Word Search and Cross Words add a fun Element of Gamification to Vocabulary or Terminology Assessments
While working to redesign a Digital Literacy course here at The College of Westchester, I found myself wanting a fun way to assess information technology terminology. I am not a fan of quizzes for something like this, for numerous reasons. I prefer an exercise that is active, engaging and stimulates thought in a variety of ways. I wanted to ‘gamify' the assessment to some extent if I could.
After some thought, I realized that there are a variety of traditional old fashioned ‘puzzles' that were great for this purpose! I decided on a combination of Word Search, Cross Words, and ‘Matching' (match the word or phrase to the definition).
I went in search of tools for creating Word Searches and Cross Words Puzzles. I was hoping for a free tool that was easy to use, and was somewhat configurable. Ideally, I also did not want to have to create an account. I found what I was looking for at Discovery Education. They have an excellent set of Puzzle Maker web apps.
Here is the Word Search tool I used to create the Word Search parts of the terminilogy assessment I develped for the course: http://puzzlemaker.discoveryeducation.com/WordSearchSetupForm.asp.
An Example: An EdTech Word Search
To add a little more fun to this post, I went ahead and created an ‘edtech' terminology word search.
Have fun with this Education Technology Word Search. It took me all of 5 minutes to create this using this super easy free tool from Discovery Education!
WORD LIST: Search for these education and technology words in this puzzle:
blogging
webquest
adaptive
edtech
gamification
tutorial
video
podcast
assessment
collaboration
smartphone
analytics
etext
mobile
PBL
screencast
media
