It’s free or you can pay $24.95 for a lifetime of additional features like unlimited bingo card printing/ online play, privacy control, unlimited image uploads, and a real-time game dashboard. Turkey points to Bingo Baker as you can either print cards or play online, have a call list provided online or printed, and have access to a five-step set of directions to get you started. 

Here is what a Thanksgiving Bingo Game looks: bingobaker.com#3526934

The Wheel of Fortune Thanksgiving

An example of the wheel of names spinner with jumbled up thanksgiving words, such as eat, turkey, corn, etc.
Screenshot by author.

Try out an online wheel spinner for scrambled up spelling words or team up for the fastest scrambler in the west (or south, north or east) Try spinning the wheel in a Zoom or Meet video chat and see which student, family member, or school faculty can unscramble the word first and type the word correctly in the chat. Here is the one I created for you on the Wheel of Names website complete with autumn hues. 

Gobble Gobble Digital Breakout

This one’s not only a fun challenge, but it’s filled with interesting facts about the holiday. Did you know Benjamin Franklin wanted the turkey, which he called “a respectable bird,” to be our national animal instead of the bald eagle? Or that Thanksgiving became a national holiday due, in large part, to one pioneering woman? Jump in, learn even more, and see if you can break out! Access the Gobble Gobble Breakout here.

Thanksgiving Jokes

Why did the elves ask the turkey to join the band?

Answer: Because he had the drumsticks!

Those wanting to bring in a little humor can check out these Turkey Jokes and Thanksgiving Jokes.

The Little Gobblers

For your pre-schoolers, check out the Little Bins, Little Hands website for fun Thanksgiving STEM activities and science experiments. There are 21 different activities, but just know the site is busy and has a bunch of ads. But my favorite activity here is the Coffee Filter Turkeys or the Magical Dancing Corn.

Fall Challenge Board

Erik Murray has been releasing Challenge Boards on a variety of topics: STEAM at Home, Healthy Mind, Healthy Body, ELA-LEGO, and Math-LEGO. And, of course, he has released a Fall LEGO Activities Board. Don’t worry; you can adjust activities to work without LEGOs or a robot. 

A turkey playing a guitar with 5 trees in the background and clouds in the sky.
Screenshot by author.

No Naked Turkeys

If you have built an online Jack-O-Lantern with Eric Curts from Control Alt Achieve, check out my Dress Up a Turkey. It’s a fun way to be creative and learn how to use the arrange and rotate tool in Google Slides. Make a copy of the template here.

Can’t Stop a Parade

The 94th Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade will be held this year, but with major changes. No spectators will be standing along the shortened parade route and no marching bands will perform. The parade is switching to a television-only presentation. No worry though as there will still be larger-than-life balloons, floats, and Santa Claus. Check out their website  for details and parade history.

This is also a time when colonial America, Native Americans, and early American history can fit nicely into the curriculum. A ton of resources can be found here. If you would like to spice up your school day with virtual reality field trips for the fall season, this blog post is a must. 

There are some great pixel art activities in Google Drawings available in this blog.

And as always, email Peggy at preimers@tcea.org and I will share activity lists, answers, and a Kahoot! bonus of tantalizing Thanksgiving trivia. Happy pumpkin spice, turkey gravy, and eggnog season!

More Thanksgiving Resources

Ready-to-Use Thanksgiving Resources

Give Thanks with Google Forms

Gratitude Activities for You and Your Students

Native American Heritage Day

Gratitude Towers for Social-Emotional Learning

The Gobble Gobble Breakout

Tips, Tricks, and Tech Tidbits: Thanksgiving Resources, Names, Templates, and More

Featured Image: Photo by Anthony Lee on Unsplash

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breakouts
Web 2.0 Tool

Spooky Breakouts and Games

by Peggy Reimers
written by Peggy Reimers

Some educators dread Halloween. The consequences of a late night mixed with a sugar crash make for quite a day in the classroom. You just never know what you’re going to walk into that day!

But I know from personal experience, we as educators will make the best of any situation. So dust off the cobwebs, break out the candy corn and let’s get our BOO on with some activities and breakouts for you and your students. Most can be played in your classroom with social distancing or adapted virtually. And teachers, if your own Halloween party is going virtual, many of these will work for family and adult fun.

