A Treasure Hunt to gamify your lessons using AI and other tools

This week I have been thinking about ways to assess my students work informally in a fun, non threatening, meaningful way at the end of a teaching unit, while they have the opportunity to put their linguistic skills into practice in a real situation. 

This is easily done via Project Based Learning (teaching a unit giving students all the tools they will need for later, to carry out a particular writing/reading/listening/oral project).  However, I wanted to think of another way to do this involving all the skills in the project, promote collaboration, movement and ultimately fun! 

I thought that a game would tick all these boxes so I planned a Treasure Hunt game to carry out at the end of a particular unit or after several units. This is what I came out with, thinking of a Y10/Y11 group. The Treasure Hunt involves  culture as well and to generate it I used the help of ChatGPT and HeyGen (a tool that allows you to create a video Avatar from a photo).  This is the result:

La Caza del Tesoro

Divide the class in pairs or groups of threes. You will need to print off the following QR Codes (one per group so I suggest you stick them on colour card and assign a colour to each group). This is important as the students will need to move around the school and you don't want 30 students scanning a QR code at once! It will be much easier if students look for the QR codes with their colour. There are 7 tasks to complete in total but you can remove or add more!

QR Code 1

This will set up the context of the Treasure Hunt. To create the video in the slike, I used the App ToonMe on my iPhone from a picture of mine. Then I used HyGen to create the video. HyGen is an AI tool that allows you create videos from a script that you write. You only get 1 minute free but I thought it was cool!

 If your context is concise, say 10 seconds, you can create up to 6 little videos for free! Otherwise, PhotoSpeak is completely free and it does the job, although not as realistic! Students Scan the QR code and will get the image below. If they click on the hourglass icon, a message comes up telling students to go to a particular area of the school and look for their following coloured QR Code.

QR Code 2: Task 1

This task is a writing collaborative task. Students need to create a dialogue in Spanish about their Free Time and use the app Chat Animator to write it.  Chat Animator will create a little video of their text dialogue, which students must download to prove they have accomplished the task. Again clicking the hourglass will direct students to the next task. 

QR Code 3: Task 2

This task is focussed on Reading, Translation and Culture. Students have to complete the Riddle, super easy (the answer is Ceuta), and go to the QR code on the slide which will take them to a Google Earth Presentation. The presentation takes students around 5 iconic places in Ceuta. They just have to follow the presentation and translate into English the information about the landmarks. I used ChatGPT to generate the five landmarks with information about them in Spanish at GCSE level. 

QR Code 4: Task 3

This task involves Oral skills and Culture. Students need to look for different famous people in Spain and create a Roleplay/Conversation where each participant adopts the personality of a Spanish celebrity and ask questions to each other to find out key information about the different characters. I just expect students to ask basic questions about their age, name, birthday, what they do for a living, why they are famous, what they work on, family members etc.. It is also a great opportunity to learn about celebrities in Spain, a new topic inf the new GCSE!

QR Code 5: Task 4

This task focusses on Reading: Fill in the Gaps. The QR code will take students to a LearningApps activity on fill in the gaps on the topic of Environment. 

QR Code 6: Task 5

This is another Oral task. The QR code in the slide will take students to a Wheel of Names with lots of questions on Theme 2. They just have to play Stone, Paper and Scissors, evolution with each other until one of them wins (becomes Superman!), while spinning the wheel and answering the question that comes up!

QR Code 7: Task 6

This an Oral and Cultural task. Students find out the name of the Picasso picture on the slide and then, collaboratively prepare a collaborative presentation describing the actual picture and recording it using Flip, which they will access via the QR code in the slide. This is a very powerful activity which will require a follow up in a subsequent lesson: What does Guernica represent? What was the Civil War in Spain? What happened? Consequences? Of course in English! It is a great way to practise vocabulary for the GCSE Photocard.

QR Code 8: Task 7

This is another Reading Task. Students scan the QR code on the slide which will take them to a Google Doc with a reading comprehension text on celebrities. I did use ChatGPT to create this text. I asked it to create a 150 words text in Spanish at GCSE level on the advantages and disadvantages of being a celebrity using a specific list of vocabulary, taken from the AQA Excel document with the draft Spanish vocabulary list on Celebrities, for the new GCSE. 

It did it in 5 seconds! Then, I asked it to generate 6 reading comprehension questions in English. The hourglass will tell students to get back to their Spanish classroom.

QR Code 9: The end!

This just tells them Congratulations, in Spanish, and at this point, the teacher needs to check the tasks have been completed. In a subsequent lesson, I would give them the treasure: some tapas, certificates, merits or any other reward you really want!

For this activity you will need in total these 9 QR codes x the number of groups/pairs you have. My treasure hunt involves walking around the whole school and it will take 2 or three lessons to complete properly but you can have fewer tasks and/or simpler tasks such as small translations or just cultural questions. Instead of running around the school, you may want to restrict the hunt to two corridors or your school hall!

It can be adapted from Y7 to Y13, just change the tasks! I think it is a great way to assess students with a real game!

