3rd World Farmer

Educational Gaming

Age: 10+
Levels: Medium-Difficult

3rd World Farmer can be used with kids and teenagers to educate them on the problems that families in other countries face to make ends meet.  I'd suggest students try playing the game then report back to the class on the difficulties that they faced.  They could also write a story or a narrative on what happened to them.

'3rd World Farmer lets you experience some of the hardships of farming in a poor country. Will you prosper despite corruption and lack of basic neccessities? Or will endless wars, diseases, droughts, and unreliable markets perpetuate your economic disadvantage and spell your ultimate doom?
3rd World farmer is a serious game, developed on a very slim budget. It is not precise in all details, but covers a wide range of topics. It is meant to be both educational and slightly provocative, with the sole intent of making people think about these topics and, hopefully, realize that each of us can make a difference in helping to end poverty.'

Alice is Dead

Age: 13+
Levels: Easy-Medium-Difficult

You have arrived in Wonderland... but Alice is dead. Can you figure out how to escape Wonderland? 

According to a study by Lu et al (2013) this game can help students develop their reading skills and enhance reading efficacy.  It offers around 36 sentences and about 300 words.  The level of difficulty is easy and the suggested completion time is 20 to 25 minutes.

If you're spending over 25 minutes and give up, here's the walk-through to help:

Finished?  There's also an Alice is Dead 2.  This version has more than 60 sentences and about 600 words.  Difficulty is medium and the completion time is 30 to 35 minutes.


And finally, Alice is Dead 3.  The lexical content is again increased; 80 sentences and around 1000 words.  It is rated as being difficult and so completion time is between around 40 to 45 minutes.

Reference:
Lu et al. (2013) Understanding the Confidence, Motive and Self-efficacy on Influence of Adventure Game on English reading. Educational Research (ISSN: 2141-5161) Vol. 4(3) pp. 257-263, March 2013 

Monkey GO Happy

I’ve been using Monkey GO Happy with my very young learners to teach them useful vocabulary, imperatives and prepositions.  The website itself can be a little annoying with lots of flashing images and clickbait sites. 

The games themselves however are fun and students enjoy trying to find the monkeys/elves etc. There are puzzles that need to be solved along the way and quite intuitive to solve without many instructions.

I walk the students through the games asking them questions about what they can see.  Students are really motivated to respond as I then let them find the eggs on the IWB.

Stop Disasters

Stop Disaster is a disaster simulation game.  You can choose from five types of natural disasters: earthquakes, floods, tsunami, wildfire and hurricane.  
 

Students have to think about what precautions can be taken to reduce the impact of natural disasters.  There are missions, challenges, students are given a budget etc.  It would be really interesting to use this in class or set it up as homework and students report back to class.

Little Alchemy

In Little Alchemy students begin with four elements, fire, earth, water & air, and then make different combinations to create new things.  

They can make planes, yoda, animals, supernatural beings, inventions and lots more.  It is really good for project work with students reporting back to the class on what they have made.

I use it to introduce the zero conditional and get them to explain to each other what they have made e.g. 'If you add earth to water, you get mud'.   There is also an app which is free to download.

GeoGuessr

GeoGuessr uses StreetView images that drops the player in a random location and challenges them to work out where they are.