Meet Bloxels

Bloxels is a platform for creating and building video games. It allows students to build a story from the ground up using pixel art. They can create their own characters, settings, and narrative in a fun and exciting way. But Bloxels isn’t just all fun and games — teachers can also use it for gamifying assessment. With the freedom and creativity built into the platform, teachers can build more exciting ways to deliver content and test students’ knowledge of a topic. Here are some great ways to gamify assessment with Bloxels.

Story Blocks

The easiest way to add content into your Bloxels game is to add story blocks. Story blocks allow you to give instructions and create a narrative in your game. You can add in facts and guide students through content, which is a great method for gamifying assessment. To create in story blocks, you simply add a white block from your menu and select the conversation bubble. Then, a screen will come up asking you to add text. You can write a single sentence or add up to four text boxes if you have longer content. Click “Done” and your text is added to the game! Story block artwork can be any art that you’ve made or is in an Asset Pack, so you can have the content come from a sign, piece of paper, or even a person!

Adding a link to copy

Another option for gamifying assessments using story blocks is adding the URL to your quiz to your final story block. You can create a hidden passage to the ultimate end of the game that your students can’t find until they’ve finished your outside quiz. In this example, you can see I used a simple Google form as a quiz, and linked to it in the story block. Upon completion of their quiz, students are given directions for how to find the final flag to win the game!

Drop Quizzes

Drop quizzes are ways of building your board to create a quiz. For drop quizzes to work, you use story blocks to compose your question and then students choose the answer by picking which path to follow. When your students get the answer correct, they should be given a reward and the path to the next question. For the paths with the wrong answers, you can give students a way back to try the question again, or put a hazard to make them lose their points.

These are just a few options for how to create content and quizzes that make learning just a little bit more fun for students. As you play with Bloxels, you’ll gain more familiarity with the platform and be able to explore even more exciting options!