Digital Breakouts

Tricker or Treat Header with Are you dreaming about your full trick or treat bag with all the goodies? You have 45 minutes, to solve the Trick or Treat Breakout and then you can dive into all your sweets and treats! Ready Set Boo!
Screenshot by author.

Try out my brand-spanking-new Halloween digital breakout, The Trick or Treat Breakout. Don’t forget you can always email me for the digital lock answers or any activity answers at preimers@tcea.org. If you are new to digital breakouts, read the getting-started information on a previous blog.

You almost might want to try out my original Halloween Breakout, The Boo Breakout. Since September 2017, more than 3,600 students and teachers have solved this breakout. 

Would You Rather?

Would You Rather Halloween Header with orange and yellow question marks.
Screenshot by author.

At a TCEA staff meeting, our Executive Director opened with a Would You Rather team building activity. We each had our own WYR statement. We announced our pick and followed up with the reason(s) why for the selection. It was a lot of fun to learn about my colleague’s choices, so I turned this idea into a Halloween-themed event. You can view the slide deck here or get your own copy of the game here.

Halloween Charades

4 Halloween charades cards: candy, fangs, mask, and trick or treat bag.
Screenshot by author.

I can definitely see charades working on a virtual platform. You could even shout things out while pantomiming because your microphone would be muted. I think this might help my acting abilities. My Halloween charades game contains 36 words or phrases to guess, along with a section of Double Trouble words (just in case you need a challenge.)

Make a copy here.

Halloween-Inspired Synonyms Challenge

Halloween Synonyms Google Form.
Screenshot by author.

When teaching writing to my fourth graders, we talked about overused words like “pretty,” “run,” “eat,” and “walk” that can be spiffed up. I still remember pinning word wheels to my classroom ceiling (back in the pre-Google years!) so my students had access to synonyms. But oh what a pain to take them all down for the standardized writing test.

Check out a Halloween Synonyms Challenge to boost your spooky letter combinations (just another way to say “words”). This could easily be incorporated in an upper elementary or middle school language arts class.

Oldies But Goodies – Guessing and Trivia

I wanted to share a couple more activities I played back in the day with my elementary students. The first,  Name That Costume, is where I read out loud a list of clothing articles and props to my class. My students had pen and paper to guess the costumes. Another game we played was a Halloween Trivia Challenge. This has a little bit of a twist to your typical trivia challenge. In my opinion, there is nothing more frustrating than trying to answer trivia questions if you have no clue – very discouraging. Instead, I gave each student a multiple choice answer sheet with four options with the occasional silly answer blended in for some humor. Make a copy here.

Create the Right Ambience

The Novel Effect app is available in the iOS App store or Google Play. The app contains music and sounds for tons of children’s books and poems. According to the email I just received, Novel Effect is announcing, “FAB-BOO-LOUS New Releases) when it comes to the creepy and the crawly literature. Check out their website.

Want to add music to an activity, silent reading or writing time, or while taking on breakouts? Ambient Mixer is the place to get 57,000 free sound track mixes. If you are a Harry Potter fan, here is the mixer list for you. Check out Lori Gracey’s blog  “The Perfect Music to Read By” for more details. 

May you all have a safe and happy Halloween. And as always, if you have questions or need answers, please email me at preimers@tcea.org.

Image by Larisa Koshkina from Pixabay

More Digital Breakouts

Featured Image created by author in Google Slides.

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naraview
Content AreasWeb 2.0 Tool

Naraview: The Wikipedia-Powered Game Maker

by Miguel Guhlin
written by Miguel Guhlin

Ever wish you could take plain old Wikipedia entries and make them a bit more exciting? While many teachers eschew Wikipedia as a valid source of information, it is an everyman’s encyclopedia. But a challenging aspect of Wikipedia is its text-heavy format. How do you encourage students and others to pore through it? The answer is easy. Make it into a game. In this blog entry, we’ll explore a fun tool, Naraview, that turns Wikipedia entries into a learning expedition.

