By: Kelly Boston, School Librarian at Wayland Union Schools
“An evil scientist will unleash a virus upon the world in thirty minutes, unless you can foil his plan!” Nothing engages students like saving the world...or when learning feels like a game, especially one where you are racing against the clock. This summer, several All IN members from various Allegan County school districts attended a professional development session on Breakout EDU. This new concept of “classroom escape games” engaged us, and has us thinking about possibilities for bringing this to our own school districts. Here’s how it works: players have a fixed amount of time to solve a series of challenges, riddles, and mysteries in order to “break out.” Each game is designed so that players are immersed in the experience and are racing against the clock to break out before time expires. The game facilitator reviews how the team did and reveals what they may have missed if they were unable to solve the puzzle mysteries and breakout. Teachers prepare the games ahead of time using kits including various locks, boxes, and black lights and black light pens for writing “invisible messages” that students have to decode. Kits are available here, but there is a lot of room to get creative and make your own with their open source guide. Breakout games encourage teamwork, problem solving, critical thinking, creativity, and troubleshooting, as well as technology skills, like using QR codes. The best part is, they can be used for any subject area or concept by changing the nature of the clues. The website has a collection of games that have been tried by real educators, as well as a “sandbox” for those brave souls willing to try a newly developed game. Want to learn more? The official Breakout EDU Facebook group is a bustling hub of passionate educators and resources to get you started challenging your students to escape...if they can!
1 Comment
Gayle Underwood
9/7/2016 12:01:54 pm
Thanks for posting this Kelly! It has great info. Now we need to do a breakout with our staff!
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