'Game Design Expo 2011' photo (c) 2011, Vancouver Film School - license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

Here’s yet one more “The Best…” list — this time focusing on web tools that let teachers and students create their own online learning games.

If you find this list helpful, you might want to also review The Best Online Games Students Can Play In Private Virtual “Rooms.”

You might also be interested in:

The Best Ways To Create Online Tests

The Best Tools To Make Online Flashcards

When I talk about “learning games,” I also mean sites where students can easily create online video games that might not have an overt learning purpose. However, they can be excellent opportunities for English Language Learners to develop their English — by following the instructions on the screen, by writing directions for their game, and by writing and talking about their reactions to playing games made by their peers.

In addition, of course, there are sites that let you create games with an overt learning purpose — for example, to review content that has been covered in a class. Teachers can certainly create these activities and post them. However, I’ve always found it much more effective to have students create their own learning games — both online and in the classroom.

Since these sites fall into these two distinct categories, it’s difficult for me to rank them as I’ve done in the majority of my lists. Instead, I’ll just list them in no order of preference.

In order to make it on this list, these online tools need to be:

… accessible to English Language Learners.

… free.

… good tools to create a variety engaging content. It needs to let the user use a number of formats to create their games.

To start-off, I’ll share my picks for sites that let you create more “overt” learning games:

Class Tools is an excellent resource. Teachers and students can create lots of learning activities using formats from popular 1980’s arcade games.

Philologus is also on my list. It’s very similar to Class Tools. However, it uses more recent television games shows as templates for teacher and student created exercises.

Purpose Games is similar to the previous two, though I have to say the games you can create aren’t quite as much fun with this site. Nevertheless, it rates a spot on this list.

(A site called What 2 Learn might be worth including in this list.)

Jeopardy Labs lets teachers and students create their own online games of Jeopardy. No registration is required, and each game has its own unique url address. Most other apps to create Jeopardy games require a software download, which makes Jeopardy Labs really stand-out since none is required.

educaplay looks like a great free (as far as I can tell, at least) tool where you can easily create a ton of different kinds of educational interactives that you can link to or embed in your site. These include:

•Riddles
•Crosswords
•Wordsearch Puzzle
•Fill in the texts
•Dialogues
•Dictations
•Jumbled Word
•Jumbled Sentence
•Matching
•Quizzes
•Maps

For at least some of the them, including dictation, it provides the ability to record audio.

Now, I’d like to list sites that let you create online video games that don’t necessarily have an overt learning purpose. However they offer excellent language-development opportunities, especially for English Language Learners, in the ways I described earlier in this post.

These types of sites include:

There’s a site called Sploder which allows students to develop their own simple games easily and then Sploder hosts their creation. Students have to write instructions on how to play the game for players to read. They can then play each other’s games, and then write comments about what they liked about it (the instructions and comments are hosted by Sploder).

Breshna lets you make video games with no coding experience.

You can easily create games on your iPhone with Playr. Read more about it at TechCrunch.

Review Game Zone lets teachers, and anyone, input academic questions and have them turned into a games that students can use for review. It’s free, and teachers can also monitor student use of at least some types of the games.

As regular readers know, I’m a big fan of having my English Language Learner students play online video games as a language development activity (see POINTING AND CLICKING FOR ESL: Using Video Games To Promote English Language Development).

Escape The Room games are one of my favorite game “genres,” where players have to…escape from a room by clicking on objects and using them in a certain way and/or order. Most of these games also have a text component.

Now, a new free tool has come online, the Room Escape Maker, that lets anybody create their own….escape the room games. It requires a little more of a learning curve than I would like, but I think it has some potential.  Here’s some more info on how to use them in the classroom.

Easily Make Reviews into Gameshows! is by Carissa Peck.

Richard Byrne recently shared about Jeopardy Rocks, a simple online game-creator (They’ve recently changed their name to Factile).

Bill Ferriter writes about Kahoot, another game-creator. ADDENDUM: Kahoot has finally added the ability to show questions and answers on the same screen!

“Quizizz” Is A Great Game-Playing & Game-Creating Site For Classes!

