Free Online Game for Food Donations and Language Learning

 

Correct answers for Free Rice quiz items generate food donations paid for by sponsors, whose banners appear on the web page. The level of difficulty automatically adjusts up for correct and down for incorrect answers.

Though on one occasion an inappropriate banner appeared, the non-profit site owners had written, "We are quick and careful to remove inappropriate content, if it is reported to us via email at wfp.freerice@wfp.org with 'Report inappropriate content' ... in the subject line" (http://freerice.com/about/faq). So I reported that inappropriate banner.

There are English, French, Italian, and Spanish versions of the game on the same site, with more quiz categories for English than for the other languages. There also is a Korean version on a separate site:

• http://freerice.plaync.com/ 

Registration is separate for the two sites, but not necessary to play; it will enable you to track your contributions on one site or the other.

Reference

World Food Programme. (2014). Free Rice 2.0 [online game]. Retrieved
          June 5, 2014, from http://freerice.com

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Rick's KGU Writing 2010: English Games

In a quick post, English Games (2010.11.29), Rick points out three [fun] pre-intermediate grammar games from Oxford University Press. There are [plenty] more games where those come from.

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Vocabulary Games

Thanks to Kate Britt for shouting out about a Free Educational Software... site (What's New, 2010.02.05). I've added a direct link to Vocabulary Games to the list of Course Links in the sidebar.

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Green IQ Game and Carbon Footprint Calculator

If you are an English language learner with intermediate or greater reading ability, who is able to tolerate a brain-numbing audio loop long enough to try it, you might play the Green IQ Game. It could teach you a bit about the impact your lifestyle has on the environment.

I learned of that game from a post on Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day blog (Test Your Green IQ, 2008.11.12), but I couldn't stand the music that started playing the moment I opened the game. So I won't embed it in this post. I removed a game like that from a previous post because it wasted bandwidth every time it loaded (Big Bob's Burger Joint..., 2008.09.04)) However, I will try [Green IQ] later with the speakers turned off. If you try it, please let us know what you think of it by leaving a comment on this post after you play.

If you're keen on a calmer, deeper, quieter, environmental consciousness-raising activity, you might try the the Carbon Footprint Calculator, instead. The Welcome screen in the calculator allows you to select a country (and locale) for comparison. Then on-site calculations based on your responses reflect impacts of certain human activities. The behaviors and preferences tracked relate primarily to housing and transportation, but also to fashion, food, shopping, and recreation.

Again, please feel free to share your reflections in comments here afterwards. I'd really like to know whether you find either the environmental issues or the language used (vocabulary, in particular) familiar or difficult to understand. I'd also like to hear whether playing the Green IQ Game or calculating your Carbon Footprint influences your thinking or motivates you to make changes in your lifestyle.

Blogged with the Flock Browser
Revised in Blogger

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Comment Chops for All [+ A Scavenger Hunt]

This post consolidates comments that I've attached recently to individual blogs, comments which apply, in general, to many more of your posts. I hope you will consider all of the suggestions in these three comments, reflect on them carefully in light of your own writing habits, and take them to heart in all of your blogging endeavors.

You may note that I am quoting liberally from my own writing (with permission;-), and making it clear in context (this explanation) and through layout (ellipses, block indentations, italics, and references; below) that I am using long quotations in this post, yet avoiding self-plagiarism. If you would like to see the passages that I'm quoting in their original contexts, you are welcome to take part in a blogging scavenger hunt (A Scavenger Hunt, below)

Book review content and organization, and word counts

Would you please review Mr. T's Book Review Recipe for advice regarding the content and organization of book reviews? Rather than retelling the stories you read, your writing should reflect your choices of books, your thinking about the books you choose (before and after reading them), whether you recommend them to your classmates and peers, and why. You also need word counts on every post.

(pab, 2008.10.28)

Titles, introductions, keywords, and vocabulary references

When you write several hundred words about any topic, it's really important to be clear about what it is going to be in the title, and in the introduction, too. There [in yours] you suggest, ....

It also is important to incorporate white space in your texts, between the paragraphs, to help readers find your main points quickly and easily. Even with a computerized search, I didn't find ... [a keyword from your title] in your post. Perhaps you can find ... [that keyword] in the Visual Thesaurus... [, which] I've listed on the Writing Studio Wiki (Vocabulary References), and displayed at the foot of the Writing Studio Blog.

