BreakoutEdu Digital Craziness

By Anonymous -
Good day: 
This week I will discuss how two weeks of Breakoutedu Digital has changed project-based learning/gaming in our school. 


 So today... BreakoutEdu Digital craziness.
In April 2015, +John Larmer  wrote an article, Gold Standard PBL: Essential Project Design Elements. In it, he discussed what he considered the gold standard for productive, essential project-based learning. This model is used to  "help teachers, schools, and organizations to measure, calibrate, and improve their practice." He outlined why teachers should use PBL to improve student learning of content, concepts, and depth of understanding. According to Mr. Larmer, Students need a challenging problem/question, with sustained ininquiry, authenticity (real-world learning), student voice/choice, reflection time, critique & revision time, and publicity. I agree.

Project-based learning is neither new or controversial. Many great academics have proven its usefulness. But, project-based gaming is a new niche. Gamification (i.e Minecraft) has proven popular for students but core teachers have had reservations on how to implement these Edu games into the 1:1 classroom. You can and should! A great source for gamification can be found with +Lucas Gillispie at edurealms.com. He is a fantastic resource! 
Edurealms.com


 What's interesting is that schools are more often gearing up to give students devices without a clear plan on what students can create with them. They are gearing up with the idea that the information will be transferred through the device to the student. So, unfortunately, districts end up on the substitution end of the SAMR model for longer than needed. 
Several weeks ago two of my middle school teachers and I attended a Google Summit conference in Charlottesville, Va. All three of us attended Breakoutedu Digital sessions. We came back with a new enthusiasm for creating projects for students to use on their Chromebooks. I have found in just the last two weeks, our school's use of Breakoutedu.com/digital gaming has created a fantastic glimpse into student-led, inquiry-based, problem-solving activities. The digital breakoutedu enthusiasm is contagious. Several other teachers are now using these new skills to personalize learning and create student choice during end-of-course review sessions. 

As a by-product of this, students are now creating digital breakouts that are curriculum centered, inquiry-based, with student-led designs integrating YouTube, Google Forms, ciphers, and encryptions. 

 Thanks to +Justin Birckbichler, +Jenny Conrad, 
and +AlexMichelleCase for presenting BreakoutEdu Digital at the Google Summit. 

 So, in the words of Life cereal: Try it, you'll like it (Breakout digital). 


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