We've all seen them. Students with their heads down rhythmically tapping the screen of their phones making the small bird rise and fall to pass through the pipes. Always fascinated by mobile apps and games that captivate my students I downloaded this game and tried it out.
Why Is Everyone Playing?
From my perspective the reason was quite simple. This game is difficult, but gives you the opportunity to
easily try again. No lives to buy or accrue, in other words no hoops to jump through- just try again! While I didn't commit too much time to scoring in the hundreds as some of my students have, I did try enough times to think of the transferable lessons that this game (and others) have for education. Games parallel formative and summative assessment taking, there are no video games where you only get one chance and have to stop playing. Therefore, we should take a lesson from games and be striving to make reassessments and relearning as painless as pressing the "play again" button.
