What I learned this week:Â
Blookit: Gamification has hit a new high in the classroom!
While digital review games, such as Kahoot and Quizlet have helped spark engagement in learning and review, Blooket soars beyond! Similar to other digital gaming resources, teachers can either create a question set or choose from a library of shared public sets. The teacher then can host the game projecting the unique game code. Then, students can join by going to the site and typing in the code. However, this is where the similarities end.
Blooket offers a variety of game modes that push this digital learning tool to the next level. Each set of questions can be played using a variety of engaging modes offering limited seasonal themes or fun modes such as "Gold Quest, "Cafe", "Factory", "Battle Royale", and "Tower of Doom" to name a few. Blooket can be played as a whole class or assigned to be played by students in solo mode. Teachers can choose specific review games to match a student's review or enrichment need. This mode enables the student to play at their own pace, on their own time.
Signing up is easy, and free to educators, by going to
https://www.blooket.com/signup and using your school Google account . Blooket is offered in a few different account levels, and many schools have been able to get free trial periods of the advanced levels for the remainder of the school year for teachers to use. However, the free level is sufficient for creating and playing the learning/review games.
How it works: Choose a question set, (or create your own)- Creating a question set is similar to other digital games. You create a title and offer a description. Set your privacy mode to either public, playable by everyone, or private, playable only by you. Next, choose a "Creation Method" which determines how you will start adding questions to your set. Select either "Manual- start from scratch" or "Quizlet Import- Quick and Easy". When you choose to create your own set, you will find similarities in how you would build a Kahoot set. You can drag and drop an image (under 2.5 MB), use the "Image Gallery", or "Upload by URL". Then you can create your questions, offering four answer choices, and set a time limit for question play.
There are tutorials offered on the site that I would highly recommend as I've only scratched the surface. The best way to experience this exciting digital resource is to try it out. My students were so engaged and excited when I provided grammar review using this digital resource last week (yes, you read that right- grammar review=fun!!!) Give it a try- your students will thank you!
Make Yourself Designs- This shop has grown exponentially since its creation. I should let you know up front that my daughter, Jessica, is the owner and designer of this shop. Jessica is a former educator, turned entreprenuer creating her own brand. I think you will love the stylish and useful products she has designed. If you are looking for multi-layered cotton masks in stylish prints, wristlet key chains or wallets, then check out this site for these items and more. The creative juices are always flowing and new products are in the design mode as I type. I hope you take a few minutes to check out her shop:
https://www.etsy.com/shop/MakeYourselfDesignsÂ
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