http://youtu.be/zNgHshuRlpI A scene from the great QR code theft, featuring our lead QA tester. Btw, Lucy Wu is the title character of The Great Wall of Lucy Wu, one of the DCF books this year and a clue in the game.
Author Archives: Audrey Homan
DCF Book Run launch report, part 1.
Well so far we’ve only lost 1.5 QR codes and a table. One disappeared mysteriously from on top of a vending machine and had to be replaced on the fly, and the other I managed to talk the dining room staff out of believing was simply brightly colored garbage. Folded into a free-standing table tent. …
Things that might’ve been said at this morning’s game launch:
1. “Dorothy just popped up again. Turn her down!” 2. “45 minutes before the first QR code was stolen. 45 minutes. Stay classy, librarians.” 3. “Is she still popping up?”
It’s the little things that make me happy
It’s not quite Credly badge integration (the attribute doesn’t link out to the live site) but after much wrangling, it works: you answer questions about 15 books, win the game and get the Winning Reader badge. There’s got to be a way to automatically award the badge via Credly, though. I wonder if we could …
Continue reading “It’s the little things that make me happy”
Sneak peek: DCF Book Run
Planning a new ARIS game: DCF Book Run
Next week, my nascent group of Burlington-area ARIS developers will be meeting to begin work on the construction of “DCF Book Run”, a game in which players will complete up to thirty mini-challenges to demonstrate that they've read the thirty books on this year's Dorothy Canfield Fisher (DCF) Award list. The game will make its …
So about this course I took
you can take it too: It’s a month long, run entirely online via Badgestack, and the next sections are April 1 – 26, 2013 and July 8 – August 2, 2013. It’s primarily designed for folks with teaching credentials, but I made my way through nonetheless, and I can’t wait to put my newfound knowledge …
Towards a better games rubric
I’m really taken with this educational games evaluation rubric from Sacramento State, not only because it helped me specify a lot of my thinking about what makes a great game, but because I think it’s well-crafted as an online tool teachers could use to quickly score a video game for potential use in their classrooms. …
Found: Hidden object games
I confess, I’ve been hunting and evaluating hidden object games for literacy purposes for nearly a year now, so I’m kind of coming at this from a skewed background. But having played nearly a dozen hidden object games to their conclusions with this growing awareness of literacy needs in mind, I’m starting to put together …
Hidden object games and ELL learning
ELL students and others who struggle with reading issues feature an uphill battle for skill mastery that’s compounded by the social stigma and real-world functional problem that language deficits present. While they’re trying to learn from textbooks they’re also missing out on social interactions that a) could otherwise bootstrap their skills and b) put them …