Naraview is my 6th graders favorite way to rev up their brains at the beginning of a lesson. It opens their thought process towards the topic of the day in an active game that doesn’t stress learning. At the end of each game they have new knowledge to share that they stumbled upon on their Naraview journey. Creating endless relevant classroom dicussions – what more can a teacher ask for? (Source: Inbal Franco-Veig, English Teacher, Naraview website)

Meet Naraview

With its simple interface, Naraview offers you the opportunity to create a learning journey. You search for the title of a Wikipedia entry as the starting point. Then, you type in the title of the end point article. The distance between the two is one of discovery.

To create your Naraview journey, follow these directions:

  1. Choose a Wikipedia article to start your journey. You may add a question or let Naraview offer a generic one.
  2. Naraview will send you an email, as well as display a code you can share with students.
  3. Players log in to the game with a nickname and the code and then navigate through the articles in Wikipedia.

The goal of the game is to offer you, as the teacher, a glimpse into students’ thinking.

Did You Know?

Sign up for one of our Google Certified Educator certifications. You’ll learn about more than Google Meet, as well as earn 12 CPE hours per course. Use these courses to get Google Educator certified. Find out more online.

Creating a Game

Creating a game is simple. When you get to the Naraview website, you click on CREATE NEW GAME button. Then, enter your first topic. At first, I tried to copy and paste a link to the article. That will not work. Instead, search on the title of the article you want to find. For example, my starting article was “World War I.”
naraview

Your next step is to agree to the terms of service, then click NEXT to enter the destination. This is as simple as step 1, starting point.
naraview

Your last step is to move to add a question. You can type your own question or pick one from the drop-down list.

naraview

Once you’re done, you can share the code with students, as shown below:

naraview

Playing the Naraview Game

Once the game has been created, students will visit the website and enter their nickname and code:

naraview

Students will then begin the game:

naraview

Their goal is to review materials and respond to questions:

naraview

As students play the game, exploring links, the teacher gets to see how students navigate various Wikipedia entries. Naraview presents this journey as a bubble map:

naraview

The game ends only when a student finds their way to the destination page. Upon achieving it, Naraview lets the student know:

naraview

The teacher is notified in the dashboard:

naraview

naraview

Ever Exploring

Need an activity that taps into the natural curiosity of learners? Naraview offers that level of engagement. While some students who may dislike reading may find this tedious or boring, I found the level of frustration spurring me on. What link would connect me to my final destination?

Have you use Naraview, tools like it, or played similar games? Let us know in the comments!

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game design
Coding/Computer ScienceSTEM/STEAM

How to Make Game Design Child’s Play

by Miguel Guhlin
written by Miguel Guhlin

On cable television this past weekend, one of my favorite trilogies found its way into my heart again. I’m not sure what it is about The Hunger Games that gets the tears flowing. I suspect it may be as a result of reading the books. “You imagine your daughter in the role of the main character,” says my wife. She may be right. As I watched the evil President Snow brag on his game-makers to save him, the term “game-makers” stuck in my mind. In this blog entry, we’ll explore a few ways you can raise up some game-makers of your own.

Game Design

After all, game-makers play a powerful role in The Hunger Games. The whole idea of changing life into a game you play to survive has its appeal. Author Daniel Suarez captured this in his techno-thrillers, Daemon and Freedom. All science-fiction aside, game-making is now child’s play.

To be a game-maker, you have to know how to code, to strategize, and to plan big. More importantly, you have to know how to create a meaningful story. Let’s take a quick look at what game design is all about:

Game design is a subset of the field of video game development. Relying on several fields of study, the skills of a game designer are specific to computer science and programming, creative writing, and graphic design.

Designers take the creative lead in imagining and bringing to life game elements. Those elements include video game stories, characters, gameplay, rules, interfaces, dialogue and environments. The game designer is a cross between a writer, artist and programmer. It is a person who presents a comprehensive artistic vision.

The designer must have the technical skill to lead or contribute to various efforts. Those efforts include programming, image rendering, level design. Also, digital editing and other construction aspects of game design. (source)

How can teachers scaffold young learners’ design efforts? One approach may be to introduce them to game creation tools that are less about coding, yet ensure that game design efforts and activities are possible.

Introducing Giphy Arcade

While several design environments (e.g. Microsoft’s Minecraft) come to mind, why not take a look at Giphy Arcade? Giphy (makers of the animated GIF search engine) has created an arcade that includes a variety of mini-games or “microgames.” With Giphy Arcade, you can play existing games on any device.

