Use computer games to motivate your students.
Educators often look for ways to incorporate technology into the classroom. One way to do this is to use technology to create educational games for your students. Using games to teach is one way to increase your students' energy and enthusiasm during lessons and motivate them to learn via "winning" the game. There are many different games you can use.
Jeopardy
A great way to engage your students in learning is to use software such as PowerPoint, Google Presentations or Apple iWork to create a game of Jeopardy. You can tailor the game to almost any content area and any grade level. Create a table with five columns and six rows. Put category names in the first row and dollar amounts in each of the following boxes. Create hyperlinks out of each dollar amount and point those hyperlinks to new slides. On the new slides, type an answer to a question (students will respond in the form of a question, like the TV game show Jeopardy). At the bottom of the slide, type "Return to home" and make a hyperlink that takes you back to the first slide. This will make for easier navigation throughout the game. Repeat this until you have one slide for each hyperlinked dollar amount. The finished product will be a Jeopardy game that you can click through as if it were a website. To play the game, divide your class into teams. Put the game on a projector so that everyone can see it. Tally the teams' scores on a chalk or whiteboard. Reward the winning team with a bonus point, homework pass or a small snack.
Internet Scavenger Hunt
An Internet scavenger hunt is a great way to promote collaboration and cooperation among your students. It can be used as an activity for the entire class, as a team-based activity or as an individual activity designed to help students who are having trouble understanding a particular concept. Like Jeopardy, you can use an online scavenger hunt for almost any content area. There are many premade scavenger hunts online that you can use. Alternatively, you can make one yourself. For younger students, type very specific questions and provide URLs where they can go for more information. For older students, type questions that require more critical thinking skills and allow them to find the answers on their own. You may want to restrict their search to build solid research skills. For instance, tell them that they can't use Wikipedia or Google to find answers, and have them compile a bibliography of their sources as they go along. The first person or team to correctly answer all of the questions is the winner.
Online Spelling and Fact-finding Contest
Another way to engage your students in learning while playing a game is to conduct an online spelling and fact-finding contest. You can do this by creating a class website using a free wiki service such as Wikispaces or Deki Wiki. Create a page on which to include a lot of text. It can be information about a history topic you're covering or a summary of a novel the class just read. Intentionally include incorrect information and misspelled words. Your students' assignment is to log into the web page and correct all of the wrong words and facts. Next to each correction, ask them to add their initials so that they get credit for their work. The person with the most correct edits to the page wins. Since the work is being done in a class wiki, it will be easy to track who has made changes, which provides a disincentive for students to cheat.
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