I usually just do a year-end list on learning games and many other topics, but it gets a little crazy having to review all of my zillion posts at once. So, to make it easier for me — and perhaps, to make it a little more useful to readers — I’m going to start publishing mid-year lists, too. These won’t be ranked, unlike my year-end “The Best…” lists, and just because a site appears on a mid-year list doesn’t guarantee it will be included in an end-of-the-year one. But, at least, I won’t have to review all my year’s posts in December…

As usual, In order to make it on this list, games had to:

* be accessible to English Language Learners.

* provide exceptionally engaging content.

* not provide access to other non-educational games on their site, though there is one on this list that doesn’t quite meet this particular criteria.

* be seen by me during 2011. So they might have been around prior to this time, but I’m still counting them in this year’s list.

You might also be interested in:

The Best Online Learning Games — 2011

The Best Online Learning Games — 2010

The Best Online Learning Games — 2009

The Best Online Learning Games — 2008

The Best Online Learning Games — 2007

Unfortunately, it’s been pretty slim pickings so far for good new learning games.  I hope the second half of 2012 is more fruitful.  Nevertheless, here are my choices for The Best Online Learning Games Of 2012— So Far:

As regular readers know, I’m a big fan on online Choose Your Own Adventure stories — both having students read and create them (seeThe Best Places To Read & Write “Choose Your Own Adventure” Stories). And, even though I list several options in that list on how to write them, there has never really been a super simple way to do so. Until now. The new free web tool Inklewriter is, without a doubt, the easiest way to write a choose your own adventure story.  It would be nice, though, if they provided a simple pre-planning outline tool. You can read more about it at Gamasutra, New, free tools allow any novice to make an accessible text adventure.

Sushi Spell is a fun little game from the British Council. Thanks to Stephen Trinder for the tip.

The History 2.0 Classroom has a great video tutorial on making “Choose Your Own Adventure” videos and then has another post with student examples.

Lou Lahan has created a very nice tutorial for his students on how to create an online Choose Your Own Adventure game with Google Forms.

Feedback is welcome.

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