More exciting for young game designers, you can remix these microgames because each aspect of the game is cutomizable. Giphy Arcade offers templates and stickers to start with. While making a game is child’s play, teaching game design can be quite powerful for learners.

You can find several templates for action in the game. You’ll get to choose your hero, background, and soundtrack.

The Game Design Process and Rapid Prototyping

You can find many different design processes online. It would be important to settle on some process to introduce your students to. For example, this game design process presents some interesting stages. Imagine cooperative groups of students working to design a game.

Watch video overview of the Game Design Process expressed in the image below:

Image Source: https://www.gamecareerguide.com/features/1415/the_game_design_process.php

Another key aspect of game design is failing fast to succeed faster. Rapid prototyping is a must in game design.

A good rapid prototyper would realize that failure is ok! That’s what prototyping is for, so go crazy! If you fail, there will be dozens more, and chances are, you’ll learn something anyway. By embracing the possibility of failure, rewarding experimentation becomes possible.(Source)

Ready to get started?

TCEA Starquest

Here’s a quick game I put together. I didn’t engage in the whole process, or I would have made some changes (e.g. pigs are not the bad guys). That aside, creating this simple game was quite fun and easy.

Play the game at the Giphy Arcade.

Child’s Play

Game-making is child’s play. Game design offers us the opportunity as educators to combine various important elements and can engage students while offering the opportunity for direct instruction. Give it a try at Giphy Arcade.

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Educational TrendsGood Teaching

Battle Royale: Gaming in Schools

by Miguel Guhlin
written by Miguel Guhlin

Accidental learning, the kind of informal learning that takes place in online games, is now the rule. The risks of gameplay are low and the opportunities for collaboration high. Why not use online games like Fortnite to teach collaboration in schools? Let’s explore a topic that so often results in a battle royale: gaming in schools.

What is Fortnite?

If you have missed the buzz about this online shooter game, Variety magazine sums it up in this way:

The wildly popular game “Fortnite Battle Royale,” an online shooter in which 100 players fight to the death on a cartoonish island arena, is entering the world of higher education. Ohio’s Ashland University announced this week that it’ll be the first college in the U.S. to offer scholarships specifically for the game.

Academic institutions offering scholarships for virtual skill development (learn more about eSports in Education). Is that the best approach to encouraging learning? Stephen Reid, an advocate of Minecraft: Education Edition for use in schools, says (Source):

  • “Fortnite is not the kind of game we should be trying to use in education! I do not advocate Fortnite as #GamesBasedLearning.”
  • “I worry that a lot of parents are letting their children play it because they see cartoon images.”

Reid challenges us all to ask an important question: “Do we want students learning collaboration as they hunt and kill others?” Dr. Harrison McCoy is in agreement with Reid and expressed dismay about promoting the use of Fortnite in school. Read the twitter conversation.

Special Feature: Dr. Harrison McCoy offered more extended reflections. Those will be included as a comment on this blog entry. Thank you, Dr. McCoy!

Meanwhile, others suggest there are real benefits to using games for learning.

Learning from Failure?

In 2006, I blogged about how John Seelye Brown described accidental learning in this way:

It’s learning to be – a natural byproduct of adjusting to a new culture – as opposed to learning about. Where traditional learning is based on the execution of carefully graded challenges, accidental learning relies on failure. Virtual environments are safe platforms for trial and error. The chance of failure is high, but the cost is low and the lessons learned are immediate.

Brown points to the collaboration benefits as well.

When role-playing gamers team up to undertake a quest, they often need to attempt particularly difficult challenges repeatedly until they find a blend of skills, talents, and actions that allows them to succeed. This process brings about a profound shift in how they perceive and react to the world around them. They become more flexible in their thinking and more sensitive to social cues.

Students are often more engaged in online games than at school. Our collective fixation on high stakes assessments has distracted us from engaging learning. Research suggests we should focus on what works.

What Does the Research Say?

The research firm Demos discussed this phenomenon in 2007. The report, entitled “Their Space: Education for a Digital Generation,” remains relevant. The authors suggest that moral panic is normal. We experience it when coming in contact with new technology. Instead of hysteria, however, we should encourage learners to reflect on their burgeoning media literacy. That effort could happen at school. The authors also suggest blending collaborative projects into instruction.

