Featured 6-30-2014: The Pericles Group

 

The Pericles Group provides game-based learning solutions for students, teachers, and administrators in a wide range of situations and a variety of disciplines.

 

The Pericles Group offers ‘practomimetic' courses that blend stories and game play providing students the opportunity to explore learning as a narrative and as a game.

 

 

The attitudes and behaviors of students learning in the practomimetic courses change along with their level of knowledge. They can become active learners, metaphorically engaged in making the world a better place.

 

The Pericles Group partners with teachers to develop and deliver materials for game-based courses and curricula that capitalize on the opportunities of teaching as a digitally-enhanced practice. Although the practomimes don’t look like traditional video games, the play is similar and they teach more. Practomimetic courses can teach students to "play the curriculum," reaching the learning objectives and mastering the skills and content the practomime is designed to support.

 

Students might play as scientists, recruited by a shadowy multinational corporation, investigating phenomena out of science fiction and fantasy. Latin students could play as operatives on a mission to find a lost inscription that can only be deciphered if they are able to read Latin. 

 

Currently developed products of The Pericles Group include:

• Operation LAPIS is a two-year introductory curriculum in Roman civilization and the Latin language
• Operation BIOME is a full-year game-based (practomimetic) course in biology.
• Operation CAESAR is an advanced Latin course aligned with the new Latin AP standards.
• CARD-tamen is a stand-alone card game where players construct a persuasive argument about the subject matter in relation to a controversial topic.

 

 

The Pericles Group offers a series of professional development seminars that demonstrate the potential of practomimetic courses. These seminars can be customized to the needs of each school district.

 

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

Featured 6-17-2014: Radix Endeavor

 

The Radix Endeavor is a multiplayer online game for STEM learning in high school.

 

When a player enters the Radix Endeavor  she finds herself on an island with many unknown species of plants and animals, many mysterious places waiting to be discovered, and many problems to be solved. She must try to determine what is causing the problems, how the natural systems work, and which factors need to be changed to improve the lives of the people and save the island from destruction.

 

 

The game offers students the opportunity to participate in a collaborative, social experience in a systems-based game world while they explore how that world works and discover important scientific concepts.

 

The initial phase of the Radix Endeavor will cover topics in biology, algebra, geometry, probability, and statistics. Designed to align with the Common Core standards in mathematics and Next Generation Science Standards for high school students, there is also particular emphasis on developing key mathematics practices and 21st century skills.

 

 

Innovative task-based assessments will be embedded into the game, and that data will be used to track players’ strategies, progress, and potential misconceptions. The data will be analyzed in real time to offer feedback and support to the player to promote learning when concepts and skills are being first introduced. It will also be available on a 'Teacher Portal' to help teachers monitor student progress and differentiate their lessons to meet students’ needs.

 

 Watch The Radix Endeavor Trailer

 

The Radix Endeavor is being developed at the MIT Education Arcade in collaboration with Filament Games, and is funded by the Gates Foundation.

 

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

Featured 6-3-2014: FlipQuiz

 

Create gameshow-type boards for use in the classroom quickly and easily with FlipQuiz™. 

 

Great for use with an interactive whiteboard, FlipQuiz displays your questions on-screen and boards can be saved for later use. Well-designed boards can help keep students interested and engaged.

 

 

Begin by signing up for a free FlipQuiz account, and you’ll immediately be ready to start creating your own game boards. An easy-to-use creation page and editor provide all the tools you need to set up all of your game boards. Presentation mode lets you easily display quiz boards on-screen in your classroom. Boards can be saved in your account for future use.

 

As well as adding questions to each of your game boards, you can also add the answers if you wish, allowing you to walk about the classroom hosting the game virtually hands-free. This feature also means you can give give students a link to quiz themselves at home.

 

 Try a demo of FlipQuiz

 

A FlipQuiz Pro account adds team scoring while playing, up to 10 teams can play at once, use images in your boards, custom points, and more.

