How Breakout EDU Connected our School Virtually
Author: Dan Gallagher | Technology Facilitator at Millburn Township Public Schools
The pandemic has had an impact on education in many ways. One impact for my school has been in the form of our monthly whole-school meetings. They used to take place in our school gymnasium, but with social distancing and in-person, remote, or hybrid learning we’ve had to pivot to a virtual meeting. My building administrators have always made it a point to have a “Wow” factor where the students would feel involved. We would collaborate to come up with different ways to virtually make them interactive for the students while also connecting them to the monthly themes involving The Seven Habits of Happy Kids.
Last March, while looking at the theme of SYNERGY through our phrase ‘My COMMUNITY is best when we all work together, my building principal, Ms. Kristin Mueller, and our instructional supervisor, Mr. Michael Mongon, wanted a way for the students to help build a phrase (“We SYNERGISE at Wyoming”). We thought it would be great to make it Wheel of Fortune-esque by having each class submit a letter. We knew we needed to collect the letters through a Google Form.
But we needed to come up with a means for the class to discover the missing letter in the phrase. That’s when I brought Breakout EDU’s digital games to the table. Each class would have its own lock to solve within a 5+/- minute period. The teachers were already informed of the lock solution as well as their class’s missing letter so they could assist. Each grade level had a different style of lock: Kindergarten-color lock, First grade-shape lock, Second grade-directional lock, Third grade-letter lock, and Fourth grade-number lock. The teachers, who were presenting our streamed whole school meeting, could change tabs and present their class’s Breakout EDU Lock. Students could then unmute and work together to solve the puzzle. The solution would display an image with their class’s letter which the teacher would submit in the Google Form.
Behind the scenes, I was managing the incoming submissions, revealing the class’s letter so this would give the students of Wyoming the sense of coming together as a school and working to solve the phrase. Here is the segment from our whole school meeting recording…
None of this would have been possible without the digital Breakout EDU locks allowing for customization for each class both in the puzzle type as well as the congratulations screen. Our students worked together within their classes while working virtually as a school to solve our monthly theme. I feel our meeting was a success based on completing the goal of having a “wow” factor using Breakout EDU’s digital games!