Demos isn’t alone. In a 2018 publication, a leading university drew similar conclusions. Stanford experts suggested that games support robust learning practices. Those include teamwork, strategic thinking, spatial understanding, and imagination (Source: Stanford). A 2018 study asserts the following:

Researchers have found no evidence to support the theory that video games make players more violent.

Science Daily (2015) reported violent video games are not linked to aggression. In 2014, Ohio University found other results. Researchers found gamers, like non-gamers, had the same neural response to provocative images (Source). It is too easy to blame our creations, our tools and instruments, for our own failings. Gun violence has affected more than 187,000 students since Columbine. What steps should we take in schools?

Gaming in School?

Decide first how to best engage your students. Should you rely on gamification of learning? Or game-based learning (GBL)? The former relies on using game design techniques. Gamifying makes the learning process more enjoyable and motivating (e.g. Classcraft).

The latter approach (GBL) relies on students playing games. Some examples include Minecraft: Education Edition and Cignition in class. Rather than adding badges and rewards, GBL uses video games to teach a subject or skill itself. Students learn to think in a critical manner, solving authentic problems for themselves.

Strategies you can adopt include:

  • Align game types with learning outcomes
  • Turn learning and knowledge into the clue
  • Apply proven effective instructional strategies (e.g. Marzano’s Nine Strategies) to game design
  • Guide the gamer to achieve goals
  • Make the game immersive
  • Provide enough challenges

“I’d like to see curriculum that offers a set of problems with a very good mechanic to solve them. [it should be] connected to social activities and participation spaces in and out of school,” says John Paul Gee. This allows students to “be proactive and take it further, learn collaboratively, and even learn to design.”

Ready to Adopt GBL?

Before jumping to adopt game-based learning based on Fortnite, first inventory your biases. Mine are easy. I’ve been a gamer since age thirteen. My son plays Fortnite, narrowcasting his gameplay via Twitch. I see little evidence of game violence manifesting in our lives. Set boundaries, craft a class contract, and assess participation.

Second, ask yourself, “Is the design of a game easy to adapt to learning objectives?” In the case of Fortnite, game design may not be overcome due to the amount of peer slaying that is central to play. Rely on game engines that can be adapted to learning objectives.

Third, decide “How have you involved stakeholders (parents, administrators) in the curriculum development process?” Without their involvement and their support, you are setting yourself up for failure. Brave educators have adopted game-based learning before, but society often expresses itself in schools. For some communities, game-based learning has arrived. For others, not so much. Make sure your enthusiasm doesn’t result in a battle royale in your school.

Have an Opinion?

I would love to hear other opinions on this issue. Share your professional remarks in the comments or link to your blogged remarks.

 

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Good TeachingMicrosoft Tips and Tricks

Our 2017 Microsoft Resource Roundup

by Miguel Guhlin
written by Miguel Guhlin

It’s that time of year again. The holiday season is here and soon 2018 will be upon us. However, before we jump ahead to 2018, let’s review some of the great Microsoft resources from 2017 on our blog that you might have missed. From Photos to Minecraft to OneDrive and all of the tools in between, these are resource-rich posts that you simply must read!

Our 2017 Microsoft Resource Roundup

Below, you will find a roundup of 2017 blog posts relevant to Microsoft divided into several categories.

Learning in Motion

Supporting Classroom Connections and Creativity

  • Creating Six-Word Memoirs: Student creation of six-word memoirs can help form powerful connections to learning. Discover some technology resources to help them.
  • HyperNotes? Use HyperDocs with MS Office 365: Take Hyperdocs to the next level by creating hypernotes with MS Office 365 or OneNote and ensure that students have access to the information they need.
  • Checklists: Scaffolding Metacognitive Awareness: Available on all devices, Microsoft OneNote brings a host of features to the table. In addition to all the features that Google Keep has (albeit with no reminders feature or grab image text in the free OneNote version), OneNote has many more. Recently, it underwent a radical simplification from OneNote 2016 to the free OneNote app.
  • Creative Commons: Make OER Copyright Simple: Open Educational Resources and Creative Commons licensing have truly opened up the world of publishing and free resources for students and their teachers. Microsoft Onenote can be one of the digital textbook creation tools you and your students use.
  • Podcasting with Microsoft Sway: Podcasting is an amazing way for students to showcase their learning. Use Microsoft Sway and you have a final product that is beautiful and easy to do.
  • Enhancing Parental Access with OneNote Class Notebook: Microsoft listens to teachers and adds three new features. One of the notable features includes enhanced parent access to student work in OneNote.
  • Multimedia ELL Assessments: Using technology for multimedia assessment makes sense. And with OneNote, teachers can easily make Anecdotal Records Assessments for ELL students.
  • Visualizing Our Understanding with Graphic Organizers: Visualizing our learning is a powerful way to ensure retention of what has been learned, and graphic organizers make that happen.

