45 mins
Presenter: Scott Nicholson, Wilfrid Laurier University, Brantford, Ontario, Canada
Look back at this session on using escape games in the classroom from our 2022 Conference. Scott Nicholson says escapes require significant time and resources to prepare creating a barrier to entry that many teachers can not overcome, but a new game system he designed and we can all use borough this barrier down. He says escape rooms can increase inclusivity by allowing teachers to facilitate storytelling games using only a blackboard, found objects, and a script.
The games are collaborative choose-your-own-adventures based on escape room design principles, where the students discuss decisions in small groups and then vote on what to do. Challenges in the game are tied to learning outcomes and help the players understand the connections between what they have learned in class and how the concepts are used in the real world. As the games are facilitated through a script read by the teacher, they can be played in any classroom and can be easily changed by the teacher based on the needs of the class.
The system is freely available at http://escapeif.com and is in the Creative Commons; the goal of the project is to build a repository of games, hosted by the mEducation Alliance.
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