Draw Something

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The draw something app has been keeping me amused all week and would be an excellent app for use as a vocabulary game with students.

Draw free (you can pay for an ads free version) brings the classroom time filler and fave whiteboard game of pictionary to the mlearning classroom.

Getting started is easy, you need to give yourself a user name or email and then choose someone to play against. You can play a game against a random player or if you have friends (or in the case of the classroom fellow students) you can invite them to play against you.

Once your game starts you have given the choice of three words to draw. Having different levels of difficulty, the words gain you varying amounts of coins. If none of the words appeal then you can use a 'bomb' to change your choices. But be warned once you run out of bombs you have to carry on regardless.

Having chosen, you then get a white screen on which to draw words - there are five colours you can use and a variable pen size. Once drawn it alerts the person you are playing. They see a video of you drawing the word and you are given the number of letters in the word and a selection of letters. Again you can use the 'bomb' for further help.

Guess the word correctly and win coins. Then the next player gets to draw and so it continues until the chain of guessing is broken and it's game over.

There is, of course, nothing to stop you simply writing the word on the screen but this somewhat spoils the game and I think adopting a no 'writing' rule ale pictionary makes the game more fun.

The words are not difficult in terms of students knowing them but they may have trouble drawing them. Of course it is a bit of disadvantage that you cannot use words that come up in lessons but as a way to either fill some time in the class, or simply to encourage students to engage in English outside of the classroom it is oath day to play and very much fun. In class you can play in teams to help overcome limited devises (or even on a data projector if you only have one). Setting a challenge of how many rounds can you build would add a competitive edge (22 and counting so far). Alternatively who can get the most coins is another way to add challenge (coins open up things such as additional colours).

It is very very addictive so be warned or if you fancy a game just search for my email :-)