Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “Customizable Educational Computer Games Overview”.
In this article, we’re gon na tackle the topic of games in education, using games for teaching and learning, and in this particular video, the focus I’m gon na take is strictly on the teacher creating games that will help his or her students to learn a particular subject. Area now, of course, you could have students make those games as well. The students could make games for each other to play and, of course, there’s a whole other topic of students building their own computer games from scratch, and I do have a video on that topic. Already – and I hope to make more in the future, you can use tools like scratch.
That’S the name of one of the tools, there’s a multimedia fusion that can help you to do the same kinds of things and several other options. Game press is one that I’ve made. A video for tiny tap is another pretty easy example.
That’S pretty exciting, so I hope you’ll check out the videos I’ve made already on those topics, but in this article today it’s more about creating a teaching and learning computer game, and you can see this logo that I have here games and learning. I got it from this website games and learning org. If you want to learn more about some of the potential of using games in education, this is an interesting website to go to and read and learn more about the topic. So this particular video is actually a little different than some of the ones I’ve done in the past.
You’Re gon na get an overview of just a few tools that are out there that I have used in the past that I think, are great, but I’m also hoping for lots of feedback from you a lot of times. I post a video and it gets lots of views and it gets a few likes and things like that, but I don’t get sometimes a lot of feedback in return and I hope I’ll get some in response to this particular video. Because, to be honest, I’m not very happy with the quality of the options out there right now for developing quick games that are educational. So, if you know of great resources that are out there, please post it in the comments.
Please share it with other viewers and with me, and I would love to learn from you. So let’s take a look at the first tool that I can recommend that I have used. It’S called class tools, net, it’s created by Russell Tarr, he’s an Angie cater, and I follow him on Twitter and in other ways, and I found his content to be always of good quality and interesting. So this is his website class tools net and it has several interesting tools for teachers like a random name picker. It’S also got a tool called fake book and there’s lots of other tools here: graphic organizers, there’s a countdown timer, so you should check out this website for more than just games, but take a look at the games that it does have. It’S got an interesting game that I have used several times called the dustbin game generator, and this is a category game when you click on it. What it does is you click start, and it gives you four category boxes. So, for example, I could go in here and I could type in noun and then I just hit tab and it moved me down to the next section I’ll call this verb hit.
Tab adjective hit tab adverb. Now, instead of hitting tab, you could just click with the mouse. So now that I’ve got four categories, and these could be any four categories that you want. You then need to click in the box underneath each category and type in some examples of items in that category, so for a noun house, car boat, New York, etc. I could go on and on next we have verb, jumping swimming skating, alright I’ll, stop there and give me a minute and I’ll put in some adverbs and adjectives. Okay, so I’ve got several items in each category now I can just click proceed now. If I want to, I could password protect this I’ll, just put a password in there and without knowing that password, you won’t be able to edit this game. The other thing I should do before I proceed is give this quiz or game a name, so I’ll click up there do select, all and or you could just delete it out and I’ll give it a name so parts of speech game.
Now I can click proceed and look what it does. It comes up with one of the items in one of my category lists. That’S a noun, so I put it in the noun dustbin or garbage can and I’m rewarded, because that’s the correct place, that’s an adjective.
That’S an adjective that’s a verb now, if I put it in the wrong place, it rejects it and notice that I am being timed, so it is possible to get a high score or to get some points for being extra fast, and so that’s the incentive for The students to try to hurry, give me a minute to finish playing this amazing game and then we’ll continue. Okay, when you finish, it gives you a game over. It shows your final score and you can play it again if you want to or what not.
If you want to edit the questions you have to know the password right, and so this is a categorizing game and it’s useful in lots of different subjects in school. You could use it in a language class. You could use it in math. All sorts of different topics, just depending on the categories that you put in, I think it’s very educational and it’s kind of fun now to make this available to your students, so they can play it. You just go down here where it says embed into blog or web page, just click that gear that’s there and it takes you to a screen that gives you some options for sharing this game so that it’s playable there’s a URL. I could just highlight that URL copy it. I could post it on a blog on a website. I could email it to people whatever, as long as they have. This link they’ll be able to play my game now.
If you have the ability to embed in your website, you could use this embed code, highlight it copy, it paste it and the game that you’ve just created will appear on that website or blog, where you paste it in to the HTML editor. So I’m gon na click. Okay, so this is one of the quickest easiest simplest ways to create an educational game online and yet it’s very beneficial. It helps students, practice and think and categorize different concepts and ideas, so great little game for free on this website class tools net. Now they also have some other games, you’ll notice that there’s a pac-man game.
This is a drill and practice kind of game. It’S great for memorization. I know we sometimes try to look down on memorization and on drill and practice, but there are certain content areas where you just can’t get around it. I mean in a math class.
It really does help to have your multiplication tables memorized. It really does help to have other math facts memorized same with foreign language. If you have the vocabulary: memorized you’re, just you’re, gon na speak better.
So this pac-man game the way it works. You just click on it, click create new game. You give it a title, putting questions and then after each question, you’ll notice that there’s an asterisk that separates the question from the possible answers.
You would put the correct answer immediately after the question and again keeping an asterisk between the two and then you can put another asterisk and put in incorrect answers if you’d like to after that. So anyway, just put those into this box submit it, and you’ve got a game that you can use with your students similar to that there’s some other games on this website. You can go here where it says, select or search for a template. You can also just browse down and find it below, but to save me some time, I’m just gon na click here and you’ll notice that there is something called the arcade game.
