When we started Breakout EDU, we really didn’t know what type of adventure the next five years would bring us, aside from a few splinters and new found love for gaming. Fast forward to late 2019 when we got an email from the d.school saying that they’ve been experimenting escape rooms for the past few years as an alternative to testing.
You may already know that Breakout EDU is perfect for engaging students through creativity, collaboration, communication, and critical thinking in a digital world. While digital team building games are great for distance learning, the true heart of Breakout EDU is the kit-game experience. With our guidelines for playing in light of social distancing, there’s never been a better time to have it all! Breakout EDU games are team-building experiences that can be played safely in-person or collaboratively online.
With so many students now learning in a mostly-virtual environment, one of the most impactful human elements of classroom learning that has suffered is collaboration. Throughout the initial phases of quarantine, the 4Cs (collaboration, communication, creativity, and critical thinking) as a whole took a bit of a hit, as many teachers found themselves working hard to adjust their teaching to get content out to students in a new and changing environment. Now that digital-first learning is the new normal, we have seen more and more examples of teachers who are harnessing the wonderful power of digital tools to bring those critical skills back into play!
I recently got a chance to sit down with Billings, Montana high school teacher-librarian/technology integration specialist (aka a lady who has practically seven full-time jobs and crushes every one of them with her magic and enthusiasm) Shaundel Krumheuer. She had hosted a special event in her library, and with her two library colleagues, ran four games simultaneously with nine groups over the course of three days. If that gives you the mouth-sweats (as she would say), she actually called it “one of the most rejuvenating days” she’s experienced in the library. Here’s what else she had to say about it:
In order to make it easier for students to get signed in and working with the Breakout EDU Platform, we have added Google Classroom as a Sign Up / Log In option. If you use Google Classroom, this is a great way to eliminate the students from having to remember an additional username and password in order to access Breakout EDU.
We are excited to announce 600+ new K-8 games for math, science, ELA and social studies. Included in each of these subject areas, you will find new digital games for all covered standards and capstone games to review each unit.
Recently we released some great new team building games and had the idea to create a game experience where there are three separate digital games that, in order to succeed, must be played together with three players or in three small teams. Using one another’s images and clues, they will help solve each of their puzzles at the same time.
For Instructional Technology Specialist Tana Ruder, Breakout EDU is the perfect way to help students develop these critical skills—while also reinforcing core content knowledge.
Nearly every teacher has had at least one student who just doesn’t seem engaged. Maybe they’re bored with school, or they’re focused on challenges at home—or maybe they lack the confidence to even try. Elementary school teacher Donnie Piercey was struggling to reach one such child until he tried using Breakout EDU. Suddenly, everything changed.
Getting Students Excited to Learn
In Tina Risinger’s elementary math classroom in Round Rock, Texas, engagement is at an all-time high. Students are excited to learn and practice math skills with Breakout EDU “escape room” games. Each game challenges students to solve a series of problems creatively while working together against the clock. Students are more apt to retain this knowledge and, best of all, students learn important problem-solving skills along the way.
The Breakout EDU Games Team is proud to share a couple of exciting courses to help students started with creating their very own digital games on the Breakout EDU Platform.
These courses, Digital Game Design Junior (designed for the youngest designers) and Student Game Design Course (designed for Upper Elementary students through High School), and the Game Design Mini-Courses (for younger and older students) contain a Teacher’s Guides, short video lessons filled with examples, digital games to help reinforce and teach game design concepts through examples, and great printable game design activities.
Walking into Katy Lefler and Michael Thomas’ science class at Ben Steele Middle School is like stepping into an adventure. Kids are huddled over sheets of paper with a few large and small locked boxes in front of them. As the noise of chatter fills the room, a giant clock counts down how much time students have left to crack the code and unlock the clues before them.
