Digital Learning Day: Five Game-Based Learning Tools for Success Through Play

As the education technology world continues to evolve, exciting new products and services are emerging to strengthen and create unique learning experiences for leaners of all ages. Digital Learning Day was established in 2012 to spotlight the many different facets, tools, and applications that support and empower teachers and students. It applauds educators who are getting creative with their digital resources to open up a whole new world of discovery. In honor of Digital Learning Day, we’re sharing some game-based learning tools we’ve developed with a few of our partners.

We’ve been in the educational media industry for over 20 years. Throughout this journey, we’ve held on to our belief in the power of learning through play. This roundup of resources offers a look at immersive play in diverse content areas including history, civic engagement and reading, logic, financial literacy, leadership, resiliency, and social emotional skill building. Players learn and develop skills as they play exciting roles of daring explorer, investigative journalist, and even a wily con artist.

We’d love to hear and learn from you! Share how you’re implementing game-based learning tools in the comments below.

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Zoombinis, TERC
Make me a pizza! Through Zoombinis, players learn important life skills including algebraic thinking, data analysis, and theory formulation in a fun and engaging setting. With 12 puzzles and four levels of increasing difficulty in each, players are constantly challenged, improving their problem-solving skills as they advance through the game. Play the revamped classic game you know and love!

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Con ‘Em If You Can, Commonwealth
Con 'Em If You Can is a fun, interactive strategy game developed to help players learn how to spot and avoid investment fraud. The game turns the tables and players are cast into the role of fraudster, learning key techniques – phantom riches, reciprocity, scarcity, social consensus, and source credibility – to scam the residents of Shady Acres and thwart the Fraud Fighting Agency!

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Operation: REACH, Boys & Girls Club of America
Players set sail on the SS Chelonia to rescue crewmates stranded along a mysterious island archipelago. Aboard the ship, players work with the Captain to navigate and mediate interpersonal conflicts among the crew that threaten the success of the mission. Only with communication, resiliency, collaboration, and empathy will they be able to gain the strength and knowledge to face the final mystery of the Fog, and return safely home. Players gain social emotional learning skills by utilizing tools to keep their stress and anxiety at bay.

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Read to Lead, Classroom, Inc.
After the Storm and Community in Crisis places middle schoolers in the fictional city of Port Douglas – a community devastated by a hurricane. By leading the daily news website and running the community center, students assume a leadership role in the community and pick up literacy skills along the way. The literacy learning games in the Read to Lead series promote vocabulary, multi-media production and editing, and work place readiness through real world simulations.

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Ripped Apart: A Civil War Mystery, Smithsonian Institution National Museum of American History
Ever wondered what it’s like to work at the Smithsonian? With the sudden and curious departure of her last intern, Museum Curator Isabella Wagner needs help solving a mystery dating back to the Civil War. Ripped Apart invites players to immerse themselves in the 19th century by exploring the photographs and belongings of mysterious characters from America’s past as an intern at the museum. The app aims to improve the understanding of American history, while helping players get a feel for the critical thinking skills, analysis, and tools museum curators use to study and classify historical objects and artifacts.

#InYourWords: Classroom, Inc. Highlights the Voices of Students and Educators Across the Country

The following post is written by guest blogger Celia Alicata, Director of Marketing & Communications for Classroom, Inc. FableVision Studios worked with Classroom, Inc. to develop the award-winning After the Storm and Community in Crisis. The interactive learning games promote middle-school-level reading and writing through real-world workplace simulations. Aligned to Common Core State Standards, the games encourage leadership skills and are used in classrooms with an interactive online portion and offline project-based materials. Celia recounts the following story of sharing the games with some middle schoolers in Alabama and New York.

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Picture this: it’s a record-breaking 100+ degree-day in a small suburb outside of Birmingham, Alabama. We’ve just arrived to film Ms. Mahan’s summer learning class using Classroom, Inc.’s Community in Crisis—the organization’s latest learning game that puts students in the role of executive director of a community service center. We’re so thrilled to talk to real students who are diving in to their role as boss, but the heat has us running nearly on empty.  

