GAMIFICATION: BACK TO DINOSAURS' WORLD

During the lockdown, I learned about gamification, so I decided to create an educative escape room of my own called “Back to dinosaurs’ world”. The idea is to crack some passwords to reach the next level.

The challenge was to find some young dinosaurs lost in the woods and bring them back to their families before the Cretaceous Period end with the extinction of the dinosaurs. The topic was not in my social sciences syllabus but as some students were quite motivated about those creatures, I managed to include it in my English class by emphasizing the reading comprehension activities, and the searching of information.

Students had to move through the Mesozoic era: the Triassic, the Jurassic, and the Cretaceous period by entering the correct password. The tools I used to create it were:

Google sites:

I created the main page with the introduction to the game. Then, I duplicated it with the Mesozoic era, the Triassic, the Jurassic, the Cretaceous, and a help page with useful vocabulary. I used Google Sites to structure the information and include all the links to the activities and readings to obtain the passwords. Once students guessed the password they moved to the next Google Sites and so on.

Generador de candados digitales online:

This web page allows you to create a password, write clues or images to provide visual support. You can also customize the password background, redirect to a page if the password is correct, or move to the next level if it is correct. It is also possible to set a maximum number of tries, and some other minor features.

Padlet:

I created 2 Padlets. The first one was a forum for questions and comments such as what dinosaur name they obtained in a game.

The second Padlet’s idea was to provide me with some feedback from my students so that I could make some improvements.

I also used TOOLS and WEB PAGES to prepare the activities so that students could crack the password. These activities were, at the same time, useful ASSESSMENT tools which provide both teachers and students with valuable information about reading and listening skills:

It was a great opportunity to learn about dinosaurs (not only my students) and to integrate different online educative tools.

Check the game “Back to Dinosaurs’ World” here

Back to dinosaurs' World

Núria Parareda

Comments

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