'lighting like The Lost Room' photo (c) 2010, ▓▒░ TORLEY ░▒▓ - license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/

I know the title for this “The Best…” list is a bit of a mouthful, and perhaps not that clear, but I couldn’t come-up with anything better.

There are quite a few online games with educational value that have players compete against others on the Web. Many of them, however, don’t allow the players to choose whom they are playing with, and are just connected anonymously.

I have reservations about students playing these games for three reasons:

1) Many of the others playing the games are native-English speakers, and are at a competitive advantage when playing with my English Language Learner students. Games are not a whole lot of fun when you’re losing all the time.

2) Most (though not all) of those games have safeguards built into them to ensure anonymity, and also have some controls on inappropriate content. However, one not uncommon way for players to take advantage of that anonymity is to use nicknames that are inappropriate.

3) I think it’s just plain more fun when you’re competing against your peers in class as opposed to some faceless person out in cyberspace.

Happily, there are several online games with educational value that allow users to create private “virtual rooms” that allow you to choose whom you play against. It’s pretty intense, exciting, and fun in the computer lab when everyone is competing against each other, and after each question is answered you see a “leaderboard” on the screen showing the position of each player.

Of course, I have to say that I feel that most of these kinds of games are played best in the classroom with students divided into groups and playing “face-to-face.” However, it can also be a nice change to do something like this on occasion in the computer lab.

In order for a game to make it on this list, it:

* needed to have educational value for English Language Learners and other students.

* allow for very easy creation of private “virtual rooms” where you can control who can enter the game.

* be free-of-charge.

Here are my picks for The Best Online Games Students Can Play In Private Virtual “Rooms”:

 

“Quizizz” Is A Great Game-Playing & Game-Creating Site For Classes!

Drawception is a cool online game that combines the old Telephone Game with drawing. You can easily create private rooms.

Quizalize is very similar to Kahoot. My big critique of both Quizalize and Kahoot has been that neither have allowed students to see how they are faring against their classmates in answering the questions, which is an important component (used appropriately) in using them as games (both have fixed that issue since this post was originally posted) That’s why I’ve featured an alternative called Quizizz on my The Best Websites For Creating Online Learning Games list over the first two. Quizizz lets students see their standing in the competition. Even though I don’t think it’s been a problem in my classes for low-scoring students to see their low-standings because of the super-strong culture we develop around student challenges being around learning the English language and not about intelligence, I can see that problem potentially being an issue in many content classes.  Fortunately, though, you’re given the option to not see all player scores.

Quizizz just added a great feature — the ability to assign these quizzes as homework and to have teachers track student progress.

“Be George Washington” In This New Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Activity

Letterbox is a free game that follows the common structure of providing several letter and then challenges the player to create words out of them in a short period of time. Letterbox’s twist, though, is that it provides a url address for you to share so that you can play with your friends, which can work quite well in a classroom.

Stax is a game designed to help you learn about investing.  It also gives you the option of playing in groups you choose.

Naraview – A Good Way to Challenge Students to Make Connections Between Topics is from Richard Byrne.

Drawpoly is a neat Pictionary-like online game where you can play with your friends and classmates. It would be great for ELLs.

DrawGuess looks like a great online game for ELLs.

Scattergories

Geoscents is a new online Geography game.

There are several Pictionary-like games on this list and they are all good. Skribbl, though, might be the easiest to play and quickest to understand. It would be nice regular addition to any ELL class and a fun occasional game for any other class to lighten things up.

“Fluent Key” Looks Like A Wonderful Video Tool For All Teachers

Draw Battle is an online Pictionary-like game. I’m not sure yet if it makes it past our school’s content filters. Right now, Drawpoly works great.

Keymash looks like a fun typing game.  Students can compete against each other in virtual rooms.

GeoQuiz lets you name or identify countries.  It’s simple, but has the neat feature of letting you compete against other players.  It’s particularly nice that you can create your own virtual rooms and only play with your friends classmates.

Word Tiles is a Scrabble-like online game that could be appropriate for advanced ELLs.

Wordle Cup lets you play a Wordle-type game, but in virtual rooms where you can compete with friends.

Blooket

Gimkit

Quizlet

Wordle With Friends is another version where you can play with friends and classmates in a private virtual room.

Hide and Seek World looks like a Kahoot-like game for Geography. It’s free if you want to play with random people, but you have to pay a small subscription price if you want to create private rooms for your students. It might be worth it if you are a Geography teacher.

Spardle is a Wordle-like game you can play with classmates in a virtual room.

Colludle is a Wordle-like game that can be played collaboratively by up to six people on video.

Drawpoly right now is the only online pictionary-style game that is not blocked by our district’s content filters.  Minibibl is a new one.  When I get back to school, I’ll have to see if it can get through.

Quizalize Transforms Itself Into A Game Site Like Blooket & Gimkit – It Will Be A Nice Option For Teachers

Doodlocracy is a Pictionary-like game that uses Artificial Intelligence.  You can create your private virtual room to invite friends – or your students – and then each person is given a prompt.  Once you draw it, AI embellishes it, and people have to choose what it is from a list of prompts, including the correct one.  It’s a creative idea.  Unfortunately, the prompts seem to me to be too complicated and strange (not “inappropriate) to make it a workable game in the classroom.  I’m still going to add it to this list in the hope they’ll figure out a way to simplify the prompts.

“STUDYBOP” IS A NEW QUIZIZZ/KAHOOT-TYPE LEARNING GAME PLATFORM

“Frankenstories” Is A Quizizz/Kahoot-Like Game For Writing

Tusmo Games let players compete against each other, and there are some word games there that might have classroom value.

ClassQuiz: A Free Tool Supporting High-Effect Size Instructional Strategies is from TechNotes. It’s an intriguing Kahoot-like game.

Touring Test is a very hard geography game, but it does have some interesting features, including having two playing options – map or multiple choice – and offering the feature of playing in a private room with friends.

Boom will use AI to create quizzes, which can then be played in a virtual room with up to eight participants.

“ALPHABET SORCERY” COULD BE A FUN LEARNING GAME FOR STUDENTS TO PLAY

LEARNING GAMES & ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Gartic Phone and FishBowl are two online games that would be fun and useful for ELLs to play – if they aren’t blocked by district content filters.

“GIANT STEPS” IS ANOTHER KAHOOT/QUIZIZZ – TYPE GAME SITE

As always, feedback and suggestions are welcome.

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