Making educational games kit

I've been updating the materials I use in the educational game making workshops I run occasionally. I thought it would be a good idea to turn them into a set of materials that other people could use at the same time as updating them for myself.

So the picture above is the final prototype - just waiting for the whiteboard to arrive (instead of the bit of paper the cards are resting on). With a bit of luck it'll all be finished in the next day or two - if anyone wants a set, I'll take some pictures next week of the finished thing and it'll be available on Teachkit.org.uk to buy. Along with details of the TeachKit Kickstarter I'm currently running!

TeachKit Launch!

Yesterday we launched the TeachKit Kickstarter!

TeachKits are a set of teaching materials you get through the post to help you teach these things, especially if you tend to have "one-off" sessions with students and need something quick and easy to add into your teaching.

Depending on the topic, the TeachKit may contain lesson plans, games, books, handouts, print and digital resources, badges, or whatever else fits that topic well.
Boxes will be small enough to fit through most letterboxes without annoying trips to the post-office to pick them up!

Prototype box! Should fit through most UK doors...

The Kickstarter will fund an initial, quite generic box and help gauge interest in producing an ongoing series of them. Ideas for topics in future so far include: Evaluating your session; Ice Breakers; Search Strategies; Sources of information; Referencing; General teaching skills (including lesson planning); Critical evaluation; Developing a topic (research questions and first steps); Open licensing; Copyright / licensing; Plagiarism; Critical reading; Revision techniques; Escape rooms for education; and Making games for learning. If we create an ongoing series, they are likely to be available as a subscription, with each box also available for one-off purchase for a limited time afterwards. Estimated cost for future boxes is £40 each (+P&P).
The initial box available as a reward is:

Draft designs for the first box's materials.

Evaluating your teaching. This contains material to help collect feedback to evaluate your teaching session. It will contain a minimum of 5 ideas in the package, with materials including specially printed post-it notes, cards, and paper feedback templates - more will be revealed in the updates!

Please take a look at the full campaign and back us if you can, share with other interested people if you like it! http://kck.st/2svVc8c

A possible TeachKit launch via Kickstarter

I've written before about the idea we took to LILAC and the Lagadothon before and towards the end of the post I said "I suppose I ought to think of a way to make it happen over the next few months...".
Well... I'm currently pulling together a Kickstarter to try and make an initial box happen, partly to levels of interest to see if it is worthwhile doing a series of boxes. While I am tinkering with it, you can preview it if you want!

If enough people are interested in the first box (a fairly generic one around evaluating your own teaching sessions / collecting feedback from students), I'll then work on a "Sources of Information" box to follow.

Take a look at the preview and see what you think - I'll launch it once I have prototype materials based on the work a graphic designer is doing for me, then link to the final campaign!

Lagadothon and LILAC17

Prototype box

So... last week I went to the fabulous LILAC in Swansea. Amongst other things, I did the Lagadothon with Jess, where we get to show a prototype (otherwise known as a bonkers idea from me) and get feedback on it.

My thing for this year was a subscription box of teaching goodies for librarians and learning support staff. So a box that would come through the post (3 or 4 a year, perhaps?) with a mixture of teaching ideas (lesson plans, alternative uses, etc) and games or other finished teaching interventions (things that could just be got straight out in a class), aimed at different levels (and extra suggestions for differentiation) and settings.

Each box would have a different theme (we took one full of stuff on "sources of information"), with obvious ones being things like "search strategies", "referencing", "Sources of information", etc., that lots of us teach, but also stuff like "critical appraisal", "academic writing", "Open Access", "copyright" - we ended up with a fair list of things thanks to the feedback we received.

People seemed open to spending anything from £20 to £50 per box, with it being a bit harder to pay for a subscription than individual boxes (though a subscription was seen as a great way of doing it!). The lower end wouldn't pay for much at all (and we'd need to send *loads* out to pay for things like the design work), but we could probably find something in between. It was also pointed out that both teachers and school librarians might well love these as it fits in with how they work anyway - they are used to paying for resources!

It went down better than I was expecting, so I suppose I ought to think of a way to make it happen over the next few months... which might also be an opportunity to redo some of the games I use in a more polished way, suitable for printing "officially" and sending out down this route. So I'd probably start off by redoing SEEK!, Sources, and the referencing games I use, as long as I can find (and afford) a suitable graphic designer and find the time to tinker!