It continues to be time for mid-year “Best” lists.

The first was THE BEST WEB 2.0 APPLICATIONS FOR EDUCATION IN 2020 – PART ONE

You can see all my previous Online Learning Games “Best” lists (and there are a lot since I’ve doing this since 2007) here. Note that they’re also continually revised and updated.

Here are my picks from the first part of 2020:

Drawpoly is a neat Pictionary-like online game where you can play with your friends and classmates. It would be great for ELLs. I’m adding it to The Best Online Games Students Can Play In Private Virtual “Rooms”

FunApero is a video conferencing tool that lets you play games with your friends.  I’m thinking that some games might be useful for ELLs.

The Best Sites For Creating Not Totally Useless Word Searches

Esri Maps has a series of Geography Treasure Hunt interactive games on various topics. They’re definitely not easy, but I could see some students enjoying them. I’m adding it to The Best Online Geography Games.  By the way, I took this opportunity to do a complete revision and update of that list.

Passport To Mars is from Scholastic, and puts you in the position of being an astronaut traveling to….Mars.

Stax is a game designed to help you learn about investing.  It also gives you the option of playing in groups you choose.

Mission 1.5 is a simulation game from the United Nations that lets you help deal with global warming.

Mission to the Mesozoic is a neat bilingual (English/Spanish) game from the Field Museum. It’s designed “to find plants and animals across the Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous time periods in this online game.” I’m adding it to The Best Sites For Learning About Dinosaurs.

GimKit appears to be a gaming platform like Kahoot, Quizizz, etc.

Explayn could be an intriguing vocabulary game to play with students.

Rocket Science: Ride To The Station is a new simulation created by NASA where players can put themselves in the role of running a mission to the International Space Station.

iCivics, best known for its Social Studies oriented learning games but also offering many other resources (see WOW! IT LOOKS LIKE ICIVICS WANTS TO BE THE ONE-STOP SHOP FOR SOCIAL STUDIES TEACHERS) announced that they just updated their popular Win The White House game.

The changes include:

• Updated issues for both parties that reflect what your students are hearing in the news and care about most
• More guidance from Campaign Manager Ana to help students navigate the issues, debates, and media campaigns
• Full support for English language learners, including Spanish translation and English voice over
• Coming Soon: A newly updated Extension Pack to make game play a deeper, more meaningful experience for students

The University of Oklahoma’s K20 Center has a wealth of resources for educators! One is K20 Center Games, which has a number of fairly impressive learning games appropriate for high schoolers. Once you sign-up (for free), they’ll send you an email (mine took a few days, but that might because it’s holiday time). Then, you can easily create a virtual classroom and enroll students in it. K20 Learn is another excellent feature on their site. It has a wealth of lesson plans for all major subjects from grades one-through-twelve. I took a quick look through some of them, and they looked pretty good.