What Is It?
You may be familiar with Escape Rooms, where teams of players are “trapped” in a themed room and they need to work together to figure out how to free themselves. Typically, the room contains clues and puzzles that players need to solve before a set time limit (typically an hour). For gamers, it’s a great in-person way to spend an hour with friends relieving stress, working on problem-solving, and, dare I say, having fun. Virtual escape rooms are a spin-off of non-virtual escape rooms, where challenges are created using software and users may work more independently to escape the “room”.
You might be wondering why we’re talking about escape rooms in a teaching and learning post. Escape rooms are actually a great way to engage students in a sort of “gamified” way. Virtual escape rooms can be equally engaging and allow students to participate asynchronously (either individually or as teams, depending on the design). Virtual escape rooms are a great way to make student-centered learning opportunities that are fun and stimulating!
The Good, The Bad, The Okay
Good. Virtual Escape rooms can be a fun way to learn and introduce collaborative learning opportunities for your students. Some places have created free virtual escape rooms – check out these rooms created by Shelburne Museum. Or, try this virtual escape room about the Secret of Online Education by Delaware Technical Community College.
Bad? First of all, there is a lot of design and thought that goes into an escape room. You need to plan the challenge and develop appropriate puzzles. This isn’t something you do spur of the moment. It needs to be intentional. Often, it includes incorporating puzzle-making tools (EdPuzzle, etc. There are tons out there!). Long story short – it’s going to take some time to make a good escape room.
Okay. You need a platform to drive the Escape Room. In many instances, people use programs like Google Slides to drive the Escape Room. Finding the right platform that is accessible to students is important.
Learn More
There are tons of resources on the Internet, so instead of sharing sites, I’m going to share these two articles from our library databases.
Escaping Traditional Teaching Methods: How to Use Escape Rooms in Undergraduate Nursing Education
Bringing a Mystery to the Evidence-Based Practice: Using Escape Rooms to Enhance Learning
Try It Out
I already gave you some examples above, so this Try It Out is more about designing an Escape Room. When I was at Educause this fall, I attended a session on Virtual Escape Rooms. The presenters, from Delaware Technical Community College, created the Virtual Escape Room Interactive Toolkit. It’s a great way to start thinking about how and why you might create your own room!