Scaffolding Learning with Minecraft: Education Edition

  • Five Steps to Game-based Learning with Minecraft: If you want to effectively begin using game-based learning with your students and ensure engagement, there’s no better way to start than with Minecraft.
  • Minecraftian Strategies with Marzano: New trends in educational technology can easily work with the research from Marzano on classroom instruction that works and Minecraft: Education Edition.
  • Fantastic Voyage-Minecraft Lesson Planning: Add project-based learning components to these Minecraft lesson plans and see learning and engagement soar in your classroom.
  • Virtual Space Construction Workers: If you are an eligible school district, learn how to get Minecraft: Education Edition FREE for one year with a new Windows 10 device.
  • Creating Worlds of Tomorrow: Wish you had a digital assistant to help you build a virtual world? Now you do. Minecraft: Education Edition (also known as MCEE and in use in 100 countries) now has a mod known as Code Builder, which makes building and creating in the online virtual world as easy as drag and drop.
  • Designing Minecraft Spaces: Encouraging students to design Minecraft spaces allows them to ponder the possibilities of changing their physical world as well.

Tips for Tools You Can Use

  • Seven Keys to Blended Learning: If you’re dipping a toe into the blended learning waters, here are some great ideas to take with you as you help students master core content.
  • Engaging Learners with Microsoft Forms: Dump those old paper rubrics and flip the learning! Empower yourself and your students to use Microsoft Forms for the quick evaluation of academic work. This makes grading easy and simplifies the process for students. Let’s explore some ideas for using Microsoft Forms, as well as review Forms features, in the classroom and/or for professional learning.
  • Windows Tips & Tricks: Want to make your Windows 10 device faster, safer, and smarter? These five tips with assorted tricks will get you started and moving in the right direction.
  • Five OneDrive Tips You Can’t Live Without: Looking for ways to increase your productivity and save time? These five tips for OneDrive, a free resource, can help.
  • Use OneDrive to Back Up Your iOS Camera: Need to backup your iOS photos and videos? Consider using OneDrive as an easy way to store, interact with, and share your camera roll.
  • Get Organized-Productivity Tips for Onenote:  Need help organizing the vast mounds of paperwork generated by your campus? Try using OneNote and the chore becomes a breeze.
  • New PowerPoint Translator Makes Captioning Possible: Accessible learning becomes a reality with Microsoft’s newest offering. See how making same language subtitles make learning accessible.
  • No More Death by Powerpoint: PowerPoint doesn’t have to mean a boring presentation. Learn some new ways to keep your audience engaged and even moved during your presentations.
  • More Free Powerpoint Templates: Find the perfect template to ensure that your presentation is a powerful story that resonates with your audience and achieves your desired goals.
  • Digitizing Paper: In this blog, learn about four powerful tools for iOS to use when you’re ready to digitize the papers in your classroom or office. Office Lens became my new favorite free app, not only because you can scan to a variety of online spaces, but because it now includes immersive reader.
  • Farewells, Docs.com, Hello Enhanced Onenote, Forms and Flows: Learn about the latest Microsoft updates to OneNote, Forms, and Flow and the ending of Docs.com in this must-read blog for MS fans.

Deepening Professional Learning

  • Get Current on Tech Learning: Need to update your college learning? Avoid paying expensive college course fees. In this TCEA Responds, we explore how to make lifelong learning possible, including the Microsoft Education Community.
  • Gamifying OneNote Learning: Take your professional learning to a new and fun-filled level with this game board on OneNote. Gamification makes it easy to master new skills!

