How often?



How often do you have students get on their devices to check their characters and see how they are doing? I was thinking of starting this right after Thanksgiving break. I'm not sure yet if I want to give or take away points right away on my phone or write it down and do it later. I'm just curious on how students do if they don't see their HP going down right away. I have a very chatty class (well, 2 of them) and I just need a way to reward positive behavior so we can get rid of the negative behavior. A lot of my kids love video games, so I figured they would be into this.


I do typing in the morning with the students and so I let them have 5 minutes at the end of typing to buy armor, deal with damage, etc.  A large part of the motivation for them is being able to do stuff in the game. They have to see it to "play it" and so you'll want to make it a big deal.  The powers and armors are the big pull for the students to do the right thing.  Entering the Book of Laments has meaning because they really want to use their powers and they can't if they have "fallen in battle.". 

If you don't have computers for each student in your classroom see if you can get a single computer or tablet that can act as their access point to the game so they can use powers and such. If our school won't provide one you can try donorschoose.com.  A teacher down the hall from me just got an iPad for her classroom using that site. 

 You can generate a lot of paper stuff as well to keep from having to use the computer and apply it later.  Here in the forums I've seen lots of teachers who create charts and other things to track the players HP and such, but that will take a lot of your own personal time. 

I have a student (my computer specialist) who runs the game for me so I can be out in front of the class during events while the game is up on the projector.  So if there is damage to apply, random events, or boss battles I am not stuck behind my desk trying to run the game.

I have some computers that are out all the time that they use for powers whenever they want and a paper power tracker on a clipboard they have to fill out every time they activate a power so I know who has used which power. 

So really it just depends on how you plan on integrating it into your classroom. For me it's my main classroom management and so everything centers around the game.  They love the random events and really look forward to earning new levels. 

I hope that helps.  

We have our computers out every day, so they check them when they have time during the block.  Most of the work we do in my class is on the computer, so I may be an outlier.

  I would say most of them do their check right when they come in class.

You can always use the Delayed Damage feature to give them time to react with powers if they aren't logged in all the time. I use it on lab days when they cannot use devices. You might have to teach them how to use it, though, as it requires them to pay attention to the Damage Queue at the top right.

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