So you click on that arcade game and it’s the arcade game generator and what this does is you create a quiz put in the title put in the questions and again it’s question asterisk answer and then, when you’re done I’ll, just do this sample here, but when You’Re done it lets you play that game in one of several different ways. So, yes, you can play it as pac-man. You can play those questions in this manic. Miner game in word shoot pong, asteroids cannonball matching pairs, it’s kind of like concentration or memory, and then they also have flashcards.
Now some of these games are quirky ER and weirder than others like manic. Miner is a little strange honestly, but it is kind of fun and these are games that the students can play to help them practice their vocabulary. So let’s look at manic miner, just briefly I’ll click play the game starts up. I’M this miner in the lower right corner and I’m using the arrow keys on the keyboard to control that gentleman there.
If I push up, he jumps so left right and up. Those are my options notice. It says there’s a word here and I’m supposed to match up that word with what it means, so it means something, and I grab the word something okay. So the answer here is in the back, so I grabbed it eventually. You’Ll get enough correct answers that you want to get this key and then to finish the level you go to find that toilet, okay and you jump down the toilet. Don’T ask me why I didn’t make this game but kind of a fun little arcade game based on answering questions. Okay, so check out class tools net, it’s great for more than just games, but it’s got several games that you can create and then your students can play them now. A wonderful, similar tool that I used back in the day is called what to learn.
Comm – and you can see it’s a numeral two, and this has several arcade games that are editable and you can go in put in your questions and answers and back in the day this was a wonderful resource, completely free. Then it was purchased. I believe by that textbook company and they started charging for it, and my understanding is that it’s kind of on its last legs. I might be wrong about that.
I hope I am, but if you go now to sign up for this, whether you want to pay or want to do it for free notice that it says they’re not currently providing options for sign up. Okay, you can still go there and play games so Bo. Do searches for games and you should be able to find some fun games to play or have your students play, but it doesn’t seem like that. There’S an option now to make your own games when you go to make a game without an account. These don’t seem to be clickable. You can play an example game, but there doesn’t seem to be a way to create your own games so check out this website.
It used to be amazing, but it’s kind of lost some of its luster, at least for me, because I know I used to be able to make these games and create them and have my students play them and there were a lot of fun and very educational. The last website that I wanted to talk about is called super teacher tools dot us now. I think super teacher tools.
Com takes you to the same place, that’s the URL that I’m used to using for this website, but officially it’s now dot us like it says here you can review content with fun games and again the teacher or the students can make these games. I think most often the teacher would make them for the students to play, and this website is pretty similar, two class tools net. It has some of the same kinds of tools like a random name generator. It’S got a great group maker, seating chart maker, classroom, countdown, timer, classroom timer and some QR tools and by the way class tools. Net also has Q are tools that are kind of exciting, but the topic of this video today is games. So, let’s focus in on the games. This website super teacher tools. Us focuses on game, show type games, so you can see that there’s a jeopardy style review game, there’s also Who Wants to Be a Millionaire and then they’ve got an arcade kind of game called speed match. This is a great website to check into now and then to see what they have available.
Let’S just get a glimpse of some of these games and I did make a video tutorial in the past about the Jeopardy maker, I’m just gon na click on the game. That’S already there and you can see it brings up a random game. This one has states and capitals government that kind of topic.
So what I would do is I’d put the students into small groups. Each group has a captain. The captain, one at a time is asked okay.
What would you like to pick? Let’S say the captain says history? 430. You click on it. The question pops up and the students have to answer.
Okay, if you want you can let him go till the end of the timer or they can go beyond that. But when you’re ready is the teacher, you say: okay, let’s see, if your answer is right, you click view answer. If it is right, you click on scoreboard and, let’s say team 1 got it right. I just click on this plus sign. It automatically gives us the right number of points to team 1.
You can adjust their scores if you need to changing it to 20, changing it down to 10. Whatever you need to do, you can also award partial points to some of these other teams and then click game board to go back notice. It remembers that I already selected one of these questions and then play can move to the next team from there. Now you can create these games.
Pretty simply just click create a new game, there’s a form to fill out, including the name of the game and so forth. Please check out my other video that shows how to make these jeopardy style review games. Ok, going back to super teacher tools.
There is also who wants to be a millionaire speed match is an arcade game, I’ll just click play now, so you can see what it’s like. So what is the capita of California? That’S Sacramento, so I just dragged the right answer down. Who was the third President of the United States? Okay, Thomas Jefferson, so this is just a speedgame.
What you’re trying to match up the questions and the answers but kind of a nice game, and you can customize the questions and answers just by clicking, make a new game. Now you go in you fill in this form. You click create this game and it will give you a form to fill out with the questions and answers when you’re done. Just click save game changes and it will give you a URL for your game. You can share that out and that’s the way it works. Also with the Jeopardy game and who wants to be a millionaire game? Okay, so just a quick overview of these three tools that I really love: class tools – dotnet, that’s wonderful, especially for arcade games and then other tools that I didn’t feature in this article.
Next, we have what to learn that used to be fantastic, but it’s better days seem to be behind it, and then we also do have super teacher tools us, but is wonderful for game, shows and other tools as well. If you have suggestions for me for similar tools that might be newer or have better features or better options for teachers and students, please put those in the comments. I would love to find out about them. One thing that all three of these have in common, or at least had in common, is that they’re all free. There are upgrade options for super teacher tools, us and also for class tools net. If you want to pay, you can get even better features, but they’re wonderful, just for free. So if you know of others that are free that give teachers the ability to create their own games and make those games available to students, please share them with me. Thanks for watching and please consider subscribing to my youtube channel for more videos about technology for teachers and students, .