After so much buildup, your interest may have been piqued. Well, here it is: the Paris Scavenger Hunt.
The rules are simple: students have one day, working in teams of two, to get as many of the items on the list. Photos of each item must be uploaded to the site by 8 pm. Then, three prizes are awarded:
– team with most completed items
– team with my favorite pic (I do get a say somewhere!)
– team with favorite pic of other teams
Last year’s Hunt yielded some pretty fantastic pictures, but was a bit of a technological cluster monkey. Full disclosure:
The scav hunt was a random idea that we came up with as a group in the middle of the trip last year. I came up with a list of items, but there was no mechanism at all for posting them. The result was surprisingly successful from a substantive perspective. Students enjoyed the challenge, and found that they knew how to navigate the city very well. However, their uploading process was unpleasant, and the judging, on my part, was made all but impossible by the situation.
I made the rookie mistake of not formalizing the upload system. As a result, some students uploaded each photo in a separate post, others posted them all at once, some teams had a single student post everything, others mixed it up, some posted them in order, others didn’t. Over all, this made it a nightmare for me. I had seven separate teams and no easy way to compare photos.
One thing I try not to do in teaching – or indeed anything else if I can avoid it – is make the same mistake twice. Therefore, I set out this year to develop a good system for the students. As usual, DTLT did all the heavy lifting for me (thanks, Martha!!!)
The new setup is simple and centralizes the process. Students just upload their picture to the course site directly, rather than their own blog, along with their team ID and photo number. Comparing pics is now a snap. Best of all, this system will be easy to change, without bothering DTLT this time, at any time in the future. I may even adapt it for other courses.
As people who have heard me talk incessantly about gamification, I’m a true believer that games like scav hunts really do help the learning process. This is especially true for a class dedicated to urbanism. What better way to prove you know Paris than actually finding things in it?
Anyway, dear reader, if you’ve read this far you deserve a reward. So here it is: want to see pics of anything in particular in Paris? Let me know what it is in the comments by Sunday July 28 and your item will be included in the Scavenger Hunt. Right now, the list isn’t complete (don’t want to give the teams too much of a head start in figuring out a strategy) so check back next week to see the outcome…
Finally: this post should really be another Ode, to Martha rather than all DTLT this time, since she’s the one who made this possible. Unfortunately for her, the last post reached the extent of my lyrical ability. Hopefully, Martha will be satisfied with my undying thanks and the kickass system that resulted.