“SuperTeacherTools” Looks Like A Great Site For Creating Online Learning Games

eQuiz Show lets you easily create online Jeopardy-like games without requiring registration. There are already a number of similar tools on the list, but you can never have too many because who knows what School District content filters will block and what they will let through.

Thanks to Alison Rostetter, I learned about Teachers-Direct. They have two styles of games you can create without registering. One is called Quiz-Busters. The other is sort of interesting. I’m not a big fan of Word Searches, and view them as basically busy work. At this site, you can create a Word Search – with a twist. Instead of listing the words students have to find, you list sentences with a blank and the students have to come up with the word and find it. I wouldn’t spend any teacher time on creating one, but I could see having students use it to create ones for classmates to play now-and-then.

“Playbuzz” Is A Great Place For Creating Learning Games – If It Doesn’t Blocked By Your District’s Content Filters

Play & Create Games With “Tiny Tap”

Online Learning Game Site Quizalize Adds New Feature I Like A LOT

“Learning Apps” Is One Of The Top Educational Websites Of The Year!

“Quiz Game Master” Is A Nice Tool For Creating Online Learning Games

Bamboozle lets you easily create and play learning games.

Blended Play is a new free site that provides several types of games that teachers can add questions to and then display them on a computer projector for all-class play.

Make An Amazing Number Of Different Learning Games With “GameBuilder”

“oodlu” Definitely Looks Like A Winner When It Comes To Creating & Playing Online Learning Games

BadaBoom is a Kahoot alternative.  I particularly like its feature of being able to provide more than one correct answer. Note, though, that I, at least, am having technical difficulties using it.

WOW! “GENIAL.LY” HAS DEVELOPED INTO AN AMAZING MULTI-PURPOSE TOOL!

“FLUENT KEY” LOOKS LIKE A WONDERFUL VIDEO TOOL FOR ALL TEACHERS

EduCandy is a new site where you can create online learning games.

WOW! WORDWALL LOOKS LIKE A GREAT – & FREE – SITE FOR CREATING ONLINE LEARNING GAMES

Charlala is an exceptionally creative use of tech to create a language-learning game. You can read a review of it here. As creative as it is, though, it seems to me its ideas can be applied just as easily to a classroom game with students having mini-whiteboards and the teacher having a doc cam. However, I can also see the added “coolness” factor of using tech for students, and I also am open to being told I’m missing something. I’m still adding it to this list.

 

Gimkit

Gamilab

Blooket is like a Quizizz/Kahoot/Gimket online gaming platform. Online Kahoot, though, students can see the question and the answer choices on the same screen. Read more about it at Teacher’s Tech Toolbox.

Book Widgets lets you create many different types of learning games. Unfortunately, though, it doesn’t have any free options, though its cost doesn’t seem prohibitive.

Learn Hip lets you create an incredible number of games and online activities, primarily geared to help students learn English.

GIMKIT ANNOUNCES THAT THEIR GAMES ARE FREE NOW!

WE SPENT CLASS YESTERDAY PLAYING SEVEN FREE KAHOOT/QUIZIZZ-LIKE GAMES & HERE IS HOW STUDENTS EVALUATED THEM

Here are some digital escape room games created by different libraries. They all used Google Forms to create them. Here are two different tutorials on how to use Google Forms to create them.

Gimkit Games for Interpretive Assessment and Student Collaboration is from FLT Magazine

Blooket: Game on, Students! is from FLT Magazine, and gives a thorough explanation of that gaming platform.

Quizalize Transforms Itself Into A Game Site Like Blooket & Gimkit – It Will Be A Nice Option For Teachers

“Frankenstories” Is A Quizizz/Kahoot-Like Game For Writing

“STUDYBOP” IS A NEW QUIZIZZ/KAHOOT-TYPE LEARNING GAME PLATFORM

Interacty seems like a reasonably-price tool for creating interactives, including games.

“GIANT STEPS” IS ANOTHER KAHOOT/QUIZIZZ – TYPE GAME SITE

Downpour looks like a pretty cool way to create games on your phone.

Rosebud Gamemaker

Buzzinga lets you create Jeopardy games.

Wow! I Suspect “Groovelit” May Be A Popular Game In English Classes This Year

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