 

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

Featured 4-17-2014: Operation LAPIS

 

Operation LAPIS is a two-year game-based introductory course in Latin and in Roman culture. It may be used on its own, or as a supplement to other materials.

 

Over the course of this two-year epic adventure to find and to interpret the LAPIS SAECULORUM, students will learn to read Latin with fluency and understanding. They will also discover why their learning was important, and how they can use it.

 

 

Operation LAPIS covers the same content to be found in a very wide variety of Latin textbooks, for example the Cambridge Latin Course, the Oxford Latin Course, and Ecce Romani. Operation LAPIS can take the place of a traditional textbook, or serve as a supplementary set of materials, to help students reach the learning objectives that are standard in first and second year Latin at both the high-school and the college levels:

• Read and write Latin
• Identify key products, practices, and perspectives of Roman culture
• Summarize key events of Roman history

Google Drive and Edmodo support most of the activity in Operation LAPIS. All the story elements take place on the Edmodo platform, which serves as the bulletin board. Use Google Drive to share your students’ Operative Dossiers as well as a few other documents, like worksheets and character descriptions. All participants are required to create free accounts on both of these platforms in order to access and utilize the materials.

 

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

Featured 4-14-2014: Quizdini

 

Quizdini allows you to create fast, customized, entertaining activities that will help your students learn more while having fun with bright colors and a playful feel.

 

Quizdini was created by teachers for teachers to be an alternative to the costly and restrictive choices that currently exist in the online educational game market. Quizdini is a still evolving tool designed to allow you to create the material your students will use.

 

 

The games are referred to as quizzes. There are two multiple-choice game types, Quizdini and Vocabulary, question and explanation boxes in the multiple-choice games support the use of HTML, and as such, support links to online content.

 

 

Another game lets students drag-and-drop matching tiles together, an activity nicely suited to interactive whiteboards.

 

Quizzes can be shared with colleagues or students by copying and sharing the game's unique URL from your browser's address bar.

 

 Go to the Quizdini YouTube channel

 

Quizdini doesn't advertise or store sensitive information on your students. They have committed to providing teachers with a simple easy-to-use, easy-to-control system that helps students.

 

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

Featured 3-25-2014: SimCityEDU: Pollution Challenge!

SimCityEDU: Pollution Challenge! is a game-based learning and assessment tool designed to engage middle school students with a high-quality game experience in which they can develop real-world problem-solving skills.

 

 

Playing the role of mayor, students are challenged to address environmental impact while balancing the employment needs and the happiness of the city’s citizens.

 

SimCityEDU: Pollution Challenge! was designed in partnership with assessment experts from Educational Testing Service and Pearson. As well as helping students learn about the factors affecting the environment in a modern city, the game also provides formative assessment information about students’ ability to problem solve, explain the relationships in complex systems, and read informational texts and diagrams.

 

SimCityEDU: Pollution Challenge! consists of six different missions centered on the theme of environmental impact. In each mission, students are required to solve increasingly complex problems.

 

 

 Watch SimCityEDU: Engaging 21st Century Learners

SimCityEDU: Pollution Challenge! addresses such 21st century skills as critical thinking and problem solving. It also aligns with several Common Core standards such as citing specific textual evidence to support conclusions, integrating information from texts and diagrams, reading and understanding text and making logical inferences from it.

 

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

Featured: 2-11-2014 Quandary Game

Quandary is a free, online, award-winning game for players aged 8 to 14, that engages students in ethical decision-making and develops skills that will help them manage challenging ethical issues in their own lives.

 

 

Quandary presents situations relative to building a new colony on the planet Braxos. Players must make decisions in situations that have no clear right or wrong answers but do lead to consequences for themselves, others in the colony, and to the planet Braxos. Players must consider facts, opinions, and solutions as they interact with other settlers in the colony, 

 

Playing Quandary can help participants develop such skills as critical thinking, perspective-taking, and decision-making. The game provides a structure for approaching ethical decision-making without telling players what to think. 

