adding&a&game& - learnit2teach.ca · 2014. 4. 9. · stage3&reference&&...

Stage 3 Reference

Adding a Game Gamification is a trend in online learning and the Game activity module allows teachers to create engaging games to help students review vocabulary and content. These games give students a score and the scores can be tracked in the course grade book. Using a course Glossary, a Quiz or questions from the Question bank, teachers can add game activities to a course in just a few steps.

The LearnIT2teach team has prepared a specially-‐formatted glossary that can be used to create additional vocabulary activities. Teachers can edit this glossary if they choose. The 'game glossary' is not pre-‐loaded in the courseware, but it is available in the glossary repository and can be added to your course by adding a new glossary to the course. Please refer to the Deployment Tips section for more information.

Hangman, Crossword, and Cryptex games can be created using items from a glossary; however, the site’s Millionaire game does not use glossary items for its content. This game requires multiple choice questions from the Question bank or from quiz activities. Teachers who want to use the Millionaire game must add their own multiple-‐choice questions to the course before they can set up this game. The Stage 3 training provides a section on using the Quiz activity module, which explains how to add questions.

Teachers can add the following games to their courses:

Hangman This game takes words either from a glossary or uses quiz short-‐answer questions to generate a hangman puzzle. Teachers can set the number of words that each game contains, display the first or last letter of the target word(s), and show the answer at the end if the student does not complete the game successfully.

Crossword A random crossword puzzle can be generated from either a glossary or short-‐answer questions in a Quiz, or from the Question bank. Teachers can specify the maximum number of columns/rows or words that the puzzle contains. Student can click the Check crossword button to check whether the answers are correct. Every crossword is dynamic so it is different to every student.

Cryptex This game is similar to a crossword, except the answers are hidden inside a random cryptex (grid).

Millionaire This game is modeled after the TV game show Who Wants to be a Millionaire. The game displays a series of multiple-‐choice questions and as each one is answered correctly, the student moves on to the next question in the game until all the questions have been completed. If even one question is answered incorrectly, however, the game is over.

Samples of the four games above are found in the Stage 2/3 Exemplar course. Additional games, such as Sudoku and Snakes ‘n’ Ladders, may be added eventually.

Using the Game Module Activity to Enhance Blended Learning Game activities can provide students with a fun -‐ or at least different -‐ way of interacting with the course vocabulary and other content. These activities can also improve their spelling and phonetics. Teachers can use the Game module to create follow-‐up activities based on those in the face-‐to-‐face class that students can complete independently. Although the activities are designed to be suitable for

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individual use, teachers in classrooms with one computer and a projector might be able to facilitate a game with a small class divided into two teams. The Millionaire game might be ideal for this, especially if its content were tied into the lesson, and the Hangman game might also be good for a short diversion.

Deployment Tips o Refer to the Adding a Glossary instructions in the Blended Learning Development Activity Guide 1 in

the Stage 3 course to add a new course glossary. (Be sure to enable the setting to allow duplicate entries.)

o After adding a new glossary, use the Importing Glossary Items guide in the Course Management section of Stage 2 to populate it with the game-‐ready glossaries. There is a directory in the Glossary Repository called Glossaries for Games. Open the directory and select the target level.

o Note: Once a game is added to a course, it returns an error message if a teacher tries, while editing it, to associate it with a different set of words. A new game must be added to a course each time, to add different content.

o The game will likely return an error message when adding it if there are non-‐alphabetic characters in the concept word. If using your own glossary items, it is best to remove all such characters in the glossary concept when adding a vocabulary item.

o Teachers can specify which category in a glossary can be used when setting up a game. This makes it easy to draw on specific groups of words from a single glossary to create a game. The “game glossaries” are organized by level, and the words in each level are categorized by theme or unit and by specific activity.

o If more than one glossary uses a category by the same name, an error may result when attempting to link a game to that category. All of the category names in the game glossaries start with an “x” to ensure they are unique.

o The items in a glossary category can be displayed (and edited) by navigating to a glossary, clicking the Browse by category tab and selecting a category in the All categories drop-‐down menu.

Game Activity Help files Moodle documents: Game module <http://docs.moodle.org/25/en/Game_module> Moodle Game (add-‐on) (a user discussion) <https://moodle.org/mod/forum/view.php?id=7220>

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Adding a Hangman Game

Step-‐by-‐Step Instructions for Adding a Hangman Game 1. Click the Turn editing on button on the course home page. 2. Click the Add an activity or resource link in the topic where you want to add this activity.

