Tuesday 19 February 2013

Secret Citation

More details of one of the games from the Leeds workshop - thanks David Porter and team :-D

Secret Citation *or refin’ hell*

There are a variety of ways in which this card game can be played, including ones based on the card games Happy Families and Go Fish! The following rules describe the basic version of the Referencing Card game derived play wise from the card game Rummy.

The game is probably best played with 2-4 people, although a game involving 6 players is possible. The aim of the game is for a player to complete a reference by obtaining all the required elements for a Book, Journal Article or Webpage. A deck of 52 cards is used, each of these cards either bears an element required to complete a reference or a dummy element.

For a Book the elements required are:
o    Author / Editor name(s)
o    Year the book was published
o    Title of the book
o    Edition (if not the first)
o    Place book was published
o    Publisher's name

For a Journal Article the elements required are:
o    Author / Editor name(s)
o    Year the Journal was published
o    Title of Journal Article
o    Full Title of Journal
o    Volume and issue of Journal
o    Pages on which Article appears in Journal

For an Online Webpage the elements required are:
o    Author / Editor / Source name(s)
o    Year information was created
o    Title of web document / page
o    Uniform Resource Locator
o    Accessed date

Included in the deck are dummy elements cards featuring characteristics which are not included in a reference but are commonly included by mistake.

*In order to ensure each player has a hand of five cards there are some elements which can be merged; such as place of publication and publisher or the page numbers of article, volume and issue of Journal. There are also shared elements which can be used to create parts of virtually any reference; such as the name(s) of an Author / Editor, or Year of Publication. Frequency of cards can be altered depending upon number of player. Dummy Element could be altered to feature more common errors found locally.*

USED FOR
ELEMENT
FREQUENCY
All
Author / Editor(s).
7
All
Year Published.
7
All
Title.
7
Book
Edition.
3
Book
Place of Publication: Publisher.
3
Journal
Title of Journal.
3
Journal
Volume (issue), Pages.
3
Webpage
Available at: <URL>
3
Webpage
Date accessed.
3
Dummy
ISSN.
3
Dummy
ISBN.
3
Dummy
BINDING.
3
Dummy
WEB DESIGNER.
3
Dummy
DDC/SHELFMARK/CALL NUMBER.
3

54

The game begins with the dealer giving each player a card in turn until everyone has five cards; an additional card is then given to the first person dealt a card. The deck of cards is then placed face down so all players can see. The person who has been dealt an additional card then has to decide which of their cards they wish to discard, which they do by placing it face up so all players can see. If the player does not declare a reference then the next player then has their turn and can either pick up the discarded card or pick one from the top of the deck, again discarding their unwanted card face up on the pile. This routine continues until someone declares they have a reference and presents it to the other players.

In order for a player to win they must firstly collect all the elements required for their chosen medium type and then lay the cards down in the correct order to form a reference. The winning hand must comprise of 3 All cards and 2 medium Specific cards (Book / Journal / Webpage) laid out in the correct order. If any of the other players do not believe it is correct then they can challenge the declaration and if the challenge is correct they may switch one of their own cards for any of the declaring player’s cards. If this results in that player declaring a complete reference otherwise play continues with the player who would have played next. If the declaration is correct then that player wins and play can either commence with the others players continuing or a new game is commenced.

*Option to play with just cards for a single medium and the dummy cards and then add others when players are happier with reference structure*

Sunday 17 February 2013

Joining the Stories


This encourages students to explore a wider range of reading material and to enjoy it! Students must take the first paragraph from one book, a middle paragraph from another book and a final paragraph from a third book (chosen at random by picking cards). They must then write text to link these paragraphs together, with the aid of "Action" and "Situation" cards (e.g. "Accidently Farting" and "meeting royalty"). Each round of the game can be carried out in around 5 minutes and the chosen books available on cards can be selected depending on the players of the game so the level is appropriate.

Saturday 16 February 2013

SVO... the game.

A game to improve literacy of college students, around the use of Subject Verb and Object (SVO) to make simple sentences. Students draw a card from each deck (Subject, Verb, Object) and must say if they form a grammatically correct sentence. If they do, they win a point. If not, the next turn they choose which of the cards they would like to swap. Game continues until one person has 5 points and is declared winner! The is the most basic level, "clauses" would be introduced for the next level of learner.

What word?



What Word is a game to encourage understanding of and use of a wider range of English vocabulary for students whose first language is not English. Involves drawing, guessing the words, and finding the theme that connects them!

Whizz-opoly


A mythology themed prototype board game from the workshop at Sir George Monoux College to help students understand tenses. Players have to fill in the blanks in a sentence with the correct tense to work their way past wizzards and monsters to get to the end of the board.

Wednesday 13 February 2013

Event at Sir George Monoux College


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Looking forward to running an event at Sir George Monoux College this Friday. It's the first I've run at one institution rather than for a range of people, so it'll be interesting to see how the dynamics change!

Hopefully they'll allow me to share any protoypes they produce, just like at the Leeds event, so I'll post those up here if they do...