Student-Created Digital Breakouts...

Student-Created Digital Breakouts...

Education is not one size fits all. To meet the needs of today's learners teachers need to use a wide variety of ways to assess students' knowledge. In my opinion, traditional testing truly only measures a student's ability to memorize, regurgitate, and discard. Why hold onto that information if you do not truly understand it, apply it, or even have the desire to use the information. For example, I once had to memorize dates for certain battles for a class. To this day I cannot recall those dates, I could for the test though but not now. Those dates are not important to me, I cannot use them in any way in my current life. Now the reasons for those battles, that information could be important, but I spent so much time trying to memories those dates I have also forgotten the reason for the battles.

As a teacher, we need to truly understand what students know and teach them how to apply their knowledge. We also need to instill a desire to continue to learn and grow. Just memorizing data to pass a test is not good enough in today's society. We also need to teach our student to think, troubleshoot, problem-solve, and to realize their first attempt is not their last one. Having students create, explain, demonstrate, design, explore, develop, etc... will allow teachers to truly assess not test but assess a student's understanding.

We need to rethink what an assessment looks like. We also need to embrace that each student is different and not all assessments will work. Having students create Digital Breakouts is a way we as teachers can personalize learning for each student and truly assess their knowledge and abilities.

So what is a Digital Breakout?

A digital breakout uses the same concept of solving a series of clues to unlock locks as the physical breakout does. A Google Form is used as the locks. Using a Google Form you can create a wide variety of locks. A digital breakout has no need for any additional equipment. All that is necessary is a device connected to the Internet.

Students can create Digital Breakouts to demonstrate their knowledge on any topic. Once the Digital Breakout has been created then other students can apply their learned knowledge of the topic to solve the clues and breakout.

I will be speaking at ISTE19 over how students can create Digital Breakouts and how teachers can use these student-created breakouts as an assessment tool. So join me on June 26th at 1:00pm room 120A to learn more. If you cannot make it below is a link to the resources I will be sharing.

Resources:

• ISTE19 Presenters Page
• Student-Created Digital Resources Padlet

Student Created Digital BreakoutEDU....

Student-Created Digital BreakoutEDU....

Teaching students critical thinking skills is a struggle for teachers. Students are used to receiving information and repeating it, then moving on to the next set of information. To get students to dive in deeper and make connections is hard and time-consuming in the classroom. For the past year and a half, I have either created or used pre-made digital breakout with my students to help them learn critical thinking skills.

It dawned on me as I was teaching skills such as hyperlinking, uploading images, embedding, and just creating with digital tools that my students needed to be building digital breakouts. I am limited on the digital tools my students can use, either because they cost or the filter blocks them. SMORE is one of the tools that I use with my students. Using the free version of SMORE my students are limited to only creating three SMOREs.

My school is also a GAFE school (Google Apps for Education). SMORE is a simple way of learning how to upload images and learn to hyperlink. You can even embed a Google Form within SMORE. Before I had my students create their digital breakout in SMORE, I had them write a story and create a SMORE around their story. Giving them practice using the different options within the SMORE format.

Creating the Digital BreakoutEDU:

I placed students into groups with one student being the captain. The captain was in charge of the SMORE. Since students are limited to only being able to create three SMORES I had the captain create the digital breakout with their SMORE account. As a team, they had to devise a plan for sharing the information with the captain for it to be placed on the SMORE. The team was also required to document what role each person did in the creating of the SMORE.

The Requirements for the Digital BreakoutEDU:

• The captain had to obtain feedback from the team on the topic their digital breakout would be over. Then decide on the theme keeping the team's interest in mind.
• On the Google Form, they had to have 5 to 8 clues.
• I demonstrated how to set up the Google Form for it to work correctly for the digital breakout.
• Each link had to take the user to where a clue could be found.
• Each image had to relate to the digital breakout & provide a clue.
• If the Google Form needed a particular format such as a date or letters for a directional lock, then under the clue an example would be required.
• A story or scenario was needed on the SMORE to tie all the pieces together.

Student-Created Digital BreakoutEDU:

• Little Einsteins Digital BreakoutEDU
• The Lost Girl Digital BreakoutEDU
• SpongeBob Digital BreakoutEDU