To update you on my free inquiry project about game-based learning, I am in the process of creating a screencast that provides a quick review from a teacher’s perspective on how to use Wayground, Minecraft Education, and IXL. I chose these three game-based learning tools because they are all quite different and offer unique benefits to teachers. Here is a review of what I learned so far.

Wayground

I found that Wayground is easy to set up and learn. You just click on pre-made lessons and assign homework or create a live host, similar to Kahoot, for quick assessments during lessons. I like Kahoot, but I also appreciate that Wayground provides features such as quizzes, presentations, interactive videos, passages, worksheets, and flashcards that can be assigned to students or used during lessons. They have all the subjects to choose from, which can be filtered by grade. For customization, teachers can make their own resources from their own content and add assessment tools such as quizzes. I also discovered there is a grading, reports, and data section where teachers can automatically or manually set custom grades and generate shared reports.

Minecraft Education

With Minecraft Education, I found it intimidating because I see it as a complex gaming system I am not familiar with. However, I wanted to explore something outside my comfort zone and learn more. The one thing I learned about Minecraft Education is that it’s not a quick assessment tool; teachers need to do the work by completing the Minecraft Teacher Academy to learn the essential skills for how to incorporate gameplay into any curriculum. I downloaded the game and played around without the training, and without training, I don’t understand how it works. So I learned it’s important to invest the time as a teacher and then as students to get the game started. But once the training and learning of the basics are done, I see the benefits.

IXL Math

I learned that IXL has a BC Curriculum tab for math, science, and English, organized by the different BC learning standards. This is important because these standards are what we use as teachers to plan instruction and assess students. Instead of always going back to the BC Curriculum website to customize lessons to the standards, teachers can save time by clicking directly on a learning standard in IXL. It then links to practice questions, examples, and sometimes videos. Students can answer questions, and if they get one wrong, the program explains the correct answer. This tool could be handy for extra practice.

Reflection

Overall, with proper training, any of these game-based learning tools can be used effectively in elementary and middle school settings. Like any new technology, they can bring some fear of change and resistance at first. I noticed this in myself when I first started exploring Minecraft Education. However, once teachers have time to explore and get comfortable with these tools, that resistance usually decreases and the benefits become more apparent.