Adding a Game
Margarita Berezyanskaya
Last Update há 23 dias
Gamification is a trend in online learning and the Game activity module allows teachers to create engaging games to help students review vocabulary and content. These games give students a score and the scores can be tracked in the course grade book. Using a course Glossary, a Quiz or questions from the Question bank, teachers can add game activities to a course in just a few steps.
Snowman
This game takes words either from a glossary or uses quiz short-answer questions to generate a hangman puzzle. Teachers can set the number of words that each game contains, display the first or last letter of the target word(s), and show the answer at the end if the student does not complete the game successfully. Snowman is a modification of the Hangman game.
Crossword
A random crossword puzzle can be generated from either a glossary or short-answer questions in a Quiz, or from the Question bank. Teachers can specify the maximum number of columns/rows or words that the puzzle contains. Student can click the Check crossword button to check whether the answers are correct. Every crossword is dynamic so it is different to every student.
Cryptex
This game is similar to a crossword, except the answers are hidden inside a random cryptex (grid).
Millionaire
This game is modeled after the TV game show Who Wants to be a Millionaire. The game displays a series of multiple-choice questions and as each one is answered correctly, the student moves on to the next question in the game until all the questions have been completed. If even one question is answered incorrectly, however, the game is over.
Using the Game Module to Enhance Blended Learning
Game activities can provide students with a fun - or at least different - way of interacting with the course vocabulary and other content. These activities can also improve their spelling and phonetics. Teachers can use the Game module to create follow-up activities based on those in the face-to-face class that students can complete independently. Although the activities are designed to be suitable for individual use, teachers in classrooms with one computer and a projector might be able to facilitate a game with a small class divided into two teams. The Millionaire game might be ideal for this, especially if its content were tied into the lesson, and the Snowman game might also be good for a short diversion.
Deployment Tips
- Refer to the Adding a Glossary article to add a new course glossary. Be sure to enable the setting to allow duplicate entries.
- Note: Once a game is added to a course, it returns an error message if a teacher tries, while editing it, to associate it with a different set of words. A new game must be added to a course each time, to add different content.
- The game will likely return an error message when adding it if there are non-alphabetic characters in the concept word. If using your own glossary items, it is best to remove all such characters in the glossary concept when adding a vocabulary item. When setting up a game, use the setting under Options to accept spaces.
- Teachers can specify which category in a glossary can be used when setting up a game. This makes it easy to draw on specific groups of words from a single glossary to create a game. Keyword glossaries are organized by level in each course, and the words in each level are categorized by theme or unit and by specific activity.
- If more than one glossary uses a category by the same name, an error may result when attempting to link a game to that category.
- The items in a glossary category can be displayed (and edited) by navigating to a glossary, clicking the Browse by category tab and selecting a category in the All categories drop-down menu.
Video Resources
Moodle Games
This video explains how to use the Games module to add a Hangman activity. The Hangman on Avenue is called Snowman and uses images of a melting snowman. (Please refer to steps 2 to 4 in the Adding a Snowman Game article to learn how to add the target game activity to a course.)
Resources