The Add an activity or resource window appears. 3. Select Hangman in the left panel under ACTIVITIES. 4. Click the Add button.

The Adding a new Game to Creating New Learning Activities page appears. Settings in the General section are used to set the general information about the activity.

5. Type a descriptive name in the Name text box. 6. The Source of questions drop-‐down menu is used to select the source of the questions, from

Glossary (the default), Questions or Quiz. 7. The Select glossary setting is used to identify the glossary in a course. This selection must be the

glossary from which the category in the next item is selected. If it is not, an error will result and the activity will not display (until it is corrected).

8. The Select category of glossary drop-‐down menu is used to select the Category, e.g. an activity or theme/unit, from which the desired glossary items are to be taken.

9. The Select question category setting is greyed out if Glossary or Quiz is selected in the Source of questions drop-‐down menu. If Questions is selected, the drop-‐down menu choices are displayed. The categories in the course Question bank will appear in this drop-‐down list.

10. The Include subcategories setting defines whether subcategories are to be included. 11. The Select quiz setting can be used only if Quiz has been selected in the Select question category

setting. The Quiz activities in the course will appear in this drop-‐down list.

12. The Maximum number of attempts text box is used to set the maximum number of times a student is allowed to try the game. Settings in the Grades section are used to set the maximum grade achievable, the grading method, and the desired opening and closing dates of the game.

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13. The Maximum grade text box is used to set the highest grade achievable in the game. 14. The Grading method drop-‐down menu is used to set the grading method. The choices are

Highest grade (the default), Average grade, First attempt and Last attempt. 15. The Open the game and Close the game settings are used to set when the game is available to

students. Note: Students can start their attempt(s) only after the open time and must complete their attempt(s) before the close time. Settings in the Hangman options section are used to set up information about the target words and number of errors allowed.

16. The Number of words per game text box is used to set how many words will be used in each

game. 17. The Show first letter of hangman and Show last letter of hangman drop-‐down menus are used

to set the visibility of the first and last letters of the words in the game. The default is No in both cases.

18. The Allow spaces in words and Allow the symbol -‐ in words drop-‐down menus are used to set restrictions on how the target words are displayed. The default is No in both cases.

19. The Maximum number of errors (have to be images named hangman_0.jpg, hangman_1.jpg, ...) setting is used to indicate the maximum number of errors allowed during the game.

20. The Select the images of hangman drop-‐down menu is used to select the images that will appear in the game.

21. The Show the questions? drop-‐down menu will display the definition for a word from the glossary if enabled. The default is Yes. (This should be enabled for vocabulary review.)

22. The Show the correct answer after the end drop-‐down menu is used to display the correct answer at the end of the game. The default is No. (Enabling this option might help students to review vocabulary.)

23. The Language of words drop-‐down menu is used to set the accepted language of the words used in the game. The choices are -‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐ (the default), and English.

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Settings in the Header/Footer Options section are used to set header and footer text.

24. The Text at the top of page and Text at the bottom of page text boxes are used to insert text

that will appear as a header and footer for each page in the game. The text may be formatted and images and other media added if wished. (The Text editor is the same editor found in other Moodle tools.) Settings in the Common module settings section are common to many Moodle activities and resources.

25. The Visible setting is used to Show/Hide the activity. This is identical to using the Show/Hide

icons when the Turn editing on function is enabled on a course home page. 26. The ID Number setting sets an ID number for advanced use of the grade book. (This is not used

in the LINC courseware.) 27. The Group mode setting enables the use of groups. (More information is available in the Groups

documentation in the Stage 3 Course Management section.) 28. The Grouping option enables the use of groupings (a collection of groups).

Settings in the Restrict access section are used to limit access to the activity. (More information is available in the Conditional Release documentation in the Stage 3 Course Management section.)

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Settings in the Activity completion section are used to set completion tracking, grading options and the expected completion date. (More information is available in the Completion Tracking documentation in the Stage 3 Course Management section.)

29. Click the Save and display button to save/update the activity, or click the Save and return to

course button. The Hangman activity link appears on the course main page.

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Adding a Crossword Puzzle Game

Step-‐by-‐Step Instructions for Adding a Crossword Puzzle Game 1. Click the Turn editing on button on the course home page. 2. Click the Add an activity or resource link in the topic where you want to add this activity.

