Interactive Geography Games

As I was looking for new sites to write about in my blog, I began to thing about the different educational games that I have utilized in my teaching career, and why students always seemed to return to them.  Most of the games that I had students use were related to geography, as many of the games for other topics in social studies were not engaging or little more than quizzes.  During this past year, I took over a classroom for a teacher on maternity leave, and I noticed that she had her students take incredibly difficult map quizzes, but did not have any online help listed for them.  After some research and testing, I found a simple website that offered simple, but effective games to help students learn the names and locations of countries for the map quizzes.  I posted links to the games on my teacher webpage, and within days I had comments from parents who said that their students were engaged in the game at home, and it was helping them prepare for the map quizzes.  I received multiple comments from parents of students who had attention issues that they were engaged and their scores had improved as a result of using the site.

http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/Asian_Geography.htm

 

Attention: While the initial website is clearly dated, once learners choose their individual level, the game begins and learners are engaged.  The site setup is nearly the same look as the test students will be taking, and students are asked to identify individual countries by name (the name of the country is either spoken or written).  If they answer incorrectly, the country turns red and the learner has two more attempts to get the correct answer.  The game moves quickly from one region to another, and the learner’s score and time are posted in the corner of the page. 

Relevance:  The information and skills demonstrated in the game is set up in the almost exact same manner as the quizzes that the students will take.  When students take the quiz, they have a list of countries and geographic landmarks, and a quiz with countries and landmarks that have numbers associated with them.  Students must recognize each area based on their geographic boundaries, and then list the name of the country or geographic landmark.  While the online game does not offer a quiz on geographic landmarks, the section on countries used are all on the quiz. 

Confidence:  The games offers multiple levels that students can choose from, and students can start at a level above or below what is necessary for them to prepare for the quiz.  The first level gives the learner the name of the country when they click on it, and helps build confidence in their ability.  As the games become more challenging, they learners can have multiple tries to get the correct answer, and learners can retry individual levels multiple times to improve their score. 

Satisfaction:  Learners have the ability to choose their levels when they start, but the game will only move them up to the next level if they score above a 90%.  The levels become more challenging as learners move up, and require different skills for each level.  As learners progress, they earn different badges, from beginner to advanced up to expert plus, geographer, and cartographer.