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Teaching Academic Vocabulary with Words With Friends EDU
Monday, October 10, 2016 @ 2:00 pm - 3:00 pm EDT
Presented by Jeff Brain, Teacher, Del Mar Middle School with Abby Speight, Director of Product, Words With Friends EDU
Sponsored by Words With Friends EDU
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Interested in using games as a learning tool in your classroom? Looking for new ways to engage your students in language? In this webinar, educator Jeff Brain and Words With Friends EDU’s Abby Speight demonstrated how Words With Friends EDU – the new, free, educational version of Words With Friends – can help!
Words With Friends EDU builds on the gameplay of Words With Friends, with new educational features to help students learn high value academic words – words that are used frequently in required reading, textbooks, and assessments. For teachers, there’s a new suite of tools that track what students are learning as they play. Results show that students increase their use of academic words after playing just 6 games.
Jeff Brain, a teacher who’s been involved in every stage of the game’s development, showed how he integrates Words With Friends EDU into his curriculum to help his students learn academic vocabulary. Jeff provided a deep dive into getting started in the game and using the teacher tools to track students’ progress. He shared a few key lesson plans and how he’s used them to maximize students’ learning as they play.
You’ll walk away ready to get started in your own classroom – and to bring the word nerd out in each of your students. This webinar is designed for teachers, librarians, and ELA specialists, especially in grades 4 – 8.
Jeff Brain has twenty-five years teaching experience and currently teaches multimedia, art, and integrated projects at Del Mar Middle School in Tiburon, California. He has consulted on game and curriculum design with Leapfrog, Common Sense Media, McGraw Hill, and Words With Friends EDU.
Jeff was part of the initial Words With Friends EDU education team of teachers and Zynga personnel, formed in 2014 to create sound pedagogical foundations for Words With Friends in the classroom. He has worked with the Words With Friends EDU team ever since as a curriculum consultant.
As the Director of Product for Words With Friends EDU, Abby leads the division’s educational initiatives. She’s the product lead for Words With Friends EDU, the classroom version of Words With Friends, and has been involved through conceptualization, development, launch and live game operations.
Previously, Abby led Zynga’s social impact product work, focusing on leveraging games for good. In partnership with Zynga studios, she raised funds for, and awareness of, nonprofit causes through charitable features in existing games. As the lead of Studio G, she managed Zynga.org’s partnership with UCSF to build games that drive cognitive impact.
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Words With Friends EDU brings the fun of Words With Friends into your classroom. Students learn new words as they play in a safe environment with their classmates, and teachers and parents track students’ progress using custom teacher dashboards.