I've shared several gamifying ideas in the past but I felt it was time for a dedicated blog post about it. Gamifying your lessons can really engage your students. It allows students to have fun while they learn.
Why Gamify? Games. Are. Fun. Plain and simple. We like them and so do they. Gamifying lessons you already have will 100% increase student engagement. How do you gamify a lesson? I like taking lessons that teachers already have and just spicing them up. Instead of reviewing on paper, create or work with your instructional technologist/digital learning coach to help you create something digital! My favorite ways to do this is to take a board game and throw it right into Google Drawings or Genially! There are also some fantastic templates out there already created you can go grab. Feel free to grab any of ones I've linked in this post and use them with your students! What are some great resources? Genially, Google Drawings, Google Slides, (really, any G Suite tools), digital escape rooms, websites like Kahoot, Quizizz, Gimkit, Flippity, Decktoys, and Quizlet or Apps like GooseChase! Consider using playlists and choiceboards and incorporating digital badging! Check out @Ditchthattextbook's post here on 15 ways to gamify your class! Check out a few examples of how we've gamified lessons below!
How have you gamified lessons?
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I was recently in a PLC with some of my ELA teachers and I suggested having the students create memes for an activity they were doing. One of the teachers immediately said NO because of the content that they can find on some of the meme generator websites out there. She's right. Some generators either show too many inappropriate pictures for the classroom or they're blocked. So here's an alternative. Have your students use Pixabay or Photosforclass to search for images. They can also use Google image search (just make sure they're using a copyright free image and it's appropriate). Then, have them insert whatever photo they want for their meme into Google Drawings. Put text over the canvas that will stand out from the background and BAM! You have your meme. Safe and easy to create. Students can resize the canvas by going to "File" "Page Setup" and changing the size to custom and entering in the size they want their meme to be. Students can then share it as a link or download their meme. Memes can be great for the classroom to show understanding of a topic/concept and it's fun for the students to be creative and clever where they wouldn't normally have that opportunity. Click this link for a template for your students! Click here for a folder of most commonly used meme blank backgrounds. I've talked about Google Drawings before and how great it is for graphic organizers but what I didn't write about is how it can be used like a Thinglink.
If you haven't used Thinglink, it's great for using with your students. It takes an image and makes it interactive. Students can create hotspots over the image that link out to YouTube videos, pictures, text, Google Docs, websites, etc. The thing that limits you, however, is the customizable options. You're limited to only a few hotspot options and it's not collaborative in real-time. That's where Google Drawings comes in. You can insert images (whatever images you choose) and link them to websites, pictures, videos, etc and have your students collaborate on the same image at the same time. Here's an example that I've created. All hotspots have a yellow boarder around them for easy viewing. Happy Drawing! Can we just take a moment to talk about how neat Google Drawings is? Talk about graphic organizer heaven! Possibilities are endless for what you can do with it!
I'm currently working with my US History teachers and their students over civil rights. Another DLC, our librarians, and myself created stations for the students to research court cases, people, events, and speeches. For most of the stations, we used Google Drawings to have the students create things to demonstrate their learning. Here are a few links to show you how we used Google Drawings: Our Timeline Template Our MLK Speech Graphic Organizer Our March Madness Court Cases Bracket I've also compiled a folder of graphic organizers created with Google Drawings that I've gathered from websites and trainings, combined with some I've made myself. Folder of Graphic Organizers Take a look at these and let me know if you have any questions! |
AuthorDigital Learning Coach & technology lover. Constantly looking for innovative ways to engage students and facilitate 21st century learning. Archives
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