Breakout EDU (Thing 34)

Today I played a Breakout EDU game during the team leader/department chair meeting and I LOVED IT! I don't think I would have understood the point of the game nearly as well if I had just read about it and watched the videos; the experience of living the game was so much better. Accidental good timing is the best.  :)

We did the Faculty Meeting game, and although I'm not the greatest at puzzles, riddles, or any game that requires more sustained attention than Frozen Free Fall (seriously, it and its derivatives are my favorite games right now), I really enjoyed it. It was challenging enough to hold my interest but not so hard that it made me want to give up. It also helped that I was playing with colleagues and friends that I already knew and trusted and that one or two of them were excellent gamers and could lead our group effectively. We finished with 21 minutes to spare and didn't even have to use any hints! It worked really well for its intended purpose, which was to get us to work together and solve the problems collaboratively.

Other games available on the website are more content-centered (although they all require that people work together to solve the problems). I looked at one that was based on The Outsiders since that's one of the only whole-class novels I teach. It seemed simple enough that the kids could do it but challenging enough that they would have to work together and access their knowledge of the book as well as their problem-solving skills. I would probably actually use this in my classroom if I had the box!

 I didn't enjoy making up the game as much as playing it. As I said before, I don't enjoy games like this usually, so writing the game was a chore. I only did half of the steps so you could get a sense of where it was going, but I might finish it and submit it; now it's like a personal challenge. Plus, I love free t-shirts! It's a game about different parts of speech.

I played a few of the easier digital games but didn't get into them as much as I did the one we played in real life today. I could see these being easier to implement in the classroom, though, especially because they don't need a group or extra equipment and the students could do them if they finished an activity early. I think they would get into it because most of my students seem to like puzzles. This is one of the rare things that could work equally well with teachers and students, and I look forward to seeing how I can use this resource with both my students and colleagues.