 

 

Quandary is a digital card-based game with three scenarios. Each takes about 10-30 minutes to complete, depending on the speed of the player. 

 

 See a video showing how teachers and students can use Quandary in the classroom

 

 Read a PDF that shows how Quandary correlates to the CCSS for English Arts

 

The game and supporting materials are all free. Quandary will work on any web browser with the latest version of the Flash player plug-in. 

  Quandary is also available as a standalone app for Android and iOS tablet devices.

 

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

Featured: 2-5-2014 DragonBox

DragonBox was created to counter student negativity toward algebra by making it simple to understand and learn algebra´s "big ideas," with or without help, at one’s own pace. 

 

The conception of DragonBox was based on...

… the belief and the vision that human beings are hardwired to learn extremely complicated concepts. By placing the student at the center of the learning process one can engage the brain of the students in an optimal manner, achieving results in agreement with the marvelous capacity of the human brain.

DragonBox starts by teaching algebra before arithmetic. Initially, pictures rather than numbers or variables are used to demonstrate the algebra ''game'' before developing its traditional formalism. The game is focused on mathematical rules throughout.

 

 

Playing DragonBox can help kids develop creative thinking. Players discover algebraic rules and have to use the rules to solve puzzles. This can lead to a lot of trial and error, encouraging higher level thinking.

 

Some of the key principles used in designing DragonBox:

• Students learn more when they are engaged.
• An important contributor to learning is immediate feedback.
• Students should be presented with challenges that match their level of mastery.
• Students should be assessed in a formative, non-intrusive way.
• Discovery or experiential learning is more effective than instructional-based teaching.
• Students learn differently and at different paces.
• The language we use to teach mathematics is a barrier to understanding.

 View The DragonBox Concept

 

DragonBox Algebra 5+  is meant to give younger kids a head start in mathematics and algebra. DragonBox Algebra 12+ covers more advanced topics in mathematics and algebra. Both are available for Android and iOS.

 

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

Extra: 1-17-2014 Vocabulary.com

Vocabulary.com claims to be "the quickest, most intelligent way to improve your vocabulary” regardless of your education level or age.

 

Vocabulary.com can help you learn the words you need for academic and business success.

You begin by answering a few questions, more than 100,000 questions have been created to help you learn words. A model of your knowledge is built and the more you play, the more Vocabulary.com learns about your vocabulary knowledge.

They can predict which vocabulary words you don’t know and teach them to you. If you get a question wrong, Review and Progress questions are scheduled to help you learn the word, and remember it in the future.

Vocabulary.com can track your progress as you quickly learn useful words and improve your vocabulary.

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

Featured: 1-15-2014 Mission US

Mission US is a multimedia project that immerses players in US history content through free interactive games.

 

 

The Mission US games are designed to improve the learning of American history by students aged 10-13. A variety of materials to support use of the missions by educators are provided, including overview and background information, standards alignments, activities, and primary sources, plus videos of teachers using Mission US with their students. 

 

There are currently three missions:

• Mission 1: “For Crown or Colony?” puts players in the shoes of Nat Wheeler, a printer’s apprentice in 1770 Boston. They encounter both Patriots and Loyalists, and when rising tensions result in the Boston Massacre, they must choose where their loyalties lie.
• In Mission 2: “Flight to Freedom,” players take on the role of Lucy, a 14-year-old slave in Kentucky.  As they navigate her escape and journey  to Ohio, they discover that life in the “free” North is dangerous and difficult. In 1850, the Fugitive Slave Act brings disaster. Will Lucy ever truly be free?
• In Mission 3: “A Cheyenne Odyssey,” players become Little Fox, a Northern Cheyenne boy whose life is changed by the encroachment of white settlers, railroads, and U.S. military expeditions.  As buffalo diminish and the US expands westward, players experience the Cheyenne's persistence through conflict and national transformation.