We are excited to announce the release of a brand new Breakout EDU game, Make Learning Magical! Just like peanut butter pairs with jelly or grilled cheese needs its tomato soup, this hybrid game is the perfect side dish to the newest Dave Burgess Publishing Company book Make Learning Magical by author Tisha Richmond. In the book, Tisha provides the recipe and describes the ingredients needed to take your passions and cook them up into magical experiences for students:
Memorable Beginnings that build excitement and relationships
Authenticity and Agency that empower students
Gamified Experiences to engage learning on a higher level
Innovation that makes learning exciting and relevant
Creation, Collaboration, and Curiosity to equip learners for real life
Authentic Audiences to bring out your students' best work
Legacy built through meaningful experiences
Tisha is just beginning her first year as a Technology Integration Specialist in Medford, Oregon. Prior to that, she whipped up her magic as a high school culinary arts teacher for 22 years. While some people may think the idea that seasoning a subject like culinary arts with technology is equivalent to sprinkling pepper on watermelon, Tisha took full advantage of the myriad opportunities that working with students in a passion subject brings. In her blog, she says, “I absolutely love what I do. I have the opportunity each day to encourage and inspire; to help them develop skills necessary to be successful in life and a career in the culinary industry. I am continuously looking for innovative ways to make learning come alive for my students.”
Embracing that innovator’s mindset is what led Tisha to cook up her first book, and is what prompted her to partner with Breakout EDU to cater a game to go along with it. While it is not necessary to read the book in order to play the game, we think this would be the perfect way to culminate or even kick off a book study. A great read, some tasty snacks, conversation with colleagues, topped with a dollop of Breakout EDU? It doesn’t get any better than that!
Make Learning Magical , “the #1 new release Experimental Education Methods,” is available now on Amazon, and the game is available for free at platform.breakoutedu.com.
Since launching the Breakout EDU Platform in the Fall of 2017, we have been diligently working to increase classroom engagement and unlock student creativity. This past week’s release introduces some exciting new features and functionalities.
With this new version of the Platform, teachers can create classes, assign one of the 150+ pre-created digital Subject Pack games, and empower their students to design their own digital games.
Once the student has created a game and turned it in, teachers can review their work, provide feedback, and add the game to a class library for their peers to play. We see teachers using this tool to have students design games for each unit of study.
Breakout EDU game design is an effective way to allow students to work at the top of Bloom’s Taxonomy. By creating games, students have an opportunity to construct puzzles and think critically about academic content. This is infinitely more exciting and challenging than simply memorizing facts or completing worksheets.
When designing the student section of the Breakout EDU Platform, we wanted to provide resources to help students become great game designers. The incredible Breakout EDU Games Team created a series of lessons teaching students all the elements of game design. These resources can be found in the “Student Design Course” section in the Classes section.
To access the tutorials that detail how to get started with creating classes and managing student game design, check out breakoutedu.com/tutorials.
We are excited to see what your students can create and how they can showcase their creativity through game design on the Breakout EDU Platform.
1. STUDENT GAME DESIGN
With the latest update to the Breakout EDU platform students can now design their own digital games. By having students design games aligned to specific academic topics or skills, teachers transfer the ownership of learning from teacher to student. Once the students are comfortable with the design tools it will be a great way to ease the burden of lesson planning. You will have peace of mind knowing that your students are working at the top of Bloom’s Taxonomy.
2. PEER GAME REVIEW
Teachers now have the option of adding student created games to a private classroom library where other students in the class can play their peer games. This is a fun way to review any academic topic before a test.
3. CREATE AND MANAGE CLASSES
Teachers have the ability to create and manage classes. This streamlines the facilitation of Breakout EDU digital games.
4. ASSIGN DIGITAL GAMES TO STUDENTS
With a few clicks of the mouse teachers can now assign digital games to their classes. This makes for a perfect “do now” activity or formative assessment. Teachers can either choose pre-created games from the platform library or build their own using the digital game builder.
5. TRACK STUDENT RESULTS
Once you’ve created a class in your Breakout EDU account anytime your student completes one of the assigned digital games you will see the results. You can see how many puzzles they completed and how long it took them. You also have the ability to download the results to a spreadsheet.
