If you are still teaching for another week, or if you start teaching summer school on Monday, you need this tip. If you are off for the summer, save this for the first week of school, the day after Halloween or the last day before Christmas break. You’ll need it.
This photo looks like it was all AI but those are my real grandkids.
No matter how great of a teacher you are. No matter whether you teach third-grade or the third quarter of Calculus, you are going to have days when you think it’s going to require a miracle for any learning to take place.
I actually have an answer for you and it’s an easy one – have your students design an educational game.
You can use AI for this and it will take you less than 10 minutes of prep time. You don’t have to actually make the game, just design it. You can send us the design if you want (certainly not required) and we’ll review it and maybe we’ll make it.
(Also, if you want to learn how to make a game without coding, there is a webinar next week, with me, and another one in July.)
Step 1: Prepare a draft of a game design
Remember to copy and paste your prompts into a document because you will need these later.
- Select the standards you want to teach. I recommend no more than three standards for a game.
- Now that you know what you want to teach, do you have a specific idea for a story? I want a game about the history of Santa Monica. It should have an introduction as to why learn about Santa Monica. It should include levels for 1886-1925 , 1926-1940, 1941- 1960, 1961-2000 and 2000-present . Another day, I made a game about undersea exploration.
- Paste a prompt into Gemini, ChatGPT , Copilot or whatever AI you may have available. That is your starting game design.
- Optionally, paste the prompt back in to your AI with the instruction – “Optimize this prompt.”
- Copy and paste the response you get and now you have a SECOND game design.
I started out with this prompt:
CONTEXT: I need to create an educational game that runs on Chromebooks for middle school students, using a game builder platform that has blocks of code for each game component.
INSTRUCTIONS: Except for the splash screen and end game block, it is acceptable to use a block more than once.
PROMPT: Write an educational game design that has the history of Santa Monica as the game narrative and teaches the following math standards:
- CCSS.Math.Content.6.NS.C.7 Understand ordering and absolute value of rational numbers and
- CCSS.Math.Content.6.NS.C.8 Solve real-world and mathematical problems by graphing points in all four quadrants of the coordinate plane. Include use of coordinates and absolute value to find distances between points with the same first coordinate or the same second coordinate
The game should have an introduction as to why learn about Santa Monica. It should include five levels, one each for the following time periods: 1886-1925 , 1926-1940, 1941- 1960, 1961-2000 and 2000-present . The game should begin with a splash screen and end with an end game block.
Here is the link to the game design from my second, optimized prompt.
Step 2: Review the game design with your students
I start this by asking everyone who plays games to raise their hands. Then, I ask anyone who has had an idea for making a game to raise their hand. Next, I tell them we are going to design a game and that I have already started and that the purpose of the game is to teach absolute value and graphing on a coordinate plane (or whatever the game is intended to teach) and that I started the game with AI but they can decide to change any part of it except what it is supposed to teach.
Once the class has decided on their design it is going to be submitted to a game company to consider making it. (Yes, you can submit it to us and we will review it. If we make it, we will credit your class. )
As an example, here is the beginning of the game Gemini wrote.
Chrono-Cartographers: The Santa Monica Grid Core Hook: Santa Monica isn’t just a beach town; it is a living timeline of American innovation! From the rugged cliffs where the first piers were built to the high-tech hubs of Silicon Beach, the city is shifting. Players take on the role of a “Chrono-Cartographer”—a time-traveling engineer tasked with fixing glitches in the city’s timeline. To repair the timeline, players must map out historical events using the power of rational numbers, absolute value, and the coordinate plane.
Characters: A modern teen historian named “Sam” and a holographic guide named “C.O.R.A.” (Coordinate Operating & Routing Assistant).
Maybe your students will hate this idea. That’s fine. When I tried this another time with a prompt about teaching decimals, the first design was something with magicians and potions. I hated it. I then wrote a second prompt, “Modify this design to be more realistic. Make it about an undersea adventure.”
If your students hate the idea, you can revise your prompt and re-run it in real time with their suggestions.
Ask them questions about the design. In my case, I’d ask why they think it is called Chrono-cartographers. What does cartographer mean? Why chrono? Would “Time Maps” be a better name?
Here is some dialogue in the design. Generally, I find AI to be pretty bad at dialogue. Do you think you can do better?
Sam: “Why study Santa Monica? Because it’s a city built on innovation! From the end of historic Route 66 to the aerospace boom of WWII, and today’s ‘Silicon Beach,’ this coastal city has constantly evolved.”
C.O.R.A.: “To understand how the city grew, we need to map its history using rational numbers, inequalities, and the coordinate plane. Let’s travel back to the beginning!”
Have your students write dialogue. You know your students and whether this would work in a group and if you need to assign the groups. In my class it worked well to tell them they could work in groups of 2 or 3 and come up with the following:
- Dialogue for the character
- Artwork – either a scene or a character
- A backstory for the character, like age, where the character came from, why are in this story, do they have a pet and, if so, is their pet going to be in the game.
I found my middle school students often picked someone who was a good artist and another who was a good writer.
Step 3: Review the math problems
Level 1: 1886-1925 (Foundations & The Pier)
- Narrative Context: Santa Monica is establishing itself as a premier coastal destination. The first great pleasure piers are being constructed over the Pacific Ocean, and the steep Palisades cliffs present engineering challenges.
- C.O.R.A. explains that the ocean’s surface is zero (0) on our vertical number line. The cliffs are positive elevations, and the pier pilings driven into the ocean floor are negative elevations.
- Drag into Categories: Players must sort construction blueprints into “Correct Calculations” or “Timeline Glitches” (False). They drag statements based on number lines. Example items:
- Blueprint A: A piling driven to -25 feet is deeper than one at -15 feet. Therefore, -25 < -15. (Drag to Correct)
- Blueprint B: The cliff at +40 feet is lower than the beach at +2 feet. Therefore, 40 < 2. (Drag to Glitch)
- Drag into Categories: Players must sort construction blueprints into “Correct Calculations” or “Timeline Glitches” (False). They drag statements based on number lines. Example items:
Ask them if they think the answers are correct, since AI doesn’t always get it right.
Ask your students to think of other math problems that could go in the story.
This is a part of the design I don’t think is that great, because whether they get it right or not, the next scene shows the carousel on the pier spinning. I think if you get it wrong you should see something crashing down.
Ask for ideas on what should happen when the player gets a math problem wrong. Should the game have points or money? If so, how much should they get for completing a job?
Step 4 (Optional) Have students take photos or videos to include in the game
If your school has iPads, and especially for summer school, going outside or around the building and taking photos that can be scenes in a game is a great activity. Students can use the iPads so that you don’t have to ask who doesn’t have a phone, worry about students using their phones in school or other problems. IF YOU PLAN ON THIS , FIRST MAKE SURE YOUR SCHOOL IPADS DON’T PREVENT STUDENTS SAVING ANYTHING ON THE DEVICE.
You can also created a shared folder and show students how to add photos to the shared folder. Here is the link on how to upload photos from your phone, if you need it.
Remind them to click on My Drive next to Location, and then click Shared with me, to say the class folder you have shared with them.
Since my game is about Santa Monica, where I live, I actually went around town today taking pictures of places that I also had photos of from 50 or 70 years earlier that I had downloaded from the Library of Congress.
If you’d like to learn how to make a game, in an hour, without coding, check out the webinars we are doing on June 9th and July 15th.