Bookopoly

I have been on a bit of a gamification kick lately, especially since I am just finishing up a big inquiry project on the topic for my course right now. If you are interested in reading more about gamification, this is a link to a bunch of articles I collected during my research:
https://www.diigo.com/outliner/7fthyf/Gamification?key=btmqbfhx0

My latest creation is a board game that I have dubbed Bookopoly (which apparently is actually a thing...so much for being creative!) As you might notice, it is designed to look like the classic game of Monopoly.  My students have been struggling with their AR reading this year, and it has been really hard to motivate them to read their books. Hopefully engaging them in a fun game will help kick their reading into high gear! One important aspect of this game is that it is designed to allow students of all reading levels to be successful!

Click on me to see the property tile template

On my Bookopoly board, each property tile is named after a location in a kids book (well, mostly anyway!), and has a specific XP value assigned to it. Just like Monopoly, they get more expensive as you go around the board. The idea is that students will earn XP points by doing different reading tasks, and then will be able to buy properties on the board with their XP points. They can also upgrade their properties by purchasing houses and castles. To make it even more fun, students will also try to earn a variety of badges. Badges can be earned for a bunch of different achievements, from reading a graphic novel to buying your first house. 

The descriptions of the badges can be found here if you are interested. 

Below is a table of achievements and the corresponding XP points students can earn. 

But of course, there has to be some way to track the XP points that students are earning and spending, so welcome Math outcomes into the equation! Students will be responsible for tracking their income and spending on a sheet, pictured below, keeping a running total of the amount of XP they currently hold. 

Students will be given a booklet that includes sheets to record their properties, collect their badges, as well as their XP bank logs. Hopefully this helps with our AR issues this year!!!

Flight School

Part of our grade six science program involves teaching air & aerodynamics and flight. I figured what better way to engage students than to put them through a series of "flight school" modules! In order to facilitate this, I created a google Site to organize all of the information students need to complete the tasks and modules. As students demonstrate a mastery of the concepts discussed in each module, they will earn badges, which will appear on our leaderboard. Each module coincides with a different topic we need to learn about. For example, module one relates to the properties of air. Also, I have tried to include a variety of different projects and assessment formats to keep learners focused and on task. So far, the kids have really been doing a great job! The link below will bring you to the site. 

The other thing we are doing is an interactive flight notebook. It guides students through many of the objectives they need to understand during the unit to compliment our hands-on experiments. Below is the notebook that they will be using. The nice thing about Google Slides is you can insert videos and links right in for students to quickly access. 

         

Minecraft Measurment

In grade six, we are learning about area & volume, as well as multiplying decimal numbers.  A big focus throughout the year has also been mental math and estimation, and figuring out strategies to solve problems. To try and tie this all together in a fun and engaging way, we have undertaken a "Minecraft Math" projects. Using Google classroom, students were given a Google slides presentation with all of the problems on it. After solving them, they downloaded the Google Chrome extension "Techsmith Snagit" to record a screencast explaining their strategies, which they then uploaded back to classroom. They also turned in their slides presentation.  I have never seen the students more on task, focused on their work, and determined to come up with a way to solve the problems. It was great!

This idea was inspired by the following project:  
http://brianaspinall.com/?p=648   

Gamification of Learning

This year, I started down the path of implementing elements of game-based learning into my classroom. After taking a course on technology this summer and reading the book "Reality is Broken" by Jane McGonigal, I really began to see the benefit of engaging students in a non-traditional way. The trend of using elements of games (such as badges, levels, quests or missions, etc.) is referred to as gamification. The first big game we did this year was something I called the "Zombie Apocalypse: Math Edition". Students earned supplies to survive the zombie apocalypse, which they did by correctly answering math problems, or demonstrating mathematical thinking. I have embedded it below if anyone is interested in checking it out. 

This month, the game I created relates to science. Students will be using clues to track Santa through the solar system in a race to save Christmas. We are using a passport and badges to track their progress. The kids are really excited to get started, and I can't wait to see how quickly they learn all about sky science. I have add a link to the project and an example of my badges below. 

http://goo.gl/3Dq09j