The Add an activity or resource window appears. 3. Select Crossword in the left panel under ACTIVITIES. 4. Click the Add button.










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students. Note: Students can start their attempt(s) only after the open time and must complete their attempt(s) before the close time. Settings in the Crossword options section are used to set up information about the grid size and number of words in the game.

16. The Maximum number of cols/rows text box is used to set the number of columns and rows in

the crossword game. 17. The Minimum number of words and Maximum number of words text boxes are used to set the

minimum and maximum numbers of words in the crossword game. 18. The Allow spaces in words drop-‐down menu is used to specify whether spaces are allowed in the

words used in the crossword game. 19. The Layout drop-‐down menu is used to specify the location of phrases. The options are Phrases

on the bottom of cross (the default) or Phrases on the right of cross. 20. The Show print button drop-‐down menu is used to specify whether the Print button displays

with the crossword game. Settings in the Header Footer Options section are used to set header and footer text.

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21. The Text at the top of page and Text at the bottom of page text boxes are used to insert text that will appear as a header and footer for each page in the game. The text may be formatted and images and other media added if wished. (The Text editor is the same editor found in other Moodle tools.) Settings in the Common module settings section are common to many Moodle activities and resources.






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course button. The Crossword activity link appears on the course main page.

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Adding a Cryptex Game

Step-‐by-‐Step Instructions for Adding a Cryptex Game 1. Click the Turn editing on button on the course home page. 2. Click the Add an activity or resource link in the topic where you want to add this activity.

The Add an activity or resource window appears. 3. Select Cryptex in the left panel under ACTIVITIES. 4. Click the Add button.










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students. Note: Students can start their attempt(s) only after the open time and must complete their attempt(s) before the close time. Settings in the Cryptex options section are used to set up information about the target words and errors allowed.

16. The Maximum number of cols/rows text box is used to set the number of columns and rows in

the Cryptex game. 17. The Minimum number of words and Maximum number of words text boxes are used to set the

minimum and maximum numbers of words used in the Cryptex game. (This may be especially useful when linked to a glossary with a large number of items.)

18. The Allow spaces in words drop-‐down menu is used to specify whether spaces are allowed in the words used in the Cryptex game.

19. The Max tries text box is used to specify how many times a student is allowed to attempt the game. Settings in the Header/Footer Options section are used to set header and footer text.


that will appear as a header and footer for each page in the game. The text may be formatted

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and images and other media added if wished. (The Text editor is the same editor found in other Moodle tools.) Settings in the Common module settings section are common to many Moodle activities and resources.








course button. The Cryptex activity link appears on the course main page.

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Adding a Millionaire Game

Step-‐by-‐Step Instructions for Adding a Millionaire Game 1. Click the Turn editing on button on the course home page. 2. Click the Add an activity or resource link in the topic where you want to add this activity.

The Add an activity or resource window appears. 3. Select Millionaire in the left panel under ACTIVITIES. 4. Click the Add button.



Questions (the default) or Quiz. 7. The Select question category setting is used to select the desired category of questions. If

Questions is selected, the drop-‐down menu choices are displayed. The categories in the course Question bank will appear in this drop-‐down list.





Highest grade (the default), Average grade, First attempt and Last attempt.

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13. The Open the game and Close the game settings are used to set when the game is available to students. Note: Students can start their attempt(s) only after the open time and must complete their attempt(s) before the close time. Settings in the Millionaire options section are used to set up information about the target words and errors allowed.

14. The Background colour text box is used to set the background colour in the game.

Note: The number value must be a six-‐digit HTML hexadecimal colour code. See this HTML Colors page < http://www.w3schools.com/html/html_colors.asp> for more information and details on individual codes.

15. The Randomize questions drop-‐down menu is used to specify whether the questions should be displayed randomly. (The default is Yes). Settings in the Header/Footer Options section are used to set header and footer text.


that will appear as a header and footer for each page in the game. The text may be formatted and images and other media added if wished. (The Text editor is the same editor found in other Moodle tools.) Settings in the Common module settings section are common to many Moodle activities and

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resources.







21. Click the Save and display button to save/update the activity, or click the Save and return to course button. The Millionaire activity link appears on the course main page.

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adding&a&game& - learnit2teach.ca · 2014. 4. 9. · stage3&reference&&...

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