Teachers will best use Legends of Learning as a supplemental curriculum, perhaps to reinforce new content or to review before quizzes or tests. The playlist tool is a useful option allowing you to choose games for your classes. You can also assign a simple assessment with questions you select, as well as include free playtime on the playlist. You can track your kids' progress through the games and see what questions they got incorrect. At this time, teachers can't create their own questions for the games. Teachers do have the option of selecting from existing questions.
Many of the games come with teacher reviews and discussion questions. The reviews can help you see how others used the game and how it was received by teachers and students. The discussion questions can give kids a more meaningful experience than just using the games alone. Teachers can also run reports to see how classes and individual students are performing or their usage.
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Using Games in the Classroom
Cheat Sheet: Make Any Game Educational Legends of Learning is a site that offers games covering a variety of science and math content for elementary and middle school. The site covers topics in each main content area, with a variety of games claiming to be aligned to the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) or the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). The games here generally aren't meant to teach new content but to supplement your instruction; some games introduce content, but often only through text (which is often, but not always, read by the computer). Teachers can select games and assessments and add them to a playlist to assign to students. Assessments are limited to a bank of questions. When students start out, they create an avatar. Diverse options are available so that students will be able to create an avatar that looks like them if they choose.
The type and quality of the games vary widely. Some games come with colorful graphics and wacky characters, while some have music or robot voice-overs. Most games review content through a series of multiple-choice questions that pop up before you can make your next move; others are memory games, simulations, or interactive diagrams. Fill-in-the-blank questions are also available. Each game is labeled as Instructional or Question, but teachers will want to try each game first to be sure it's delivering what they expect. Most games aren't strong enough on their own to provide students with a lasting learning experience; teachers will need to wrap instruction around them. The creators have also integrated well-known PhET simulations into their gaming options, which are also freely available at the PhET Interactive Simulations website.
Teachers are bound to find something related to what they're teaching on Legends of Learning. All topics include several games each, allowing educators to choose the ones they like best. Many of the content questions seem to be repeated across games for the same topic, so kids may not experience new questions just by playing another game.
A recent addition to Legends of Learning is the Awakening game, meant to be played at home. Students receive cards that allow them to do certain actions (attacks, shields, etc.) after answering a question correctly. As students battle monsters, they can gain clothing for their avatar.
Overall, the quality of many games is underwhelming and not strongly related to the NGSS or Common Core practices. In most cases, the actual game has little application of the content, and the format is very repetitive: You play the game for a bit, pause to answer questions, then continue playing the game. The robot voice-over that reads in-game text on many games may irritate some students. When kids answer incorrectly, they receive no feedback other than the correct answer or a prompt to try again. Will elementary and middle schoolers like these games? Maybe they will, since it's more fun than doing a worksheet, but for deep and meaningful learning, look elsewhere.
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