Mia Cadaver’s Tombstone Timeout (helluva’ name, eh?) is a new, and great, game from the BBC. It’s very similar to another BBC game that is a favorite of my students called Gut Instinct, which is ranked very high on my The Best Online Learning Games — 2008.
Both of these games ask questions related to Math, Science and English, and you can choose which subject you want to use. One of the improvements that Mia Cadaver has over Gut Instinct, though, is that Math and Science are divided into levels of difficulty. That makes it more accessible to a larger number of students.
But the big selling point for both of these games is that, within seconds, you can create a private “virtual room” where only your students compete against each other. Everybody just types in the name you’ve given the room, and the questions begin. After each question is answered the screen shows the overall ranking of everybody in the room. Students love it!
I often have classroom games with students participating in small groups. An ongoing challenge with this is to make sure everybody is engaged and no one is “coasting.” There are certainly strategies to maximize student participation, and I use them, but that’s certainly not an issue when everyone is playing a game like Mia Cadaver or Gut Instinct — even when they’re doing it in pairs.
Your students will have fun playing and learning!
