Easy Google Form Breakout and Some Tools!

I've created "digital breakouts" for a few years now. Some are super complicated and take nearly an hour to complete (and sometimes few students even complete them) and I love the idea of them, but it's just so time consuming. Even the cool "breakout boxes" are just sometimes too much work having to program locks, set up the room, etc.

So, here is my "easy Google Form" breakout method. I created this as a Business Law bellringer activity for this year.  Between the tools I used and the setup, I thought this might be helpful, or if you actually teach Business Law, feel free to use it in your class.

I didn't create this list, but someone shared this resource with lots of tools for using in breakouts (like the Jigsaw Puzzle). Check it out!

My Breakout

My Presentation Mentioned

Web Design Breakout EDU! Classroom fun today! #busedu

Today, we tried my Web Design Digital Breakout in my Web Design classes.  It went really well! They stayed very engaged, despite me letting them use their phones to look up information, scan QR codes, etc. I did decide to do groups of 2 (or you could choose to go solo) and they could only use one desktop computer, but phones were allowed.

I've done a few of these digital ones on my own and they are much harder than the one I created (and most of my students were able to breakout in the 40 minutes I gave... one group was not successful in one class and two groups had 3 out of 4 locks but were unsuccessful in the other class). I didn't have many "distractors" in the website and I provided hints occasionally as needed to help them move along. Most did really well with working through the frustration and getting through it, so I was very proud!

I'm working on a breakout for Photoshop class, so be looking for that in about a week! That's for next week in that class.

A few tips:

• Be sure to double check all URLs; our school firewall blocked two of them, including a jigsaw puzzle site (for kid logins, not mine) and I had to scramble to get it unblocked. Fortunately, most could use their phones but not if hooked to school wi-fi. So, that was a snag.
• Consider installing a QR code decoder to the computer/Chromebook. For my second class, I had them install QuickMark QR and it worked for most of them (you can right click to decode on a page if you don't have a phone to take a picture of the code). Some had an app on their phones, but not all. 

Fun stuff, and a great change of pace. I think my plan will be to do two a semester for each class for Web Design and Photoshop... and maybe expand later on for my other classes. I don't want it to be too commonplace for them or, once other teachers get excited about it, them to be doing them too many places and not enjoy them anymore.

Have you tried Breakout EDU in any of your classes? I can't decide if I want to do a "physical" hunt or not (with clues hidden in envelopes, etc.) as the setup is pretty time consuming and I feel like groups would have to be bigger.