Unlocking Learning Adventures (TCEA 2024)

Dive into the exciting world of digital escape rooms and their powerful impact on student engagement. Explore the process we’ve used for creating digital breakouts with our teachers. Discover how we take the content they are already using to create thematic storylines, design puzzles and challenges, and leverage technology tools to enhance the escape room experience.

TCEA 2024

Unlocking Learning Adventures:

Harnessing Digital Escape Rooms for Engaging Education

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Birdville ISD Digital Learning

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DESIGN PROCESS

BREAKOUT BENEFITS

Explore the step-by-step process we take when collaborating with teachers to build digital escape rooms

Learn about the benefits and uses of breakout or escape room activities to promote collaboration, critical-thinking and problem solving skills.

GENIALLY TEMPLATES

OUR EXAMPLES

Check out some of the examples we've collaborated on with teachers in our district!

Browse premade lessons and templates that are ready edit for any content area!

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BREAKOUT BENEFITS & USES

Digital breakout or escape rooms are immersive and interactive experiences where participants solve a series of puzzles and challenges to achieve a specific goal, such as unlocking a virtual "lock" or escaping a digital scenario.

Collaboration & Communication

Engagement & Motivation

Problem-Solving & Critical Thinking

Introduce, Review & Reinforce Material

Assess & Evaluate

Customization & Adaptabilty

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Our Design Process

Create your clues, locks & keys

Choose Objectives

Build your rooms

Brainstorm questions

Play, Edit, & Share

Create your theme

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Choose Objectives

Just like with every assignment you create, the first step is to begin with the end in mind and decide which skills you would like to assess or practice by using the escape room. When partnering with educators, we begin by asking these questions:

• What standard(s)/objective(s) will be the focus of your activity?
• What is the purpose of the breakout?
• What do you want students to be able to do?
• Where does this activity fall within the learning cycle?

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Brainstorm questions

Continue working with the teacher to collect existing resources you can repurpose. A wide variety of activities gives more flexibility when designing the rooms. Depending on the standard(s), look at the different parts and ways that students will need to display mastery of the standard.Start by designing four to six tasks targeting specific skills. For example, in an escape room focused on literary devices, you could use exercises like vocabulary activites, cloze passages, matching or sorting, and close reading. Don't worry about keys for locks at this stage, just create or find skill-targeted tasks.

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Create your theme

This is where you get to be CREATIVE! A great escape room will have a fun backstory that will hook the students. Come up with a story that grants a purpose to the challenge of the escape room activity. AI has become a game changer for us! ChatGPT + Canva AI Image Generator are our go-to's!

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Create your clues, locks & keys

Decide what you want your rooms & locks to be, then write your clues. These codes can include anything you want— numbers, letters, words, symbols, etc. Get creative with it! Basically any resource can be adapted to include in your breakout. Consider things beyond multiple choice to up the challenge for students. Examples:

Jigsaw

Vocabulary

Multiple choice

Cloze

STAAR 2.0

Match-Up

Sorting

Riddles

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Build your Rooms

Compile all of the needed activties and documents to build out your room. Test as you go! We often use physical answer sheets and Canvas quizzes to collect student data and to extend their learning beyond the escape room. For escape rooms designed to take more than a single day, think about how you can allow students to get back to where they left off!

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Play, Edit, & Share

Play your breakout to ensure everything works correctly. Consider getting someone else to play it too to get another set of eyes on the activity.

• Does it all play back to your theme/story?
• Do your clues lead them to unlock and escape?
• Did you make your locks?
• Did you check that all answers (right and wrong) go where you expect?
• Did you publish your Genially?
• Did you go through it yourself to check it all?
• Did you have someone else go through it?

• How will you share it to students?

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Build Interactive and Engaging

Lessons for ANY Content area!

Edit one of the pre-made templates or unleash your ( or AI's) creativity to make one of your own! Take a look at the some of the examples our team created for various content areas. These are just a few examples of the magic that is possible with Genially Digital Breakouts.

SCIENCEActivity Resources

MATHActivity Resources

SOCIAL STUDIESTeacher Resources

RLATeacher Resources

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Genially Templates

Genially provides many FREE templates for digital breakouts that are easy to edit & use right away!

You can also merge multiple templates and quizzes into one activity for an even most engaging experience!

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RESOURCES

Genially Templates Library

How to set locks for digital escape games using genial.ly.