(pab, 2008.10.28)

Grammar, spelling, and links

I wonder whether you have grammar and spell-checked this rewrite in a word processing program (OpenOffice, NeoOffice, or Word), and whether you know how to make URLs into active links in blog posts and comments. If something you've written gets flagged during a thorough grammar/spelling check, and you're not sure how to revise it, please ask in class.

(pab, 2008.10.28)

A Scavenger Hunt

If you would like to review the comments that I've quoted (above) in their original contexts on classmates' and peers' blogs, you are welcome to take part in a blogging scavenger hunt to find them. There will be a small prize for the first student in each class who informs me in class precisely whose blogs and which posts (blog handles, titles, dates, and times) display those comments on them.

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Free Rice: website review

First of all, I'd like to acknowledge connections that enabled me to find this interesting website. In the mail queue yesterday morning was a weekly update message announcing over two dozen additional sites bookmarked by members of the LearningwithComputers (LwC) Group at Diigo, a group that the founder, Carla Arena, describes as "educators interested in sharing and learning about the power of technology" (Description, retrieved 2008.09.18).

That is just what I was doing as I browsed through the list of new bookmarks, after accepting an invitation to hookup through the group with Isabelle Jones, another member of the LwC. Interestingly enough, she had bookmarked a recent post on (one of) her blog(-s):

• My Languages: Free Rice is Going Multi-Lingual and Cross-Curricular

In that post, she updates her review of a wonderful site that she reviewed about a year ago (My Languages, Test Your English and Feed the World, 2007.11.18). FreeRice is a partnership project involving the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University (Cultivating Free Rice, 2008.09.01), and the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP, FreeRice web phenomenon – games for a new school term, 2008.08.31). According to the WFP, the Berkman Center now provides servers for FreeRice, and works with the website's creator to develop new adaptive quiz content for the site. Thanks to generous support of various sponsors, for every correct answer to quiz items, the site donates 20 grains of rice to the WFP.

Quizzes now come in a number of different varieties. For example there is one on English vocabulary, and another of English grammar. What's more, as Isabelle points out in her recent post, there also are quizzes in other languages and subjects:

• French, German, Italian, and Spanish;
• art, chemistry, geography, and math (FreeRice, Subjects).

The FAQ explains that sponsers pay the WFP directly:

FreeRice does not make any money from this. FreeRice is simply a website committed to the cause of ending hunger around the world. While it is not a registered non-profit organization, FreeRice is run entirely for free and at no profit. All money (100%) raised by the site goes to the UN World Food Program to help feed the hungry. Sponsors make all payments to the UN World Food Program directly.

(FreeRice, FAQ, Does FreeRice make any money from doing this?
Is FreeRice a non-profit organization?).

There are options that you can set on site either to display a running total of your winnings, or a fresh tally every time you visit the site. However, the aggregate total probably works only if you use the same IP address every time you take a quiz.

Each correct answer not only adds to your contribution, but also cranks up the difficulty of the quiz items that appear next. A note on the Subjects page indicates"the difficulty levels for new subjects will become more exact as more people play." Though incorrect answers will lead to easier quiz items, they will not decrease your contribution. You can find monthly totals since the site's launch here, along with daily totals for the current month, ready and waiting to include yours!

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Big Bob's Burger Joint: Melting Mindz video game

The link to this Melting Mindz video game, I gleaned from Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day (2008.09.03). He says the instructions are intermediate level. Please try it out, and tell us what you think in comments on this post.

... [Note: I've removed the Flash player that I had embedded here, because it was slow to load, and included a mind-numbing audio loop. Please use the link below if you would like to try out the Burger Joint game (pab, 2008.09.24).]

If the flash player doesn't seem to work here, or is too small for ease of viewing, you can try the game at its original location: Big Bob's Burger Joint (Melting Mindz).

That link is a recent addition to Larry's immense collection of resources grouped by themes, for example, food. Is it as fun as Larry says it is? If so, please let us know why you think so, and whether you find anything else of equal or greater interest among the other resources on his website.

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