All stakeholders who are involved in the educating of children - administrators, school boards, parents and teaching staff - realize that there are a handful of instructional strategies that stir up strong feelings and provoke dissension. Game playing is one such strategy that is hotly debated and still viewed as quite controversial in our 21st-century classrooms today.

However, when we've asked students about it, almost all of them speak positively about the impact of games on their learning journeys, and they long for more game-related activities. Funny, isn't it? As educators, our mission is to reach our students in order to prepare them for their experiences and realities beyond the classroom today and in the future. Why don't we listen to what they are telling us? Why don't we pay attention to what they are doing 24/7 before and after school (i.e., texting, social networking, playing video games on the Wii or Xbox 360, blogging, and participating in simulations, chat rooms, and MMORPGs)?

We recognize that there are other perceived obstacles to game playing in the classroom, such as cost, training of staff, logistics and availability, and curriculum and assessment demands of educational standards. However, the benefits outweigh the challenges. Game-related activities can reach our students intellectually, physically, and emotionally (affect/motivation) and enhance their skills and knowledge.
If you find that you are hesitant to try games or game-like activities in your classroom, we challenge you to test out a few user-friendly tools:

1. Quia Web
Quia Web offers creation tools to generate Hangman, Battleship, Concentration and other learning games for students. There are a huge number of shared resources to choose from, should you wish to test them out before producing one of your own. It also allows teachers to generate quizzes with ten different types of questions. You may include audio or images in your quizzes, too.

2. PowerPoint game templates:

• Jeff Ertzberger'sPowerPoint Games - In addition to all the wonderful, ready-to-use, free templates at this site, Dr. Ertzberger offers games for other Microsoft Office products.
• Jefferson County Schools' PowerPoint Games
• Parade of Games in PowerPoint - Dr. Dianne Jones provides a variety of games beyond "Jeopardy" and "Millionaire."

3. BrainPOP (or http://www.brainpopjr.com/games/)
BrainPOP is known for its engaging, animated movies and accompanying resources such as quizzes, graphic organizers, experiments, and other activities. While you can access some video clips for free, a paid subscription is required for others. Did you know that BrainPop also offers a large selection of games for its users? Check them out!

4. Play Harder -Get Smarter Super Smart Games - This site supplies a wealth of games that you can select by platform, age or subject matter. Teachers of health/P.E. and arts-related subjects will be happy to find games that are relevant to their content areas! There are some excellent, reality-type games that involve models/ simulations of building and managing businesses, directing a movie, discovering and inhabiting new islands, and on and on! Not all games are free, but the majority of those that are not offer a free trial.

5. Games for Change
The creators of this site describe their mission as: "Games for Change (G4C) is a non-profit which seeks to harness the extraordinary power of video games to address the most pressing issues of our day, including poverty, education, human rights, global conflict and climate change." There are nine total game channels which provide a plethora of intriguing games children, teens, and adults!

6. Social Impact Games: Entertaining Games with Non-Entertainment Goals - Marc Prensky's site challenges its visitors to partake in "serious games" - those that were designed with a purpose other than entertainment. While there are a vast number of educational games on this site, Prensky has included COTS (commercial-off-the-shelf) games, business, political and social, health and wellness, military , projected and upcoming, news, and public policy games (some of which overlap with those found at the Games for Change site above).

If you'd like to learn more about games and game-like activities in your classrooms, we invite you to see our books:
Differentiating Instruction with Technology in Middle School Classrooms and
Differentiating Instruction with Technology in K-5 Classrooms.

On March 31, 2010 at 4:30 PM EST, we will conduct a webinar via BrainPOP Educators called "Classroom Games? Why not?" Please join us!