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| photo: flickr |
Chore Wars is a gaming platform to earn experience points for completing household chores. However, it can also be modified to work in a classroom with homework, discussion questions, classroom activities and extra enrichment activities. I created this game for my high school Personal Finance classes.
I selected this game because it appeared to be a fun, engaging, and interactive way to reward students for completing their work and encouraging them to do extra enrichment activities. I did consider other gaming platforms, like Classcraft and ClassBages, but Chore Wars was more interactive for the students.
How do you play?
For students to get access to my "Chore Wars Party," I shared a link with them and they created an account. Once students created their account, they were able to see all the of adventures I had created for them to complete. To further entice interest, the students were able to see the other students they were competing against in the class.
The Dungeon Master (teacher) creates different "adventures" or tasks for students, the Apprentices, to complete. I included daily homework assignments, as well as extra enrichment activities, such as tutoring a classmate, reading a financial article in the Wall Street Journal, and teaching elementary students how to count money during their study halls. As the Dungeon Master, I was able to name the adventure and determine how many experience points to reward. I based the experience points on how challenging and time consuming the task would be for the student to complete. The more involved and difficult the task, the more experience points were awarded. Students leveled up based on the number of experience points earned and as tasks were successfully completed and mastered.
Two amusing and entertaining aspects of this game were the chance of receiving a "treasure" and the possibility of stumbling across a "wandering monster" while attempting to complete a task. A "treasure" could be receiving a piece of candy, eliminating three questions from a homework assignment, or having five minutes of cell phone usage at the end of the class period. But "wandering monsters," such as a troll, wolverine, one-legged pirate or giant rat, could create havoc by causing injury to the player or by reducing the amount of gold pieces received for completing a task. However, encountering a wandering monster would not take away the experience points the student earned. I created and controlled this adventure by entering the percentage of students who would receive a treasure. This game was further tailored by designating a specific number of gold pieces or listing a range of gold pieces for the treasure.
How do you play?
For students to get access to my "Chore Wars Party," I shared a link with them and they created an account. Once students created their account, they were able to see all the of adventures I had created for them to complete. To further entice interest, the students were able to see the other students they were competing against in the class.
The Dungeon Master (teacher) creates different "adventures" or tasks for students, the Apprentices, to complete. I included daily homework assignments, as well as extra enrichment activities, such as tutoring a classmate, reading a financial article in the Wall Street Journal, and teaching elementary students how to count money during their study halls. As the Dungeon Master, I was able to name the adventure and determine how many experience points to reward. I based the experience points on how challenging and time consuming the task would be for the student to complete. The more involved and difficult the task, the more experience points were awarded. Students leveled up based on the number of experience points earned and as tasks were successfully completed and mastered.
Two amusing and entertaining aspects of this game were the chance of receiving a "treasure" and the possibility of stumbling across a "wandering monster" while attempting to complete a task. A "treasure" could be receiving a piece of candy, eliminating three questions from a homework assignment, or having five minutes of cell phone usage at the end of the class period. But "wandering monsters," such as a troll, wolverine, one-legged pirate or giant rat, could create havoc by causing injury to the player or by reducing the amount of gold pieces received for completing a task. However, encountering a wandering monster would not take away the experience points the student earned. I created and controlled this adventure by entering the percentage of students who would receive a treasure. This game was further tailored by designating a specific number of gold pieces or listing a range of gold pieces for the treasure.
Players and the Dungeon Master could see how they compared to the others that were playing the game on the leader board. Players could see how many experience points other players had and other items they had in inventory, such as gold pieces and treasure.
There are different views for the leader board. When first logging into the portal, students can view the experience points they have earned that week compared to other students. The second way to view the leader board is to view your "party." It will list every student within the party, their level, character type, and experience points. The final way to analyze the leader board is to click on an individual student and it will summarize their statistics of experience points, gold pieces, and treasures they might have received. This view will also display the students' strength, constitution, dexterity, charisma, intelligence, and wisdom points.
There are different views for the leader board. When first logging into the portal, students can view the experience points they have earned that week compared to other students. The second way to view the leader board is to view your "party." It will list every student within the party, their level, character type, and experience points. The final way to analyze the leader board is to click on an individual student and it will summarize their statistics of experience points, gold pieces, and treasures they might have received. This view will also display the students' strength, constitution, dexterity, charisma, intelligence, and wisdom points.
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| Leader board #1 |
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| Leader board #2 |
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| Leader board #3 |
How did my students react?
They students' reactions to Chore Wars were mixed. Some students stated they really liked the idea of Chore Wars. They enjoyed receiving in-class rewards and experience points for the work they completed. Their favorite part was encountering the wandering monsters. However, other students thought it was too elementary for them. They stated it was a good idea, but they couldn't really get into the game. Through their feedback, it was suggested I try Chore Wars with my middle school students instead of high school, which I plan to do next semester.
One thing I did not like about Chore Wars was that students were on the honor system as far as claiming their adventures. A few of the students did not actually complete the tasks they were claiming experience points for.
Have you gamified your classroom? What platform are you using? What advice do you have for educators just starting to gamify their classrooms?
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