Genially Escape Room Templates

Gamification with Genially

Genially Tips & Tricks

Genially & Gamification in the Classroom

Using Digital Escape Rooms to Make Learning Fun

How to Build Breakouts using Google Forms

Ditch That Textbook: 40+ Digital Escape Room Ideas

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Genially @ TCEA!

← Agenda for other Genially sessions at TCEA '24

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Thank you for joining us!

Birdville ISD Digital Learning

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Assessment & Evaluation

Teachers can embed assessments seamlessly into the escape room scenarios, evaluating students' comprehension of key concepts and their ability to apply critical thinking to solve challenges. The real-time nature of these activities allows for immediate observation of student engagement and performance. Moreover, educators can use the outcomes of the escape rooms to inform their assessment of individual and group dynamics, providing valuable insights into student strengths and areas for improvement. Overall, digital escape or breakout rooms offer a dynamic and holistic approach to assessment, complementing traditional evaluation methods in the classroom.

Up the challenge by creating rigorous riddles to solve.

You can attach numbers, letters, or other symbols to different "cards" that students can sort. Have them use the numbers from a certain category in order to get their code.

Introduce, Review & Reinforce

When introducing new material, educators can design escape rooms that serve as an exciting entry point to capture students' attention, creating an immersive context for the initial exposure to concepts. On the other hand, for reviewing and reinforcing material, escape rooms offer a creative and effective way to revisit key content. By incorporating relevant puzzles and challenges related to the material, educators can reinforce knowledge, promote retention, and offer a comprehensive review experience. The element of gamification in escape rooms enhances motivation, making them an effective tool for both introducing and reinforcing academic content in an enjoyable and memorable way.

Add questions to a page, then cut it up into individual images to move it around. Require that students put the puzzle together, then they will read and answer the questions for the code. You could also embed an online tool like Puzzle Maker.

Customization & Adaptability

Teachers can design escape room scenarios that align with the curriculum, adapting the difficulty level and themes to match the grade level and subject matter. Additionally, educators can incorporate various learning styles and differentiate tasks to accommodate different abilities, ensuring that all students can actively participate. The flexibility of digital escape rooms also enables quick adjustments based on real-time feedback, fostering an adaptive and responsive teaching approach that keeps students engaged and challenged at their individual levels.

Sprinkle in practice with STAAR 2.0 questions in a variety of ways. Think outside the box to attach your codes for the questions.

Drag & Drop

Inline Choice

Hot Spot

Match Table Grid

Problem Solving & Critical Thinking

Digital escape or breakout rooms promote problem-solving and critical thinking in the classroom by presenting students with a series of challenges that require analytical reasoning and creative problem-solving skills. Participants must decode clues, analyze information, and apply logical thinking to progress through the tasks. These activities encourage students to think critically, make connections between different pieces of information, and develop strategic approaches to overcome obstacles. The immersive and interactive nature of escape rooms cultivates a mindset of inquiry and curiosity, fostering the development of problem-solving skills that extend beyond the specific context of the activity, benefiting students in various academic and real-world situations.

Have students answer a series of questions, and write the letter choice of the answers to get their code. You can even change the letters of the answer choices so that you can create a word that fits with your theme or add an additional puzzle to solve.

Use academic vocabulary terms to create codes relevant to your subject.

Engagement & Motivation

These activities provide students with a sense of autonomy and collaboration as they work together to solve challenges and puzzles. The element of competition and the thrill of "breaking out" foster a fun and immersive environment, encouraging active participation. Additionally, the use of technology aligns with students' digital native tendencies, making the learning process more relatable and appealing. (And there is no clean-up or re-setting the room between each class!) Overall, digital escape rooms create a stimulating and motivating educational setting that enhances student enthusiasm and involvement in the learning process.

Use different types of matching activities with the letters in order to be the code for the room.

Collaboration & Communication

Digital escape or breakout rooms promote collaboration and communication in the classroom by requiring students to work together to solve puzzles and challenges within a limited timeframe. These activities necessitate effective communication as students share ideas, discuss problem-solving strategies, and allocate tasks among team members. The collaborative nature of escape rooms encourages students to actively listen to their peers, express their thoughts, and engage in meaningful discussions to reach a common goal. The shared sense of accomplishment when successfully completing the task strengthens interpersonal relationships and fosters a cooperative learning environment, enhancing overall collaboration and communication skills among students.

Have students fill in the blanks of a text. Use the first letter of the word in each blank, in order, to create your code, or attach other letter/number codes to each of the words. Could be a draggable activity in genially as well. Works well for practicing STAAR 2.0 inline choice and drag & drop question types.