This past summer, I had the privilege of co-leading a group of educators in a transformative professional development experience down at Walt Disney World. On one particular day, I was in charge of guiding our educators around E.P.C.O.T. which is one of Walt Disney World’s four parks, it’s the one with the giant golf ball thing in front called SpaceShip Earth and has the different world showcases in the back. This happens to be my favorite of all the parks and one where I wanted our participants to explore innovating their classrooms through creating a culturally respectful and challenging classroom environment that made students feel safe to take risks and explore.
So I decided to use a digital tool that I have been using with my students for a couple years called GooseChase. GooseChase is a platform that has a website and mobile app that you can create your own digital scavenger hunts. There is a cost to the site but when I contact them directly and let them know that I’m a teacher, they have always been generous in the pricing. Not free but pretty generous. The basics of creating a GooseChase scavenger hunt is fairly easy. You build your game on their website, give it a name, picture, and description to mark it as yours. You can also set a password for an extra layer of security if you are wanting to make sure only your students are the ones entering the game once you make it active.
Before the game can begin though, you need to create the missions that the students will need to complete during the GooseChase. GooseChase has a list of missions that you can choose from. You can create your mission list using their bank of 100+ tested missions or you can design your own from scratch. Missions have a name, description, point value and optional link or photo to provide extra information. There is even an option for text and GPS missions. Once the game is running, you get real-time activity feeds and rankings, so you will be able to see how your students are progressing and give help as needed. You can even give students bonus points for an awesome answer or video submission. You can either stop the game manually or set a time for the game to stop automatically.
So why did I decide to use this app? Well, I knew from my experience that this app was a great way to customize the scavenger hunt to what I wanted them to explore at E.P.C.O.T. and allow them some choice in what and how they completed each mission. I also knew that it would be a lot of fun and a great way to get the group of educators learning and feeling what it’s like to be engaged in an alternative setting in an outside the box way of instructing. In a nutshell, have them experience what I wanted them to bring back to their students! Judging the educators’ reactions, I believe my mission was accomplished in modeling this digital tool and inspiring them to think outside the box when planning activities for their students and staff.
Here are some of the questions that were discussed in the reflection period after the activity:
How would you model this tool for colleagues?
I think the best way that I could model this tool for my colleagues is by having them first use the tool as a participant. I could pair them up in teams and have them compete in a mini scavenger hunt. This could be done in school or we could go somewhere different to explore.
How would you investigate this tool collaboratively with students?
As a beginning of the year project, I could have my students use the Goosechase app to create their own scavenger hunt. I could have them do this individually as a getting-to-know-you project. They could pick one of their favorite places and then create a scavenger hunt that they can take the class through virtually. This would help everyone get to know the app and get to know each other.
How might you use this tool to promote digital citizenship OR empower student learning?
This app is a great way that we as educators can address digital citizenship with our students. Since GooseChase is an app that allows students to post text, pictures, videos and GPS locations, educators can use this as an opportunity to address digital citizenship and what types of posts are appropriate for this setting. Then students can practice and use the posting strategies they’ve just learned when they are using the app. A teacher could even set-up a sample scavenger hunt with examples of good response posts and also not so good response posts. Students as a class can
How might this tool transform your work with colleagues and/or students?
GooseChase allows you to design your own digital scavenger hunt. This means that you have the ability to guide your students through whatever content you want. Whether that is digital citizenship, core content, or just learning how to collaborate and work with others. Your students then have the freedom to be creative in completing those mission. Student choice is critical to enhancing engagement and getting a deeper understanding of your students. Not to mention that this app can be extremely fun and can potentially tear down some walls in students that you have a difficult time getting involved in classroom activities.
Which ISTE Standard(s) might be met by its use?
Some of the ISTE standards that could be considered when you use GooseChase as a digital tool in your lesson planning are:
- Digital Citizen: Students recognize the rights, responsibilities, and opportunities of living, learning and working in an interconnected digital world, and they act and model in ways that are safe, legal and ethical.
- 2b. Students engage in positive, safe, legal and ethical behavior when using technology, including social interactions online or when using networked devices.
- Knowledge Constructor: Students critically curate a variety of resources using digital tools to construct knowledge, produce creative artifacts and make meaningful learning experiences for themselves and others.
- 3d. Students build knowledge by actively exploring real-world issues and problems, developing ideas and theories and pursuing answers and solutions.
- Creative Communicator: Students communicate clearly and express themselves creatively for a variety of purposes using the platforms, tools, styles, formats and digital media appropriate to their goals.
- 6d. Students publish or present content that customizes the message and medium for their intended audiences.
