The first time I came across the game module in Moodle I couldn’t but wonder what this could be about. It aroused my curiosity and interest that I spent the entire day digging into its uses and features.
What is this game module all about? Well, it is an activity in Moodle which can be added to a course. The game module repackages questions, quiz and glossary in a more interesting and appealing way to students.
The game module comprises of 8 games in all and the game choice can be selected at the point of adding it to a course as an activity depending on the users choice of either questions, quiz or glossary. The game module is designed such that each game works with a specific activity of either quiz, question or glossary.
It consists of favourites such as Snakes and Ladders, Who Wants to be a Millionaire, Sudoku, Hangman, Crossword, Cryptex, Hidden Picture and questions from books.
Each of these games are a mirror of the real life game. For instance, with the Snakes and Ladder game, a question is displayed to the student which if answered correctly, displays a number on the dice, then game piece moves up the number displayed on the dice.
The hidden picture game uncovers each piece of a picture for each question correctly answered by the student. Each number in the hidden picture game displays a question to the student such that when the student answers the question correctly, the number is uncovered to display a piece of the picture.
The game “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” is again a mirror of the real life game. A question is displayed to the student which if answered correctly moves up to the next number in the game until the user has completed the questions. If a question is answered incorrectly, the game is over.
A teacher who wishes to ignite the interest of their students in their lectures could, at the end of the lecture use either of the games mentioned above to check the level of understanding of his students. As this is a much better way of presenting quiz, questions or glossaries to students because it gives the student the opportunity of exercising their knowledge of the lecture and at the same time getting entertained which of course is the purpose of a game.
It is valuable to create an interesting environment for students which in a way keeps them looking forward to lecture thus arousing their interest in the course. Making learning fun motivates students and helps them pay attention and stay focused on the subject.The game module is a great incentive for this purpose.
This reminds me of a lecturer of mine in college whose lecture I always looked forward to because unlike other lecturers, at the end of his class something interesting usually happened.
Lastly, game module is also used in assistive technology helping children with disability learn better because modeling an activity is very helpful.
In conclusion, the game module is an excellent module which every teacher should be encouraged to use. From the students perspective they get to exercise their knowledge of the lecture via the use of a quiz packaged game. It is a very easy to use module for both the teachers and students and importantly it is a module that has found great use amongst teachers working with children that have special needs. This very important point is something that we will go into in much greater depth in a future post.
Until then, enjoying gaming 🙂
