BreakoutEDU is Here!

James Paul Gee talks about how “video games are just problems that you must solve in order to win”.  What if we can take that into the classroom?  Enter BreakoutEDU!  (See James Paul Gee’s video on Videogame Learning Here)

There has been a buzz around the district about doing Breakout sessions with teachers and students.  Recently at the Admin conference, a BreakoutEDU game called “The Literacy Conundrum” was introduced.  The participants were given 30 minutes to break into the BreakoutEDU box and then solve the digital breakout to save the day.   In the end, team Cheap Trick was able to break out the fastest!   This has sparked a BreakoutEDU wave on different campuses across the district.

BreakoutEDU is a form of learning that brings the concepts of an escape room into your lessons.  For those of you not familiar with an escape room, it's a live event where you are locked in a room and using the clues around the room you have to “breakout” in a set amount of time.   BreakoutEDU took the escape room concept and modified it to be in the classroom.  Instead of breaking out of the classroom, you break into the box.  The games have creative scenarios that bring the students into the experience, providing challenges that can cause freedom from a classroom, or impact the state of the environment around them.   

The beautiful thing about BreakoutEDU is that the experience provides solid learning.  After integrating a BreakoutEDU game into an 8th-grade humanities classroom, the teacher simply looked at me and said, “this was learning at the core.  Pure, uninterrupted, learning”.  If you think about it, using a game as a medium for students to learn isn’t new or unique.  Students are participating in it all the time.  Are we as teachers willing to change our thinking to embrace what video game companies have already figured out?  

BreakoutEDU is an opportunity to take students through a different learning experience.  Instead of students listening to a teacher talk about content from a powerpoint, they are able to discover learning through play.  Students are working collaboratively to solve the puzzle that will allow them to “breakout”, but also to learn the content in a memorable way.

If you are curious about BreakoutEDU, you can check out their About page located at this link: click here

If you want to explore the HUGE database of BreakoutEDU Games already created, click here

If you are curious about the Digital BreakoutEDU games, you can click here.

Your DLS is ready and excited about bringing BreakoutEDU to your campus and classrooms.  Don’t hesitate to connect with them and talk about the potential learning experience that can be unlocked in your classrooms!