Mission US has more missions planned for release in 2014 and 2015.

 

 View the Mission US promo 

 

Mission US is produced by WNET 13 New York Public Media. Funding is provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Additional funding provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

 

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

Featured: 1-14-2014 Nutmeg Education

Nutmeg Education is designed to give teachers an easy way to assess, track and improve student performance and build better Common Core assessments.

Create assessments with questions from Nutmeg Education's repository, or create your own questions. Pick from or create multiple choice, fill-in-the-blank or true/false questions. In the works are auto-generated questions and “interactive” questions, such as responding by clicking on a point in the coordinate plan.

The Live Resource Bank is a collection of Common Core aligned videos, games, and worksheets that can be attached to an assessment. The related Common Core standard appears to students below each question in their quiz results. All of the items in the bank come from free online websites and Open Education Resources  All are rated by teachers and sorted with the best, most-used resources at the top.

  

Students will be sent login details and “New Assessment” notifications via email. Students can take assessments with any web-connected device, or even with paper/pencil.

Students with access to an iOS device can use this free Nutmeg Education app to take your assessments. Students get immediate feedback and access to free tutorials and resources to improve.

 

 

Nutmeg Education supports learning by providing you with data and insights on students' Common Core understanding. 

 

Watch Nutmeg Education: Fostering a National Teacher Community

 

Early adopters will get Nutmeg Education completely free for one year. In a few months, new users will start to be charged for full access to the site.

 

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

Featured: 11-25-2013 Kahoot!

Kahoot! delivers educational content through asking meaningful questions in real-time, resulting in a social, fun, and game-like environment.

Build quizzes, called Kahoots!, on any device using a simple drag-and-drop tool. Include embedded images and video.

Project the quiz onto a screen or interactive whiteboard to engage and focus students who quickly join through their personal device, seeing their name appear (without needing an account).

Students play against each other, answering questions in real-time through an easy-to-use interface, while you facilitate and discuss the content.

Kahoot! allows learners to both respond and create with any device that has a web browser and works over wifi or 3G/4G. Students can share their knowledge by playing their Kahoot back to classmates. You can assess the quality of student questions, while the other students answer the questions.

 Watch a video demonstrating the basics of the Kahoot! website for the K-12 classroom.

Formatively assess individual knowledge and adapt learning. Kahoot! data provides you with a ‘snapshot’ of each learner's current understanding and tracks longer term progress.

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

Featured: 11-14-2013 Classroom Quiz Master

Classroom Quiz Master is a universal iOS app that allows a teacher to take on the role of a quiz question master or game show host, with the students taking on the role of the contestants.

Students are divided into two teams and are presented with quizzes and questions that the teacher has already entered into the Classroom Quiz Master app. The teams compete against each other. A quiz can consist of up to 10 questions and quizzes can be added or deleted at any time (the lite version of the app is limited to 3 quizzes).

The contestants scores are recorded graphically on the scoreboard in the app. Background music, sound effects, and animation all enhance the game show atmosphere.

Classroom Quiz Master Pro is $1.99 (US) and the lite version is free. Both versions are compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch running iOS 5.0 or later.

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

Featured: 8-8-2013 Zondle

Zondle is an online games-based learning platform that enables educators and their students to create, play, and share games in support of learning.

With Zondle, create your own topics specifically for your students, then they can play those topics in any of the more than 50 Zondle games. You can manage classes and monitor achievement and progress, as well.

Zondle also includes:
Creating your own questions.
Expert-generated questions.
Creating your own games. 
Zondle Class View.
Embedding games in your own website.
Team Play for whole-class teaching.

 Watch What is Zondle?

Zondle currently includes more than 80,000 topics, created by users, in nearly any subject, any level, any language. Zondle is free to use, but you can also add free and affordable extras.

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0