Our first stars arrive timidly at the door of the classroom shoot—lights, cameras, and boom mics greet the children before we are able to. As the interviews kick off, it’s quite evident that the heat is no match for the energy and the powerful conversations being prompted by the real-world scenarios in the game. The young learners quickly forget the cameras are rolling, and tell stories about how the games help them see a world beyond their own:

“We’ve been learning to express ourselves differently to the world, and to really look at stuff in a new way,” explained Brillith, a soft-spoken, thoughtful 7th grader.   

Ms. Carr’s class of leaders from Thurgood Marshall Academy for Learning and Social Change in Harlem, New York shared similar revelations as they made the connection between literacy and leadership. 

“The game is going to help me do my career because reading helps you throughout your whole life,” reflected Adriana, 8th grade.

“There’s great responsibility in life. And after I was done playing [After the Storm] I saw what I have to be ready for,” said Axel, an animated 8th grader who plans to be a magician when he grows up.

The games ignite a sense of self and aspiration in these young students—from Birmingham, to New York, and to Los Angeles—and that’s what sticks with us. Listening to the voices of the educators and students whom we partner with is how we learn. It’s how we grow. And most of all, it’s how we ensure we’re developing literacy and leadership skills for children across the country. Keep watching classroominc.org for more #InYourWords videos.

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Celia Alicata, Director of Marketing & Communications, Classroom, Inc.
Celia Alicata leads the marketing and communications efforts to share Classroom, Inc.’s stories of impact; reach thought leaders, bloggers, and journalists; and build awareness about the organization’s learning games. She brings a decade of experience in strategic communications and marketing, community engagement, and education policy and advocacy for issues impacting our most under-served communities.

Most recently, Celia was director of grassroots and regional marketing at Teach For America where she managed outreach for 13 TFA regions. Prior to that, she managed programs at Change the Equation, a STEM advocacy organization, and federal policy at the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. In addition to her nonprofit experience, Celia spent time at Collaborative Communications Group, a consulting firm for education organizations. She holds an M.Ed. from the University of Virginia and a B.A. in Communications, Law, Economics, and Government from American University in Washington, DC.

GLS Recap: Creative Director shares highlights of After the Storm

Classroom, Inc.’s After the Storm, connects middle school students with what they learn in school to the real world. FableVision Studios worked with Classroom, Inc. to develop After the Storm, a literacy learning game that promotes vocabulary, multi-media production, and editing through a real-world simulation. Ultimately, at its core, After the Storm is an engaging game with a message.  

"From the start, After the Storm had a mission of delivering a best-in-class experience that is accessible to all students,” explained FableVision’s Creative Director Leigh Hallisey.

Let’s talk story. The game is just fun! After the Storm takes place the day after a hurricane has devastated the city of Port Douglas. There are major power outages, flooded streets, the airport has been shut down, and homes destroyed. The student assumes the role of editor-in-chief of The Daily Byte, an online community news magazine. As editor, the student works with reporters, photographers, and the IT team to get the right information out to the community while also juggling the complex issues that confront leaders in the workplace.

“It’s a holistic approach where the story, game mechanics, and assessments are seamlessly woven together into an immersive experience, and it places the student in an empowering role, making decisions that impact the outcome of the game,” Leigh said.

Pictured from left, Anne Richards, Jen Groff, Leigh Hallisey, Allisyn Levy, and Heather Robertson at the GLS conference in Madison, Wisconsin last week.

Cool, right? We think so. Now to Wisconsin, where key players from the After the Storm team held a panel at the recent GLS (Games, Learning, and Society) conference entitled: Anatomy of a Learning Game: From Design to Development to Distribution. Leigh joined Jen Groff, of Learning Games Network; Allisyn Levy, from BrainPOP; Anne Richards, of Classroom, Inc.; and Heather Robertson, from Lake Geneva Schools, on an all-star panel.

