I want to start by saying that I hope you are safe and well. Although this is a stressful time, from what I’ve seen online, librarians have used their roles as leaders in positive ways. They’re sharing online resources for the parents that need them for their children to learn at home. They’re recording or holding live read alouds for patrons and students. They’re educating the public about verifying their news sources. Thank you to the librarians that are working so hard. It means the world to children, to parents, and to the public.
While looking at the Future Ready Librarians Facebook page, I came across a cool post. A librarian asked everyone to share their favorite digital escape rooms. Looking at the link, I thought I’d be taken to a free digital escape room from a site like BreakoutEDU. Instead, I was brought to an escape room created on Google Forms. This was created by the youth services librarian at https://ptlibrary.org/ (this library has so many great resources to check out).
Taking a look at Google Forms I was amazed at easy and customizable the tool is. A form can function like a quiz with choices, or short answer or with drop down selections. A creator comes up with their own title and description. There is a small tour so a user knows what different tools do. Just by clicking a button from the tool bar, the user can add a video, images, questions, and sections easily. By clicking the artists palette at the top, the user can change the images and colors to what fits their theme. Using the settings wheel, the creator can make a quiz with grades. It’s really open to what the creator wants to do. If a creator wanted to make an escape room, where participants can only move forward with the right answer, it’s possible.
Of course, I had to try and make my own. Here is a very simple escape room: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSc5zV6OCYZhbm5pi5SZmP00wQHEXygI4i_S16FOqFLWfwgg9g/viewform?usp=sf_link
I decided to utilize multiple choice. The first challenge is to answer a question about a video. Adding the video from YouTube was easy. I used the tool bar to add a video and it connected right to YouTube. I could search the site or provide a link that I found. To add questions, I clicked the “add questions” button from the tool bar and was able to create my own question with answers. I could duplicate the questions if I needed to. The real trick is to make sure that if players pick the wrong answer, they’re brought to a slide that lets them try again. I had to create a form for each response to ensure the player could keep moving through. Then I had to link each answer choice to the correct response form. This was an easy process, but in a more complicated escape room, this could be hard to keep track of.
The next challenge I created is balancing a set of scales. I wanted there to be some math to show how challenges could cross disciplines. This is a basic one, but could be expanded so students have to balance different weights and perform more complex calculations. To add the scale image, I used the tool bar and had the option to search Google. I didn’t have to open a new tab. This made the process very easy. Once again, each answer I created had to connect to another form. Each form was customizable. There are ways to jumble questions so different players or groups will have different scenarios. Students can move different challenges based on their answers and if players do this in groups, not every group will have the same experience.
In a classroom, an escape room with puzzles can support so many different subjects. Perhaps chemistry students have to solve a chemistry equation in order to move forward. Or the students have to mix elements or chemicals in a beaker correctly. I know a student in college that’s completing biology labs. Since she can no longer go to campus, she’s doing her labs online. Perhaps through a Google Form, they could complete the steps in a lab and move forward, instead of physically being present. Maybe students have to solve math problems to move forward. Maybe a librarian creates different escape rooms, so there’s potential for differentiation or mixing up the puzzles based on learning styles. Maybe students need to know information based on the book they’ve read for English class, or need to use their knowledge of analyzing primary sources to move forward. There is so much potential with this.
Students may complete this on their own, as a team, or even compete against other students in the class. Working as a team can help students build their communication skills. Teachers might strategically group their students, so they can develop their own strengths. Maybe students create their own puzzles for the escape rooms and learn how to use a new technology. There really is a lot of potential that teachers and librarians could take advantage of with this program. It also shows how Google Forms can work in many different ways. It’s not just for surveys or quizzes, it can be a tool for learning, exploration and even fun.
Gabrielle Weiss Blog 