Thursday, March 15, 2012

Super Fun Embeddable Games!

Day 15 of 31 at TWT!
I've read about ClassTools.net on several different blogs this year, including my favorite tech blog.  Usually, I love most of the tools Richard shares at Free Technology for Teachers.  However, when I first visited ClassTools, I was really disappointed in the amount of ads plastered all over everything (unless you get a premium membership).  So I decided it wasn't for me. 

However, this week I had some time to play and decided I really needed to add some new vocab games to my Moodle sites.  I was kind of tired of ProProfs games since I'd already created and embedded several word searches, crosswords, word scrambles, and hangman games for the kids to practice with.  They're cute, fun, and my students enjoy them, but I wanted to add something totally different.

So I opened up my Evernote and started scrolling through my "student resources" notes, looking for ones that were tagged "games".  I found (and finally had time to peruse) a link to games from the Spanish Techbook by Adventures with Technology.  After some playing around, I decided I'd try the embeddable arcade games at ClassTools.net, because they are really fun and NOT covered in ads like most things on the site!

And I LOVE them!  One really neat feature is that once you enter the questions/answers, the kids can choose from 5 Flash-based activities: 4 games and 1 flashcard activity.  The games are a blast too -- I honestly enjoyed myself trying them out!  My favorite was"Word Shoot", and I know my husband would love "Manic Miner" (a retro-style platform game).  I love the fact that kids could choose the games they like best or play several games to practice with the same vocabulary in different ways! 

Want to see for yourself?  Here's the set of games I created for practicing numbers 1-30. (It's embedded; just click on the name of the game to try it out!)


So fun, right?  Plus, they're really easy to create -- just go to the Arcade Game Generator and enter your questions & answers in a box: 
screenshot of the game creator: so easy!
That one data set creates all 5 activities!  You can then click "Play!" to try them out, and click the little gear symbol to get the html embed code to put them on your site.  I put a password on all of mine because I didn't want the kids to be able to click "edit" and accidentally mess them up.

I just got them up on Moodle yesterday so I haven't heard from any students who have played them yet, but I think they will be a hit!

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5 comments:

  1. elsieMarch 15, 2012 at 8:34 PM

    Your kids should have fun with these games. I did not do so well on the matching but I did pass the first level Wordshoot (not so good at level 2). My French helped me. :-)

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  2. Linda BMarch 15, 2012 at 8:59 PM

    The games look really fun. I tried the miner one & finally got the hang of it. My grandson is here so I'll share with him, Jennifer. I'll check you other links, too. I am trying to find time to use Evernote. I have it & just can't seem to get the time to really explore. It is great however. There is so, so much on the web now! Love that you shared all this.

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    Replies
    1. JenniferMMarch 15, 2012 at 9:22 PM

      Glad you and elsie liked the games! :). I've been meaning to write a post about how I use Evernote, so I'll have to write it soon for you! :)

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  3. CathyMarch 15, 2012 at 10:42 PM

    Jennifer,
    I love Evernote and need to remember to use it to save links to websites students might find useful. Thanks for the reminder.
    Cathy

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  4. DanaMarch 15, 2012 at 11:39 PM

    Thanks for sharing. Those are fun. I'm going to have to try that. Please write about Evernote. I haven't used it and would like to hear more. :) I don't have a cool phone, ipad, etc. so I'm wondering if Evernote is something I'd use.

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