Some teachers are asking how they can earn more coins for their game play. One way is to be an active ambassador in our Legends of Learning community (sign up or log-in).

To that end, we are happy to unveil our new incentives for the Legends of Learning Community for the 2017-18 school year. Coins earned through community actions are awarded at the end of each month. Here are the different ways you can earn coins.

In Community

• First 10 comments and replies during the 2017-8 school year = 100 coins. Another 100 coins for each successive 20 comments.
• Five original posts = 50 coins. Another 100 coins will be awarded for each successive 10 posts.

Social Sharing

In addition to the coins earned via in-product sharing, you can get more coins by linking to us in the following ways:

• Blog post about us, or an inbound link via a badge from a website you control: 500 coins
• Facebook share about Legends that tags our page on Facebook: 100 coins

Lesson Plans

We love lesson plans that include Legends of Learning games. Send us your lesson plan formatted like this, and once accepted (we peer review all student facing content), you will receive 100 coins. Send lesson plan submissions to aaron@legendsoflearning.com.

Special Missions

Game ratings: Legends of Learning is currently looking to have students rate specific games. For every game that you your class plays and rates, you will earn 60 coins. For a class of 30, that equates to two new games for playing one! If you are interested, email faye@legendsoflearning.com for a game assignment.

This week’s ambassador of the week is Richard White, a science teacher at Griffin Middle School in Cobb County, GA. He has been a prolific commenter in our Ambassador Community, offering fellow teachers and the Legends of Learning team insights on issues such as homework and grading.

We really appreciate everything he has done to make Legends of Learning better, and we know it is because of his passion for education. As part of our feature, we wanted to ask Richard what one of his most remarkable teaching experiences was.

“Last year I taught 6th grade advanced content Earth science students and I had a young lady who was really quiet and seemed shy,” said Richard. “I watched her as we started learning about rocks and minerals, and I noticed her face light up as we learned how different rocks and minerals formed.

“She was very excited when we had a local geologist come in and talk with the class, and I could see she was learning a great deal each day. I always wrap up the rock and mineral unit by having students make gem trees to take home, and we did this again for this class. She was very careful in how she put hers together and very proud when she finished.

“After that I noticed that she was not as shy and was willing to jump in when called upon. I got an email from her mother saying that she did not know what I did but all that they talked about at home now was science, and how much she loved her science class. I found out later that she had taken out her rock collection and started putting new pieces into it.”

“Seeing someone grow and knowing that what we did in class had a personal impact on her, that is why I love what I do,” closed Richard.

We love it, too. Thank you for this remarkable story, and all of the great suggestions and help you offer to us, and our larger community of teachers.

Caitlin Unterman, one of our most active ambassadors in the Legends of Learning community, offered two new resources for those looking to find solar eclipse content. She offered a NASA YouTube video for the kids, and made a poster of Dos and Dont’s for students.

These two new resources complement the Legends of Learning solar eclipse lesson plan, the two free games on our public Alpha Games site, the additional eclipse games in our “Eclipses and Seasons” learning objective, and another 16 public eclipse resources available on this blog. Interested parties can sign up to become an ambassador on the Alpha Games page.

Thank you, Caitlin, for sharing these resources with us. We admire all of the great work you do to help science students at Forest Middle School, and across the country.

NASA Video

Poster

Considering joining the Legends of Learning community of teachers and developers? We need help from middle school science teachers who are willing to comment on our games. Ambassadors who sign up by March 1, and provide feedback to our developers get free access to games. The most qualified Ambassadors earn an opportunity to attend ISTE this June 26-29 in San Antonio.

This is your opportunity to shape the Legends of Learning platform and games from the ground floor. When you sign up for our community, you let your voice be heard and make a difference not only in your classroom, but for educators across America!

Your input on individual learning objectives is used by the Legends of Learning team and our game developers to improve our collective offering. You can directly impact how kids learn thru games, join forces with like-minded heroes to review and strengthen the Legends of Learning platform and the individual games.

We want to reward teachers who are active in our network, and provide you free games for your classroom. Just for signing up for a community you get 3000 credits to use the games in your classroom!

Further participation in our community garners you more credits to continue playing and some crazy rewards, too. The 50-100 teachers who are most active in the community and agree to participate in our next major research study will attend ISTE — the premier education professional development conference — on our dollar (an up to $2,000 value that includes registration, travel, and lodging)!

Here’s how it works:

1) Adopt a Learning Objective as your very own: 100 credits
2) Adopt a second (third, fourth…?) Learning Objective as your very own: 200 credits
3) Answer questions in the community: 20 points for answers, badges given at 1, 5, 25, and 50 answers for 10, 100, 500, 1000 credits respectively.
4) Provide feedback and comment: 10 points for commenting, badges given at 1, 10, 50, and 100 comments for 10, 100, 500, 1000 credits respectively.

You can also receive points for adding an avatar, connecting and sharing on Twitter and Facebook, referencing others in conversations, and receiving positive feedback from your peers. Finally, agreeing to participate in research and attend ISTE will both garner you an additional 1000 points.

The fastest way to get ahead in the community is to adopt a Learning Objective (part of our community application), and work with our developers to improve games within that series of lessons. By taking ownership of specific lessons taught in classes, you will answer questions, comment and interact by default. You will also help make Legends of Learning a better platform for all educators. Now that is truly heroic.

Not that a hero needs more motivation, but those whose exploits are truly legendary will receive t-shirts, Pez heads, or other Legends of Learning swag. We might even write your avatar into a game as your very own super hero character!

So what are you waiting for, Legend? Sign up today, and help make game based learning even better in our community today!