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

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 2021:

I’ve Begun Having Students Play This Game In My Concurrent Classroom & It’s Been Working Well!

IThrive Games looks like it has an interesting collection of online social studies simulation games.

Check Your Reflex is a game that is supposed to teach players how gambling can become addictive.

It’s A Miracle! Kahoot Now Can Show Questions On The Same Screen As The Answers

GimKit, the online gaming platform, has released a cool new game called Draw-That. It’s a Pictionary-like game ideal for language learners. Other similar games I’ve used included Drawpoly and Charlala, which is specifically designed for language learners.

There are quite a few online games designed to help students learn about information literacy, and you can learn about many of them at The Best Tools & Lessons For Teaching Information Literacy – Help Me Find More. Harmony Square is another one I’m adding to the list. It’s pretty involved, and has a “Choose-Your-Own-Adventure”-like design.

Collisions looks like a neat game site for helping teach chemistry, and it appears to be free.

Here are two new additions to The Best Online Geography Games:

City Guesser gives you the option of first choosing the world, or different areas of the word, and then shows you videos of a location.  You guess where on a map, and then you’re shown how close you were to the correct answer.  One intriguing option is just having it show you monuments from throughout the world.

GeoQuiz lets you name or identify countries.  It’s simple, but has the neat feature of letting you compete against other players.  It’s particularly nice that you can create your own virtual rooms and only play with your friends classmates.

Keymash looks like a fun typing game.  Students can compete against each other in virtual rooms.  I’m adding it to The Best Sites Where Students Can Learn Typing/Keyboarding.

Games To Learn English is a free site with many English-learning games. Yes, there are a zillion online sites with English-learning games. This one, though, lets you very easily assign specific ones for homework. Of course, I don’t assign homework during the pandemic, but this could be useful when we return to normal times. I’m adding it to:

The Best Sites Where Students Can Work Independently & Let Teachers Check On Progress

The Best Online Homework Sites For English Language Learners – Please Offer Your Own Suggestions

“PuzzGrid” Is An Excellent Inductive Learning Game For ELLs & All Students

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. I’m adding it to The Best Websites For Creating Online Learning Games.

Blooket is like a Quizizz/Kahoot/Gimket online gaming platform.  Read more about it at Teacher’s Tech Toolbox. I’m adding it to The Best Websites For Creating Online Learning Games.

Map Quiz is a good online geography game and, as Richard Byrne points out, one of the nice things that set it apart from others is that it provides multiple choice answers. I’m adding it to The Best Online Geography Games.

Lesson of the Day: An Election News Game is from The New York Times Learning Network. I’m adding it to THE BEST RESOURCES FOR TEACHING ABOUT THE 2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION.  However, I think the game concept could be applied to a lot of topics.

“Gamilab” Looks Like A Decent Site For Creating Online Learning Games