Using games in the classroom can increase a learner’s enthusiasm towards a subject on a subconscious level and can increase participation of lower-level students (Mee Mee et al., 2020). There are many online teaching games that can be used in the classroom, but few are as simple to set up as Baamboozle. Baamboozle is an online quiz game that can be played face-to-face or online with students. It is easy for students to understand and can quickly be used as a short game to make classrooms more fun and interactive. While many of the games are aimed at children, they can also be enjoyed by adults in tertiary education and business English classes. Although there is paid version of this application which offers more games, this review will focus on the free version.
How to Set it Up
It is very simple to create a Baamboozle account. Simply create an account at https://www.baamboozle.com/sign-up. Games can be found using a range of filters (see Figure 1).
Once a game is selected, the teacher can view all of the questions in the quiz (see Figure 2). This is a good opportunity to check that the level of the quiz is appropriate for the class and find any unusual or inappropriate questions. If there is a lot of new vocabulary in the quiz, the study or slideshow tool can be used to teach the class. The slideshow tool shows a picture of the items which can then be elicited from the students.
When the class is ready to play, the teacher clicks the play button and chooses the style of game. There are currently ten game styles to choose from; however, the only game available to free users is Baamboozle. After selecting Baamboozle, the teacher then chooses the number of teams or players, up to eight, and the grid size (see Figure 3). The grid size determines the number of rounds based on how many groups of students are playing. In my experience three rounds is a good amount as students tend to lose interest after that. On this screen, the teacher can also deselect any questions they do not wish to be a part of the quiz. The numbers on the game board can also be changed, to colours or animals for example, to make it easier for very young learners.
After all the selections have been made, the quiz screen is shown and the game can begin (see Figure 4). The first team tells the teacher which tile they would like to select and the question is revealed. The teacher can then decide if the student answered the question correctly or not.
Finally, the type of quiz needs to be selected. Quiz mode is a question-only mode, Classic mode has power-ups which are random tiles that give bonus points or allow teams to take points from another team, and Classic Jr mode is the same as classic mode but is aimed at younger students.
Implementation in Class
There are multiple ways that Baamboozle can be implemented in both online and face-to-face classes. As the game is completely controlled by the teacher, it can be used online by sharing the screen with the students and having them say the answers. The same method can be used in face-to-face classes by simply projecting your screen. Baamboozle can be used at any point during the lesson, but I have found it works best as a short final review activity. The students enjoy making teams and working together to answer questions based on the lesson.
Baamboozle also allows you to make your own quizzes, so teachers can use it as a review tool. It works very well for reviewing vocabulary and grammar, but can also be used for more general trivia quizzes such as flags of the world or capital cities. Teachers can also create quizzes based entirely on their own materials. In my classroom, students tend to get rather excited discussing possible answers to questions, so providing some discussion-related classroom English can increase the opportunity for English conversations to occur.
Benefits
Many online game applications like Kahoot or Quizlet require students to join the game using their phones and create a nickname. However, when adding online games to a classroom, teachers must consider their students’ abilities to use these technologies (Pho & Dinscore, 2015). With Baamboozle, the students do not need to download or log in, so it is very quick to set up, and there are no barriers for students who cannot use phones or tablets easily.
All parts of the game are entirely controlled by the teacher, which can save time and keep the game moving. This also means taking pauses during the game, to remind students of grammar rules, for example, is possible. The huge number of quizzes that have been made by teachers means there is almost always something available that can suit a class, and thanks to the simple interface, it is very easy for teachers to quickly make a quiz of their own.
Drawbacks
There are also some drawbacks to the application. The free version of Baamboozle only has one game available to play. While this is the most enjoyable game, it can get a little boring if the games are allowed to go on for too long or if it is used too often throughout a semester. The free teacher-created material can also be hit and miss. There are a lot of quizzes with confusing questions or erroneous answers, so the teacher needs to check every quiz before using it in the classroom. Unfortunately, there is no way to edit a question other than removing it entirely.
The power-ups given during play can also occasionally cause students to complain about the fairness of the game. However, in classes where the students take their game scores very seriously, this feature can be turned off. The free version allows up to four teams, while the paid version permits eight. This means that the free version is good for small classes, but the teams can get a bit large if there are more than 20 students. In those cases, I would recommend using the paid version.
Conclusion
Overall, Baamboozle is a very simple game that is quick to set up and easy for students to understand. While it does require the teacher to check the quizzes they use, it is still a very useful tool and a great way to quickly review a point or simply add some fun into the classroom.
References
Mee Mee, R. W., Tengku Shahdan, T. S., Ismail, M. R., Abd Ghani, K., Pek, L. S., Von, W. Y., Woo, A., & Rao, Y. S. (2020). Role of gamification in classroom teaching: Pre-service teachers’ view. International Journal of Evaluation and Research in Education, 9(3), 684–690. https://doi.org/10.11591/ijere.v9i3.20622
Pho, A., & Dinscore, A. (2015). Game-based learning. Tips and Trends. Association of College and Research Libraries and American Library Association. http://acrl.ala.org/IS/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/spring2015.pdf