Wrap Up

As we move into 2018, don’t forget to stay tuned to more fabulous posts on our 2017 EdTech’s Must-Read K-12 IT Blog! In addition, be sure to join our email list to ensure the hottest new content gets delivered right to your inbox.

 

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Educational TrendsGood Teaching

Five Easy Tips to Engage in Game-Based Learning

by Guest Blogger
written by Guest Blogger

Gone are the days when learning meant simply reading through text material. With interactive games and swanky gadgets, learning has not only become easy, but interactive and fun as well!

Besides virtual tours, field days, and other methods of breaking down classroom walls, game-based learning has become one of the most popular ways of learning in recent years. And it’s easy to see why. Research shows that game-based learning provides advantages by being highly engaging, providing learners with immediate feedback, and allowing students to more easily translate learning to a real-world environment. So how do you bring game-based learning into your classroom? There are several things you must consider. You need to think as a gamer first and foremost and learn how to adopt game principles to a learning context.

Here are five tips to get start your classroom on the path to game-based learning success!

1. Choose the Right Game

There are different types of games, from puzzles to adventure games to board games. Before laying your hands on all of them, it is imperative that you analyse them and pick the most suitable one. This will depend on the scenario and on the learning outcomes. 

A puzzle-type might be appropriate if you’re trying to build problem-solving skills. These also make good ice breakers! Here are some examples to try. A quiz style game can be helpful if you want to see how much students have retained after a lesson. Quizizz or Kahoot! are good sources for creating game-based assessments. There are also simulation games that can help students learn a skill or experience something they might not be able to do in real life. For example, if you are teaching a biology class, your students can practice dissecting animals to learn about how their bodies work. You can even find games to help students develop their coding skills!

2. Fuse Learning with Real-World Situations

Choosing a game that replicates real-world situations for the gamer will help them get the most out of the learning. This also gives the gamer positive reinforcement as he can see how his problem-solving skills or knowledge can lead to improved results. The gamer sees how she can connect the game to real life and uses the same strategies for success. Thus, it becomes a repetitive behavior transferable to her working environment.

3. Empower the Gamer

As with any game, in game-based learning, the learners should know the course of action and the consequences of their actions. This helps them make informed decisions. They can learn from their mistakes and build on their successes. Without this agency, your gamer will be put off and be less likely to continue to pursue the game. Giving the gamer agency also encourages them to take chances and be empowered in other aspects of learning. They will learn to ask questions, try, fail, and try again. 

4. Let Them Be Part of the Game

To maximise the results, the gamer should be made part of the game instead of being only the one who controls the characters. Doing this will not only improve the experience, but improve the results as well. For example, you can let the game player become the game maker. This helps them understand how a game works and empowers them with their own ability to create content. There are a number of resources that you can use with students to help them create their own games. 

5. Keep Game-Based Learning “Just Right”

The game must be challenging, but not so challenging as to discourage learners. At the beginning of the game, let the gamer get used to the environment. As the game progresses, increase the level of challenge. If the gamer doesn’t face any challenges, she will not engage and, as a result, will lose interest. However, don’t underestimate your students’ abilities. One of the best things about game-based learning is that it is easy to scaffold for different levels. Make sure to supply some true challenges for your strongest game players to take on. 

Do you have any favorite tools, tips, or resources for game-based learning? We hope you’ll share them in the comments below.

This is a guest blog by Farid Gasim. Farid is the founder of Edarabia.com and has extensive experience in serving the Middle East education industry. As an integral part of media agency, Grafdom, Farid has developed marketing strategies for institutions and government agencies. He is a notable speaker with over 12 years of marketing expertise and numerous public engagements at New York University, Zayed University, Higher Colleges of Technology and other industry events and forums.

 

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Good TeachingSocial-Emotional Learning

Helping Students Cope with Trauma Following Natural Disasters

by Guest Blogger
written by Guest Blogger

This blog post draws on my experiences and lessons learned from working during the recovery phase of hurricane Katrina in New Orleans in 2005. In the wake of Harvey’s impact on much of Southeast Texas, I wanted to share what I’ve learned about how disasters affect students. Disasters are calamitous events, traumatic and outside the scope of normal human experiences. They are likely to involve psychological and physical injury. Disasters uniquely affect children because they are affected not only by the trauma of the event, but also by their parents’ fear and distress. When disasters strike, it disrupts the functioning of schools, communities, families, and children’s’ development. The recovery phase of the disaster can impact students’ future development and may contribute to weak academic achievement moving forward as the students acclimate to the new normal.