Interested in learning more about After the Storm? Visit Classroom, Inc. in FableVision’s booth at ISTE, #3114, on Sunday, June 29 and Monday, June 30. But until then, now that she’s back and has recovered from her cheese hangover, we asked Leigh to share a bit about the conference and what makes After the Storm unique.   

How did FableVision’s approach to learning games influence the shaping of After the Storm?

This was the key piece that Classroom, Inc. asked FableVision to talk about on the panel, and it was a great opportunity for me to try to express what we live and breathe and somewhat take for granted every day and communicate it to an audience. I tried to boil the essence down into a few main pillars: mission and goals, storytelling, learning by doing, and technology.

From day one, we were completely immersed in Classroom, Inc.’s mission and goal for After the Storm: to create a great, best-in-class literacy game, aligned to Common Core State Standards, with focus on socio-economically disadvantaged kids and classrooms.

After the Storm has a powerful storyline that immediately draws the player in and pulls them through the game. There’s drama, high stakes and humor, interesting characters, and a diversity of perspectives and opinions. The student is part of the story, empowered by being in a position of authority—there’s reason and motivation for doing the work because the player is personally invested.

FableVision is also a strong proponent of embedding the learning into the gameplay and core mechanic. Rather than arbitrarily placing a “fun” mechanic on top of the game (“Fling the coffee mugs at the intern to knock him over, and then take a multiple choice quiz about topic sentences!”) every conversation, task, clickable object, and learning activity in the game is tied to the player’s job as editor-in-chief.  

FableVision is a technology powerhouse—our developers are well versed in all of the latest technologies and upcoming trends. And they are passionate about their work—there is a real artistry in what they create. We are always careful to use the best technology for the product and its audience, not just for the sake of a buzzword or “cool whiz bang” factor. For After the Storm, the game needed to handle a tremendous amount of content, so the architecture was designed to streamline the management and delivery of the content.

After the Storm also needed a low barrier of entry—the game had to perform on older browsers without the need for plug-ins. All of those factors, plus the simulation style gameplay that was perfectly suited to the learning objectives, informed the decision to use HTML5. The Studio created a custom Content Management System that Classroom, Inc. can easily update, saving them time and money and allowing them to swap out content to create additional episodes. 

As creative director, what unique perspective did you bring to the panel?

As the creative director, I’m lucky to (usually) be involved in the project from the proposal phase to the kickoff meeting and all the way through launch. I was able to touch upon the reasoning behind the decisions that Classroom, Inc. and FableVision made as a collective group, from character design to user experience to creating a custom CMS.

I also was able to work in a ton of internet animals into my presentation, including BaneCat, a pug, and a chinchilla. It’s easier than it sounds, and it’s amazing how versatile they are in visually explaining complex concepts. Or maybe I just really like internet animals. 

Now that the panel is over, do you have any highlights to share?  

All the women on the panel were brilliant; it was fascinating hearing their perspectives. I loved that we had a ton of great questions from the audience, and people were waiting to speak with us more about the game after it was over—a lot of positive feedback, and most importantly, people were engaged and really thinking about the game.

Other non-panel related highlights included a Peet’s Coffee in the conference venue, $5 cocktails, and seeing lots of FableVision’s partners at GLS: Florida Virtual School, National Geographic, Learning Games Network, Concord Consortium, and of course Classroom, Inc., just to name a few.

So GLS was in Madison, Wisconsin. Did you have any cheese?

In the brilliant words of Steve the Monkey in Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2, “Cheesy! Cheesy! Cheesy!” So much cheese! I had cheese curds, fried and dipped in various sauces—I went back many times to the buffet line for more. It was embarrassing.  And I had Gorgonzola cheese melted on both pasta and on homemade potato chips. Wait. Did you hear that? It was another artery clogging. So worth it, though.