Escape rooms became popular team-building activities for families, friends, and co-workers in the 2010s. The premise is simple - you are locked in a room for building, and have to solve a series of riddles, puzzles, or clues, to find what is needed to escape. Escape rooms of all kinds require focus, attention to detail, and the ability to follow directions. Eventually, of course, the concept found its way into educational settings, where they have been a huge deal for the past 10 years.
Digital escape rooms are a series of puzzles often put into a format like Google Forms. Players go through a series of activities, inputting a solution at each step in order to unlock the next puzzle or activity. If the right clues are put in the right order, eventually the escape room is solved and the player or team of players escapes.
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Educationally, digital escape rooms have a huge range of benefits. The biggest one is probably increased engagement. Instead of flatlining or even decreasing attention over time, students engaged in a digital escape room become MORE excited and motivated the closer they get to the final solution. And because there are educational digital escape rooms covering just about every topic imaginable, students are actively learning and solving problems directly related to academic content the whole time!
Another educational benefit of digital escape rooms is the potential for building teamwork. Everyone agrees that group projects in the classroom can be very, very difficult to manage. Because group dynamics can be...unpredictable...using a fun and high energy vehicle like digital escape rooms can encourage positive group behavior. Digital escape rooms that require group work can help student teams work together, manage their time, use creative problem solving skills, and maintain focus when under pressure.
Digital escape rooms can also benefit the individual student when working alone. Building individual problem solving skills can help students develop confidence in their skills and abilities. High energy or more active students can benefit from a period of extreme focus and creativity, which can then lead to more success experienced in the classroom. Digital Escape Rooms can also be fun and engaging activities for students who learn differently or usually struggle to keep up.
I haven't even addressed the biggest benefit yet - digital escape rooms make teacher's lives EASIER! Because they are digital, you don't physically have to do anything to provide this experience to your class. You don't have to make them yourself or come up with the content because there are so many quality products already on the market. One digital escape room can cover a wide range of topics or skills due to the nature of the activities. Given the wide range of classroom styles these days, digital escape rooms can be done in-class or virtually to meet the needs of any classroom.
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