Author Archives: grahamstanley

I am a teacher, social media consultant based in Barcelona, Spain.

Digital Playtime – Skyping Brazil

Last week, I had the pleasure of talking to a group of teachers that Shelly Terrell was training in Brazil. I answered questions about using computer games in the classroom and introduced them to the Digital Play blog and book. Hope you enjoy the video!

Free online workshop on Gamification

Come and join us on the free 5 week online workshop on ‘Teaching and Learning Languages through Gamification‘ The workshop, facilitated by Paul Braddock and Graham Stanley is one of a number of similar workshops that have been organised for the annual TESOL Electronic Village Online (EVO). Over the next 5 weeks, participants will be [...]

Competition Winner! Christmas Escape Game

Congratulations to Nada Purtic, the winner of the Digital Play Christmas competition! Here, as the last Digital Play blog post of the year, is Nada’s idea for the December Escape Game. Well done Nada! A copy of Digital Play (the book) is on the way to you. December Escape Game Lesson Plan Level: Beginners Language: [...]

Language Teaching with Online Digital Games

Digital Play is pleased to invite everyone to participate in a free online course this December in Language Teaching with Online Digital Games held on the SEETA (South Easter Europe Teacher Associations) website. The course is an introduction to using online games in the ELT classroom and is free for anyone who wants to attend. [...]

Building a sustainable city with Enercities

Level: Intermediate+ Location: Computer room, class set of laptops (or game play for homework) Skills Focus: Reading, Speaking Game: http://www.enercities.eu Enercities is a computer simulation game which lets you build your own city. It is suitable for  intermediate and above students and worth playing for the vocabulary of cities and discussion possibilities. Topics that are relevant include: [...]

Reward or Punishment: Gamification with Class Dojo

Class Dojo (http://www.classdojo.com) is a realtime behaviour management system for teachers who have an internet-enabled computer and a projector (connected classroom)or IWB. You start by creating an account and setting up a class by typing in the names of your students. Avatars for each student are automatically generated during this process. In class, you select [...]

Meet Moshi Monsters – the Primary Class Virtual Pets

Moshi Monsters is a virtual pet game and popular safe social network for young kids similar to Club Penguin. The game lets a child adopt a Moshi pet, which they have to look after, feed and play games with. Similar in concept to a Tamagotchi, but on the Web, it can be used in the [...]

You drive like an old man

Driving games can be fun and useful for practising directions with students, but most driving games are not suitable for class because they are too fast. Driver Seat game by the insurance company Liberty Mutual, however is different. It’s the first ‘senior driving simulator’ aimed at raising awareness of what it’s like to drive a [...]

Digital Play – the book!

Some of you will already know by now that our blog has become a book. Published by Delta Publishing, Digital Play – Computer games and language aims is part of the wonderful DeltaTeacher Development series, which includes other original resource books such as Teaching Unplugged by Luke Meddings and Scott Thornbury, and Teaching Online by [...]

Another Interactive Text Adventure : Spent

As Chris Roland showed us with Inanimate Alice (Part I & Part II), there is a lot of scope for language learning and teaching in Interactive fiction. Spent is a very different type of text adventure. It’s not interactive fiction – firstly, because it deals with a very serious subject : poverty. It is also [...]