This is the whole Treasure Hunt for you to adapt in Genially as you need it fit. 

I have used Genially, for my treasure hunt, because I can create individual URL links to each slide, rather than the whole presentation, which then I have turned into individual QR codes.  

Google Slides and PPT, as far as I know, don't allow me to do this. I also love the interactivity and the graphics of the Genially Templates and it is FREE!

 Just click on the link below and at the bottom of the presentation click on the blue box where it says "REUSE THIS GENIALLY" to have your own copy to modify. You just need to open an account with Genially.

La Caza del Tesoro Presentation in Genially

This is a Google Document with all the QR codes in two pages for easy printing. 

La Caza del Tesoro Document

To create an individual URL link to each Genially slide, you need the last slide in the presentation, which looks like this

Just copy the RED box and paste it onto each slide, anywhere. Go to PREVIEW and in there, copy the URL link that will appear (That's the unique page URL for the slide). Paste it onto a tab and do the same for each slide. Finally, go back to edit and DELETE the RED BOX in each slide. 

The wonderful Julia Morris, explains the process very well in this 6 minute  Youtube video tutorial. IT IS REALLY EASY TO DO!   Alternatively, you can print each slide separately but it won't be interactive: for example, the hourglass information would need to be copied and pasted as part of the slide. 

I hope this makes sense!!!

Creative ways to practise writing, reading and translation skills: Google Earth

This week has been one of those weeks were more traditional activities and the latest cutting edge technology have merged to inspire me!  This morning I saw on Twitter a great writing game, shared by Erin Gray, called "Capture the flag"  to revise for the fast approaching GCSE writing exam. It goes like this: 

Divide your class in 6/8 teams. For the game you will need a set of coloured flags, say 12, per team.  Print your cards and stick them on the board, as shown by Erin on her twitter post picture: 

Give each team a list of typical GCSE questions/bullet points. Students, in teams, write a paragraph for each given question. Once their paragraph is written, they must come to the teacher who checks the paragraph for any mistakes and if correct, students are allowed to pick any flag belonging to any team from the board. If the paragraph is not correct, they must go back to their seats and correct it. 

At the end of the session, points are given to each coloured flag, (see picture below from Erin Gray posted on twitter) so the team with most points wins the game. As Erin points out, it is a mixture between a running translation activity and a group game with the add-on of practising writing skills!

I love the game as it is! Thank you, Erin. However, after attending the third webinar on Joe Dale's series on AI for MFL teachers, and being a BIG fan of Google Earth and Wheel of Names tasks, I was inspired to combine these two tools with Erin's concept into one activity. This is the result

Writing Quest around Barcelona using Google Earth and Wheel of Names

I created a project in Google Earth based on a Writing Quest around Barcelona. Inspired by Joe Dale, I used Chat GPT to suggest 10 famous landmarks in Barcelona and to provide me with a description of such places in Spanish at GCSE level. I added the places suggested by Chat GTP and their description information to my Google Earth project. 

Then, I went to Wheel of Names and created a wheel with the GCSE questions in relation to Theme 1 for AQA GCSE Spanish (it could have been any theme and I could have used Chat GPT to give me a suggestion of questions, but I had my own). I went back to my Google Earth project and added the link to my wheel of names, at the end of each landmark description. 

This is the result :  Google Earth Writing Quest around Barcelona 

It works like this:

1. Divide the class in 6/8 teams like the original Erin's game

2. Have the sets of coloured flags like Erin suggests, stuck on the board. One set per team.

2. Share the Google Earth link with students via Onenote or Google Classroom

3. Students in teams, you could this in pairs or threes too, open the Google Earth presentation, go to the different places and do two things: 

         a. Translate into English the description of the landmark they are seeing (Reading)

         b. Click on the Wheel of Names link, spin the wheel and write a big paragraph on the  selected question for Theme 1. They must do this without looking at notes. (Writing)

4. One member of the team must go to the teacher to check their writing is correct

5. If correct, like in Erin's game, they pick up a flag from the board from any other team. If mistakes are found, they must go back to their team and revise their paragraph.

6. They continue with the next landmark in the presentation.

I have included 10 landmarks, meaning, 10 translations and writing 10 paragraphs. The translations include nice, new vocabulary, which I will ask students/teams finishing early, to identify and add to their personalised Random Quizlets. 

The whole activity took me 10 minutes to design thanks to Chat GPT. The Wheel of Names can be reused in other retrieval practice tasks for self testing, either for writing or oral purposes. In fact I have a wheel of names for each AQA Theme for this purpose:

Wheel of names Sample Questions for Theme 1

Wheel of names Sample Questions for Theme 2

Wheel of names Sample Questions for Theme 3

The game, adding Google Earth Projects, adds a cultural important element: a virtual visit to Barcelona. If done periodically, you can show different cities where the target language is spoken! Students will need to speak in Spanish when talking among them: real purpose for the activity, which helps motivation!

I hope the idea is clear and thank you again, to Erin and Joe for their inspiration today!