How to create teaching assignments using Digital Escape Rooms

An escape room is a game in which a group of players work together as a team to uncover clues and solve puzzles in one or more physical rooms with the purpose of reaching a specific goal. They have a limited amount of time to work through different tasks.

A digital escape room is by and large the same, but the rooms are not physical. They are digital or more accurately digital texts. 

Digital escape rooms can be a great pedagogical tool to create variety in your teaching practices. We often talk about varying assessment practices, but in my experience most learners want teachers to create variation in how different subjects are taught as well.

I learnt about this concept when I attended a seminar hosted by Bro AOF which was taught by Eric Torsøe.

Fagfornyelsen or the new curriculum is based on certain policy documents and research that led to the conclusion that future learners need certain skills for success. Of these Critical thinking · Creativity · Collaboration · Communication  are called the four C's of the 21st century. 

Digital Escape Rooms is a pedagogical tool which can help stimulate and hone these four C's.

The idea is that learners will learn/read/ work with different texts but in order to get access to the text they need to solve a puzzle to get a password. They use this password to open the next text/room and so on. They have to be creative, think critically, collaborate and communicate with each other to navigate their way through different rooms.

In order to create a digital escape room you need to able to lock a pdf file. Click here to learn how to protect a file using a password.

In this powerpoint you will find a lesson plan using the concept of digital escape rooms. I have created 4 documents which the learners use as digital rooms. Room 5 is a quizlet, and room 0 is a short text in the textbook book Citizens. We used 45 min x 2  in two different groups of vocational learners and we had enough time.

Here are the different documents that the learners will open using passwords. You will find the passwords on the last slide of the above powerpoint, and clues to figure out the password are also in the powerpoint. 

Tips to create passwords:

1. The passwords shouldn't be too complicated.

2. You can use passwords that lead to interdisciplinary work - for example ask the mathematics teacher what the class has been working with and the password can be a mathematics task that the learners have to solve.

3. Make the learners create their own digital rooms.

4. The password can be revealed a short video that you have uploaded somewhere. If you are comfortable doing that, you can record a video of yourself teaching a certain theme and hide the password in the video. 

Good luck :-)

Digital Narrative Games - The Henry Stickimin Collection

Henry Stickmin Collection  is a 2D Game. In order to play this game, you need to create a user on an online game platform called Steam. The game costs 103,00 kr per user. The garphics are relatively simple so a learner should be able to play it easily on a school pc. 

For the purpose of teaching, and if your school has a limtied budget, multiple pupils can play the game on a pc that the borrow from the IT department at your school. That means that they cannot all play the game at once, but have to wait for their turn. 

You can use this game to teach the competence aim: discuss and reflect on the form, content and devices used in English-language cultural expressions from various media, including music, film and games.

                                      

This game is played as a collection of six episodes where the prologue “Break the bank» is considered as one episode. The other five episodes are:

Episode 1: Escaping the prison

Episode 2: Stealing the diamond

Episode 3: Infiltrating the Airship

Episode 4: Completing the mission

Episode 5: Fleeing the complex

The idea is to help Henry move forward in the story by making the right choice for him. You have many options to choose from like using a laser or a teleporter or calling in your buddy Charles to help you out. Every time you make a wrong choice, the story move forward just a little bit, but then it ends in a «Fail» and you are back to where you could make other choices. The game is peppered with funny comments when you fail.

Here is a teaching assignment for this game. I have made questions that can be used to ensure that the learner has understood eacg episode.There are also questions that might hopefully evoke reflection on the learner's part, and there are questions that are directly related to the competence aims i.e. questions related to analysis of the form, content and literary devices used. Teaching asignment.

Digital Narrative Games: A Fisherman's Tale for VR / Dataspill i undervisning i engelskfaget

A Fisherman's Tale is a narrative-driven puzzle game created by Vertigo Games. 

You can use this game to teach the competence aim: discuss and reflect on the form, content and devices used in English-language cultural expressions from various media, including music, film and games.

The game is available on Oculus Rift, Vive, Windows Mixed Reality, PlayStation VR  and Oculus Quest. It can be bought for 130 kr on Steam. 

A Fisherman's Tale is the story of Bob, a tiny fisherman puppet who lives alone in a lighthouse without any connection to the world outside. The reason for his self-inflicted isolation is revealed later in the game. One morning Bob wakes up to the radio blasting warnings of a storm outside and information that a lone boat is out struggling and needs help. He also finds that his windows have been boarded up. He is given a task to climb to the top of the lighthouse and turn on the light before the big storm. But as the story unfolds, you find out that the storm is a metaphor for an inner storm.

For teaching purposes, I suggest that you as teacher:

1) Know the gameplay. You can watch the game being played at game walkthrough on You Tube. Just search for the name of the game and add "walkthrough" in the search box.