The Long-Term Effects of Trauma on Students

Studies show that childhood exposure to traumatic events can have a profound long-term impact on mental and physical health, high school graduation, and poverty. Stress is inflicted on the developing brain, which can impact social-emotional well-being and force children into survival mode. While a child’s natural response to this trauma may result in difficulty paying attention or regulating emotions, it can often be overlooked or misunderstood. This can lead to school suspensions, poor student achievement, or escalation of conflicts. Today, too few children who experience traumatic events are identified and supported with the right care. Thus, they are more likely to have behavioral issues at school including detentions, suspensions, expulsions, or dropping out. Learning cannot take place while the child is stuck in a survival mode, and treatment cannot begin until the problem has been properly identified.

Seven Tips for Teachers as You Return to the Classroom

  1. Teachers must be aware of their own stress. The disaster did not just impact students, but everyone, including teachers and staff.
  2. Teachers should be aware students may now react differently to sights, sounds, and smells as these may bring the student back to a traumatic moment.
  3. Teachers should understand they may have to move slower with material as everyone may find it difficult to focus upon returning to the classroom.
  4. It’s okay to let students know how you feel and felt.
  5. Student reactions may seem out of sync with situations. For example, they may cry, fight, suddenly leave the classroom, or freeze. Be patient and give them space, recognizing that they are not personally attacking you, but are instead reacting out of unconscious fight/flight/freeze reactions.
  6. Remember when students return to their former schools, their fellow students and former teachers may not be there, due to injury or displacement. This may be deeply unsettling to students.
  7. If your classroom has new students due to displacement, they may experience bullying, peer victimization, isolation, or other negative ramifications.

Kids Can Be a Powerful Force

To mitigate the future effects of disasters, the United Nations and other groups contend that children must be active in disaster preparedness and risk reduction and educated on resilience. This is crucial because children are the single biggest group affected by disasters across the world and thus, have a heavy stake in terms of preparedness and risk reduction. Engaging youth is an integral step in preparing the nation for all hazards. Youth have a unique ability to influence their peers and families to be more resilient and can play an important role in disaster preparedness during and after a crisis. Kids are seen as a trusted source of information. They are also good messengers and can play special roles in communicating preparedness information to their communities, friends, and family, especially in families where English is a second language. Here are three reasons why youth are a powerful force in helping prepare for disasters:

  • Youth who are trained in preparedness are more resilient in actual disasters.
  • Youth are highly-effective messengers for reaching and influencing parents and other adults.
  • Youth who are engaged today will ensure a future generation of prepared adults.

Disaster and Trauma-Informed Game-Based Learning  

A panel of educational experts at Stanford University concluded that using game applications as educational tools provides opportunities for deeper learning, especially when it comes to understanding the affects of disasters. Traditional classrooms can sometimes stifle the attributes most crucial for learning. Game-based learning and educational applications helps to develop non-cognitive skills that are as fundamental as cognitive skills in explaining how we learn and if we succeed. Those non-cognitive skills – that is, not what you know, but how you behave –are far more important in emergency situations than non-threatening situations. Games can provide a better way for students to attain and retain knowledge that is useful in emergencies. Knowledge is not the sole tool we want in emergency situations. The value of having knowledge is knowing how to make choices using that knowledge. Engagement knowledge is paramount as the frequency of disasters increases.

Are you looking for games to help your students develop engagement knowledge? Some places to find disaster literacy game-based learning tools and exercises are at the Department of Homeland Security’s Ready.gov, the App Store, and Microsoft Skype for the Classroom. You can access free Skype lesson plans here. You can also check out this series of books designed for children to master hurricane preparedness.

This is a guest blog by Kenneth Bibbins, who is the Founder and CEO of PrepWorld LLC. On July 25, 2017 PrepBiz LLC announced the release of Hopper’s Hurricane Adventure, the first in a series of unique children’s books aimed at preparing youth ages 5-9 for natural and human-caused disasters. The Adventures of Hopper series books were designed to familiarize children with disaster risks and help vulnerable youth to better cope and make informed decisions during real-life situations.

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