I am deep into school year prep for my library, and at the same time I had an assignment for class: creating a breakout session with games and puzzles. So naturally, I started to combine both ideas in my head. How can I help students learn about how the library works?

My students haven’t received library instruction in awhile, so I want to make sure they know where things are located in the library, how to search for books and more. My goal is to get students out of their seats and looking at things in the library. 

So. Many. App. Options.

I was pretty overwhelmed with the sheer number of tools that have been created to help librarians and teachers gamify things. There were so many different options of things I could use! 

Our professor had made a really awesome game using Genially, and I was fascinated by the idea of using a template (much like templates in Canva) to design a game without coding. I made an account and got to work! 

How it went

Genially was totally new to me, but I found it very intuitive! I chose a template – a game designed for the player to collect gems to power up a sword to defeat dragon.

It was the perfect plot for my purposes. I decided to focus each gem on different library skills. 

Here’s the gem breakdown: 

1. Overview of the areas of the library.
2. How to look up a book in the catalog.
3. Circulation and book care rules.
4. Using a call number to find a book.

While making the game I did need to experiment with how to make alterations to the animations, but that was relatively easy to figure out. I am sure it would have been easier if I did tutorials instead of jumping immediately into making the game. But what can I say? I’m stubborn.

Overall I’m happy with what I made. I plan to use this game in the second half of the breakout, since we would need to build some skills first (like what call numbers mean).

After doing this I can see how games will be great for getting students interested in the library, even if they are not readers. I think this is a way to bring kids in and help them be less intimidated by the library.

In preparation for the final game, I made plans for three other challenges that would be used to help students build out the skills needed for The Library Dragon Game. 

It took me a long time to figure out how all of the pieces of this breakout would fit together, and make sure the puzzles were different enough. I broke up this lesson into two weeks: the first week for the first three challenges, and the second week for the digital game. 

The total plan for my breakout is here.

Check it out and let me know what you think! Would you do something similar with your students?