2) It can take a long time to play through an entire game. Many role-playing games take from 3-5 hours to play if you are an experienced player. You do not have to use the game in its entirety. A good alternative can be to play  only a few chapters and watch the rest of the game on walkthroughs on YouTube.  When it comes to A Fisherman’s Tale, I suggest that you skip chapter 2 if necessary.

Spoiler Alert: Click here to get the plot of the game. 

Here is a teaching assignment for this game. I have made questions that can be used to understand each chapter. There are also questions that might hopefully evoke reflection on the learner's part, and there are questions that are directly related to the competence aims i.e. questions related to analysis of the form, content and literary devices used. Teaching asignment.

Læreverket Citizens YF - Stolt forfatter

Her kan du se filmen om læreverket Citizens YF, der jeg er medforfatter. Filmen viser innholdet i ulike kapitler i boken. Vi har jobbet hardt, og jeg er så stolt!

Her kan du se en presentasjonsfilm om dybdelæring. 

Her kan du se en presentasjonfilm om språklæring.

Bestil gjerne ditt gratis vurderingseksemplar. Les mer her.

Læreverket CITIZENS -Studiespesialiserende

Endelig er den her! 
Læreverket CITIZENS SF der jeg er medforfatter. 

Du kan bestille ditt gratis vurderingseksemplar her.

Se en presentasjonsfilm om ulike kapitler i boken her.

Læreverket Citizens

Læreverket Citizens, der jeg er medforfatter, lanseres 20.03. Vi har jobbet hardt, og jeg er så stolt!

Velkommen til seminar og lansering. Du kan også bestille gratis eksemplar. Les mer her.

Delvis elevstyrt utviklingsstamtaler på videregående skole

En delvis elevsstyrt utviklingssmtale kan gi eleven mulighet til å reflektere over sin innsats, sine mål, sine forutsetninger, sine læringsstrategier og hvordan skoleåret har vært så langt. 

En delvis elevstyrt utviklingsamtale kan være et godt verktøy for selvvurdering og refleksjon hos eleven, men det er viktig med tydelige rammer. Eleven skal IKKE ha alt ansvar for hele samtalen. Både kontaktlæreren og foreldre (om de er med) skal delta i samtalen. 

Kontaktlæreren skal ha en dialog med eleven med utgangspunkt i det elevene sier og presenterer.

Her er en mal for delvis elevstyrt utviklingssamtale på videregående skole.

NOEN RETNINGSLINJER: 

Formålet med samtalen:

Å opplyse  om hvordan det går med eleven på skolen både faglig og sosialt, og hva som er veien videre, og herunder ansvarliggjøre alle parter.

Presisering:

Dette er ikke en presentasjon, men en mulighet til selvvurdering og refleksjon. Det er viktig med tydelige rammer. Eleven skal ikke ha alt ansvar for hele samtalen.

Forberedelser og forutsetninger:

Elevene skal ha fått tilbakemelding i noen fag om hvordan det går enten i form av en vurdering eller uformelle samtaler med faglærere.

Kontaktlæreren har også fått denne informasjon fra andre faglærere.

Foreldrene skal ha fått innkalling.

Kriteriene for samtalen modelleres for elevene, slik at en oppnår felles forståelse av hva som er forventet av dem, og elevene får god tid i forkant (og underveis) til å vurdere/reflektere over eget ståsted.

Form og innhold:

Elevene: kan vise power point om de vil, eller snakke fritt om de vil om følgende punkter:

  Fravær

·     Orden og atferd

·     Vurdering i ulike fag

·     Trivsel og sosialt miljø i klassen og på skolen

·     Eleven sin innsats

Kontaktlæreren: – Tar utgangspunkt i det elevene sier og ha en naturlig en samtale ut av det eleven presenterer.

Foreldrene  (om de er med): Kommenterer og eventuelt bringe egne temaer på banen.

Det praktiske: Elevene kan vise power point om de vil, eller snakke fritt om de vil. Om de har en power point, må den ikke vises på et stort skjerm. Eleven, kontaktlæreren og foresatte kan se det sammen på datamaskinskjerm. På den måten, kan utviklingssamtale foregår på rom der prosjektoren ikke er tilgjengelig også.

Fordeler: 

1) Dette kan være den gode samtalen, en der eleven kan få snakke om seg selv, sine gode og mindre gode sider, hva han/hun vil forbedre, og å fortelle hvordan forbedringen kan skje. Det setter i gang mange prosesser hos elevene og ansvarliggjør dem i forhold til egen utvikling.

2) Opplæringsloven stiller store rettighetskrav til elevenes medvirkning til egenvurdering og løpende underveisvurdering.

3)  En mer aktiv elevmedvirkning

Ulemper:

1) Elever kan pynte på sannheten fordi de tror de må prestere og vise seg som perfekte. 

2) Foreldre kan bli redusert til et passivt publikum.

3) Det genuint ekte kan forsvinne i slike modeller.

(Fordeler og ulemper har jeg hentet fra en diskusjon på Facebook om elevstyrt utviklingssamtale)