Blog #7 - Educational Games

For your week 8 blog (your 7th entry...), please do a quick search on the web and find an online EDUCATIONAL game. Post the link to your game in your blog and take your best shot at analyzing why this game may prove useful in the classroom. Don't just say: "because it is fun," rather, give some pedagogical (you can read and refer to Gee's principles if you like--see this week's "at home" folder for a link to this article) or ODE standard-related reason for using the game. You may also consider giving a brief summary of what the game does in order for your readers to understand the post.

The game that I chose was Prehistoric Mad Libs found on funbrain.com:

http://www.funbrain.com/brain/ReadingBrain/Games/Game.html?GameName=MadLibsPrehistoric&Brain=reading&GameNumber=3&Color=FFFFFF

I really enjoyed this game. I have done Mad Libs before and they always turn out to be fun. 


The educational views behind the game are:

• Learn to distinguish between verbs, adjectives, nouns, adverbs, etc.
• See how each different types of words fit into a sentence (what each word contributes)
• Learn that to make a sentence make sense, you cannot just use any words
• Students will strive to finish and be creative with their words so that their story is entertaining.

• This game does not become boring after a few minutes because the outcome will always be different (The children will want to be involved most of the time).

How the game works:

1. You will have twelve various screens like the one presented above.
2. The box in the center will tell you what type of word to look for.
3. You can either type in you own word or attempt to click on
4. Each type of word is considered a level and as the levels increase the word choices scatter and move faster to make it harder to catch
5. Once all twelve words are selected the site will automatically redirect you to the story with your word choices highlighted for you to see