Do you love geography and technology? I do.
As educators, we often forget the finesse that assessment CAN take. Test, test….test they tell us. But assessment is a beautiful thing that should frame our teaching and longer-term help students learn BETTER.
I love this video because it talks about how students do not have to know that they are being assessed. In their element of play, they can focus on the task of having fun and stretching their critical thinking and communication skills with their peers.
In this level we were tasked with doing something of the same using another game. 🙂 I chose 80 days. While simply playing it I found the reading cumbersome but when I began to think of what augmentations could be made to factor in assessment …the ideas began to flow.
So, if you are not sure what 80 Days is…watch the video below.
As you can see it is very text based and I could see anyone who has any sort of learning or attention difficulties…would be zoned out. But what if the assessment didn’t primarily focus on reading and clicking? That is where my thoughts began to ponder. The game is about going around the world in 80 days or less IF you can manage. I did not.
I decided to break this up into a history/geography assessment. Each team of students would get a tablet and a journal to keep all their findings as they tried their routes to get around the world. All of the groups start in London in 1872.
It’s fine to just click and pack Monesuir Fogg’s bags and go to the next city, but what if we had the students find out more about London at that time. What was life like? What were the concerns of the day? What was the social and political climate like? Let’s go and find out.
As you see there is much to be researched etc. I love the end that gives tidbits on the vocabulary and whatnot of the day. After watching the first 4 chapters of the book Around the World in 80 Days, the students will begin the game. But before hitting play, they will know exactly what London was like and some general knowledge of the time…reform clubs, Queens of the time, types of transport etc.
After watching and taking notes we will integrate that knowledge into a digital portfolio of sorts using StoryMaps from arcGIS.
So, daily students will watch/read a chapter from Around the World in 80 Days, and then dive in into the project. They will make one travel choice a day within the game and document what they found, both within the game and in the book, but also document why they chose what they did regarding the choice of the next city. The students will take screenshots of the game and include in their own documentation.
Within this whole process a leaderboard will be kept in the classroom and within the game–as a little motivation and challenge. Within the game these can be measured: how much money they have left (after starting with 4000 GBP), how many cities they visited, how many miles travelled, number of achievements earned…etc.,
After the 80 days, we will see how well the students did and give them the option of continuing to play if they didn’t finish within the time wagered (there should not be a penalty).
At the end each of the groups will do an oral report showing their StoryMap stories and what they enjoyed most.
One Response
Love this idea and I completely agree with assessment being done in this way especially for children who have high anxiety. It helps to get a clear picture of where they are at and definitely helps them long term to move their learning forward.
The Around the world in 80 Days project looks great fun and splitting it up like that is a great way to keep there attention and focus. I will look forward to reading about how they have done.