Adventure Time

Hello everyone!

     Today I want to write about a website which I find truly impressive. Its name is Classcraft. Personally speaking I really like this initiative of transforming the classroom into an adventure role game. I have always found entertaining creating your own character and giving him/her features that represent you. Therefore, if you are a teacher who enjoys games like World of Warcraft or Tree of Savior, you should definitely try to implement this website to your students. Be sure to really know your class in order to design this fun adventure together.

DESCRIPTION

     Classcraft acts like an alternative reality where students can create their own character and choose its class depending on their abilities and personal interests. They can choose to be warriors, mages or healers. All of the characters have special and distinctive powers, which make the experience more personalized and fun. At the same every class has its privileges such as eating in class or having some clues for the next test. These rewards are gained when students' behavior is excellent and that helps them to improve as learners. By doing so, students gain XP (experience points) to level up their characters. As the teacher, you are the one who decides which behavior will gain more XP according to what you are trying to promote in the classroom. For example, if I want students to learn to work in teams I will give them more XP if they succeed in helping their other classmates and doing collaborative work. Moreover, if students fail they will lose Health Points (HP), which is the life of their characters. Therefore, if their character dies they will have to face random consequences and their team will be penalized. 

Here below I will leave some pictures that are shown as an introduction when you enter the game. 

You can subscribe as a teacher, student or parent.

Students can choose the class of their characters. 

Warriors

Mages

Healers

Every class has its own privileges and powers. 

Classcraft gives the possibility of improving different abilities. 

Students learn to work in teams in order to not lose HP. 

LANGUAGE LEARNING

     So, as you can see Classcraft is a very complete website which allows to teach anything you want while your students learn important values such as teamwork, solidarity, responsibility, and so on. One of the most important things regarding the English language is that motivation can be increased. Authors, such as Gardner, have affirmed that motivation is the main factor that needs to be developed in the acquisition of a second language. Therefore, this particular website can help students in their acquisition of an L2 by making input available and accessible for students (Kumaravadivelu, 2006). Furthermore, Classcraft can be used with students of all ages. As a teacher, you can design the material, rules, rewards, etc. Thus, according to your context you can get the most from this ICT. 

     It is also important to mention that parents are allowed to participate along with their children, so that can be a good way to expose the students and their families to English language in their houses as well.

LIMITATIONS

     Some limitations that this website can have are related to Internet access, supplies, and acceptance from the school. The first one has always been an issue, sometimes Internet connections are quite slow interfering with the class. At the same time, before using this tool you need to check if there are enough supplies for all the students, and their conditions too. Lastly, it is important to take into account if the school will allow this kind of resources as a way to learn, and foster the English language. 

     I believe this website is really well-made, and I would love to work with it in the future. English is taught sometimes in a traditional way that is quite boring for students. It is important to acknowledge that now students are really into technological devices, and as teachers we need to implement creative and fun resources to the classroom. I really hope this brief review can be helpful and useful to all of you!

  

REFERENCES

Kumaravadivelu, B. (2005). Understanding Language Teaching From Method to Postmethod (1st ed., pp. 26-27). London: Routledge.