Week 7: Creativity & Gaming
Week 7: BreakoutEDU Blog
What is BreakoutEDU?:
BreakoutEDU is basically a collaborative educational "breakout/" game similar to the idea of escape rooms. It involves using the "breakout" box where you put something inside of the box and the goal of the collaborative groups is to open the locked box before the time expires to "beat the game clock". The box is locked with 6 different locks that include codes and keys and the students need to answer questions, solve clues, find things, etc in order to get the keys/codes to unlock all 6 locks. Usually you would have a least 2 teams working against each other, but you can just play to beat the clock to make it competitive as well.
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| Breakout EDU boz with all the different locks attached Cited from: http://www.coolcatteacher.com/breakout-edu-adam-bellow/ Watch this Breakout Edu Intro Video! → https://youtu.be/QWSoR-0DH8Q |
My Experience with BreakoutEDU:
I actually completed my first ever breakout/escape game in March of this year as part of our last class meta-cognitive journals and it was funny because I few weeks later we had a PD choice day were you got to pick what you wanted to learn about in 5 different sessions throughout the day. Our school got a grant for 4 Breakout boxes at each campus to check out and use as we wish so no money spent (just need to think ahead to reserve) and thus they created a session on learning about it. Although I did not pick this choice, a fellow colleague did and he actually created a game session for our house team to play and do a mini-professional development day to learn more about it. This was my first experience with BreakoutEDU and the competitive side of us all came out as we were split into 2 groups and we were racing against each other and the clock to open our boxes. The clues had us solving math puzzles, solving riddles, using QR scanners, using technology, and much more to find the keys and/or codes to open all 6 locks. My group won! This is probably due to the fact that we had 3 math people on our team and the math puzzle was hard if you aren't use to logic mixed with math, but nonetheless we took home the win with pride! Thus overall I have seen it in action but what I hadn't done yet is use it!
I love the idea of it and the colleague who setup this game for us to play and learn more about it has used it in his room and his students loved it! The only issue is it is time consuming to make everything and make sure it all works correctly before giving it out to your students. Also, there is the issue that they get so excited they tell their friends and cheat the clues so you have to think about that as well. As mentioned, the website http://www.breakoutedu.com/ can be used to purchase kits and also access already created games to use. They have all different subjects and are definitely good starters to use to tweak and make the game better for your own students/content. I think based on our discussion for our mini-PD day that the best way to use this in the classroom is as an ice breaker/fun day before a break game or for reviews in which the questions answered can give the codes/clues to the keys and inside you can put some type of reward like candy, pencils, etc. Therefore, I would say any classroom/content can find a way to implement it unless you have super young kids who can't open locks. The main reason I haven't used it is that I haven't had the time to sit down and explore it/create a game with my busy schedule, but I do plan on creating some this summer for next year. I loved it and I think students would enjoy it to if you are willing to spend the time (and possibly money) to create one. I highly recommend you ask your school to work on applying for the grant or if they are willing to purchase boxes for your school to checkout and use! It is a great way to make learning fun, competitive, collaborative and you can involved technology and content learning/reviewing/formative assessment all in one!
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| Reasons to use BreakoutEDU Cited from: https://historytech.wordpress.com/2016/03/07/tip-of-the-week-breakoutedu-and-student-engagement/ |
Sounds like your PD day was a lot of fun and instructional too. I imagine each lock could be a way to teach/learn/reinforce a particular skill or digital tool -- the completion of which leads to opening that lock. How cool would it be to use the kids' desire to hack the process by letting them hack the process? Maybe let them create cheats or hacks for future breakouts that they can post in a blog or tweet out. Then one of the locks unlocks the cheat to another lock for anyone who wants to use it. Lots of fun. A hundred bucks a box seems steep. Do you think your school would have used this if you hadn't gotten the grant?
ReplyDeleteI think there were some people at our school that are really passionate about it which is why they put in for the grant in the first place...so I would assume they would have purchased them even if we wouldn't have gotten the funding through a grant.
DeleteHi Briana, thanks so much for explaining breakoutEDU. I had no idea what this was about, or actually I had the wrong idea of what this was about. This sounds like tons of fun! I would love to try it! I like to think of myself as non-competitive, especially in sports. But when it comes to games of word puzzles, etc., I am very competitive! So this would be right up my alley. Plus I bet students love it. Thanks for the tips on when to use it too. And like many things, it sounds like there's a lot of prep time involved if you make your own, but the payoff could be great.
ReplyDeleteI wish I as able to attend this PD instead of the SAT training that I didn't even end up proctoring. But non the less, that sounds like it was a lot of fun. Did the colleague share this with you guys after having his students complete one or did you get to see it before he tried it with the students? I would be interested in knowing how that worked out with the students as well, since it is gear toward them working on the puzzles. Do you think that you could create your own breakoutEDU game with your own puzzles that you be centered around your content area?
ReplyDeleteI have 3 boxes so if any of you want to experience a Breakout I'd be happy to get together and bring a box! Briana I wouldn't go the route of making your own unless you've had a lot of experience with them. There are plenty on the website to choose from across all subject areas! Our admin has been great about telling teachers they can use Breakouts as a team-building exercise and that it doesn't necessarily have to align to their content area. We are implementing the "Second Step" social-emotional curriculum and this fits nicely into it.
ReplyDeleteYou mentioned completing a game in your last class. Which class? What is a "meta-cognitive journal?"
In the course we took last semester we had to create a journal using blogger, google docs, website, etc and we had to write reflection each week similar to what we are doing now! It was called out meta-cognitive journal. One week for my journal I participated in a an actual breakout game (no breakoutEDU boxes) with my friends and I talked about that experience and learning about breakoutEDU.
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