This week I looked at Educandy, a site that allows you to create your own matching games. Science teachers to English teachers could use this to help their students learn vocabulary and become familiar with terms in a fun way. Using it was honestly pretty easy. To create an account, I made a unique name and password, and I was ready to start creating. To start a matching game, I named my activity and labeled it with a school subject. Then I simply clicked “matching pairs” to create matching games, then entered vocab words with their matching definitions. As soon as I uploaded what I liked, I simply scrolled down to play activities with my vocabulary.
Students can play a tic-tac-toe game (called Noughts and Crosses) with a friend. They can also fill in crossword puzzles, play memory, matching, and take mini-multiple choice quizzes. The games are fun, they keep track of how long an activity takes, and also keep score. They’re easy to play and access. Anyone can share what they’ve created by clicking the “share” button. A teacher could give their students a link and they would enter a password to access their games. Or a teacher could embed the link right onto their websites for students to use. A classroom teacher in almost any subject could create games of concepts and definitions. Students could easily access it and play at home, in the classroom, or in the library. The teacher could work with the librarian to have the games embedded on the library’s homepage, so students could access the games right from the library.
I created some games based on biology and the study of cells. It would work well for sixth or seventh graders students getting familiar with terminology before getting into the deeper concepts. The site does have a childlike design with small fuzzy characters, so I can also see this being great for younger students. It could be used to grow their reading skills. If you’d like to play the quiz I made, with my forgotten knowledge of the cell, play here: https://www.educandy.com/site/resource.php?activity-code=6eec
A librarian could also create quizzes on something like information literacy, digital citizenship, or even just quiz students on famous books if that’s something kids would be into. A librarian can also share this platform with teachers that want to go beyond Quizlet or simple vocabulary tests. One thing I wish I could create, is a genre test. Students would answer questions to determine what genre of fiction they are like, or would like to read. This is closer to a personality test, where there are no lowered scores or wrong answers. Since all of the options on Educandy are simple one question, one answers types. Clicking the wrong answer results in a lower score, so other types of more complex quizzes may not be possible.
It was easy to make an account, so I also think there’s a chance to have students make their own account and make their own quizzes. This is more for secondary students. Then they could share those quizzes with a friend and test their knowledge to make sure they have correct definitions and to share their views. It would be a way for students to create their own study guides, while developing some technology skills. If it’s something that really works for the student, then they can make their own games for other classes.
However, this sort of quiz may not involve intense critical thinking skills or writing skills. There’s no space for students to type their opinions, instead they just matching simple terms or match a set answer to a question. But helping students to match these and build their vocabularies, gives them a foundation to understand more complex questions and can help them to answer critical thinking questions as they grow, and investigate deeper into a unit. Overall, I had fun creating quizzes and playing the games. For young and old students, this platform is engaging and easy to use.
Gabrielle Weiss Blog 