KyEdRPG Spotlight: Dan Burkey and using TTRPGs as "Structured Improvisational Art"

 

Headshot from Dan Burkey's website.

I first met Dan Burkey virtually.  Dan, who has a strong background in theater and performance,  reached out to share about his artist-in-residency offerings in northern Kentucky, but more to the point, he had come across my work with "Polyhedral Pedagogy" -- using tabletop role-playing games (TTRPGs) in education.  As it turns out, Dan had also been using TTRPGs with students as part of his substitute teaching, and he regaled me over Zoom with some of his tales.   We finally met in person when he attended a "Dungeons & Desks" professional learning day I co-facilitated in Louisville, part of an ongoing regional series.

Dan contacted me recently to let me know about an educational resource document he had made along with the latest success he was having implementing a simple TTRPG rules system with students.  With that, I knew we needed a full-blown interview!

Enter Dan, stage right...

Dan, welcome to Edtech Elixirs!  Please share your educational and artistic journey. 

I graduated from Centre College in 2009 with a degree in Dramatic Arts, a rough cut of my first feature film (a noir adaptation of Euripides’ Medea) and a strong Liberal Arts interdisciplinary mindset. It was the middle of the Great Recession, and I started substitute teaching while I worked on various creative projects and sorted out what might come next. With my theatre background, I couldn’t help finding ways to liven up sub plans every day: singing, juggling, showing up in character as an eccentric scientist, etc. This caught the attention of the Étude Group schools, a public charter network in Sheboygan, WI, that focuses on project based learning and arts integration. In 2014, they brought me on as an artist-in-residence to work alongside teachers to interpret academic content through a dramatic lens. I earned my teaching certificate in Theatre Education from UW-Milwaukee, then continued at Étude as a certified drama teacher for 6 years- mostly at the K-8 level, but also some high school classes. I taught drama, filmmaking, animation, script writing, and game design, usually working with grade-level teams and other arts specialists to weave together form and content. Our projects included student-written plays about settlers coming to Wisconsin, games designed to simulate bird migration and population dynamics, and creative drama journeys through the human body with the Magic School Bus, among many others.

In parallel with my work at Étude, I was developing my career as a theatre director. I started Mad Yarn Theatre Company to produce offbeat plays at Paradigm, the local coffee shop and hub of Sheboygan’s creative community. We became better known for our MadCap 24-hour Play Festival, where teams of writers, directors, and actors created plays from scratch in a single day. I also worked with Warped Dance Company over several years to develop an aerial dance adaptation of The Nutcracker (in the process I invented and performed a new form of aerial unicycling).

After the pandemic and the birth of our first child, my wife and I moved to Northern Kentucky to be closer to family. After a couple years finding my footing in the area, I started working as a teaching artist with American Legacy Theatre and The Carnegie, and I remembered how much I love collaborating with other educators to bring vibrant learning into their classrooms. Last year, I was accepted to the Kentucky Teaching Artist Directory, which means that schools and libraries can apply for Kentucky Arts Council grants to bring me in for programming. I typically consult with teachers to create and facilitate drama, creative writing, and media arts (including game design) experiences that are tailored to their specific classrooms and curriculum.

This year, KAC grants are funding three of my projects: guiding students to make and perform a dramatic sequel to The Giver at St. Cecilia in Independence, introducing tabletop game design concepts to patrons at Campbell County Public Library, and making storybooks come alive through creative drama with youth at Kenton County Public Library. In addition to grant-funded work, I can also contract separately for residencies with schools and nonprofits. So far, my work has taken me to Kenton, Boone, Campbell, and Pendleton Counties, but I’m open to working within about a one-hour radius of Covington. There’s more information on residencies at my website, danburkey.com.

When I’m not doing a residency, I continue to practice substitute teaching as a structured improvisational art form, along with various writing and game design projects.

What a lovely set of experiences you've had!  Tell us more about your personal experience with playing tabletop role-playing games (TTRPGs).   What was your first TTRPG?

My first TTRPG was a homebrew fantasy thing my high school friend made up on a road trip. It had no dice, and as GM he would just say how he thought actions would resolve. We also did a lot of freeform boffer LARP- live action roleplaying while fighting with foam swords. This guy in our class was seven feet tall and his actual name was Hrothgar; he played a troll and wielded a war hammer made out of a couch cushion folded in half and covered in duct tape on the end of a long PVC pipe. We were the coolest people we knew.

I didn’t get back to TTRPGs until about 10 years later when I became a drama teacher. I was looking for ways to scaffold character creation for improv and scene devising with middle school students.  A friend introduced me to Fiasco, a GMless indie RPG by Jason Morningstar, and we tried it out at game nights with a couple other teachers. Content-wise, the game is hilarious but not appropriate for middle school (it’s designed to emulate a Coen Brothers style crime caper gone horribly awry). But its mechanics opened my eyes to some brilliant ways to start a story: a network of character relationships, a shared problem, and some objects and locations to get the imagination running. The game’s rules actually shaped my approach to playwriting and improvisation. The latest version trades out dice and roll tables for a card-based engine that smooths out setup and features a “Let’s Not” card (like the X-card safety tool) to empower players to reshape any story content that gets in the way of safe and enthusiastic fun.

These days, I have three small children, so most of my roleplaying is freeform improv adventures in the yard chasing bad guys and pirates. My oldest is getting big enough to enjoy more structured games, so we’ve tried some simple RPGs, including Super City with the VRBS system.

You mentioned that TTRPGs opened a door for you to teach improv and scene creation with students.  Can you tell us more details on how you made that work? 

When I first got the idea for using TTRPGs in the classroom, I was teaching a middle school drama class and using the technique of improvisational devising to create scenes. Instead of having one playwright create a script and then give it to actors to perform, the devising process shares the story creation work with the whole ensemble. In our version, each actor created a character, then we put those characters into different situations to see how they would respond. I wanted to get students thinking about their characters’ lives beyond a job description, so I looked at the idea of character sheets from the TTRPG space. You could call this “Elemental Infusion” on the classroom RPG spectrum- we used the character sheet to fill out character ideas, but we didn’t run the whole creation process as an RPG.  [Dan is referring to the Depth of TTRPG Infusion Framework from my book. -- Adam]  I started researching other ways we might bring together drama and TTRPGs.

Last fall, I got to do an arts residency with students at Prince of Peace Catholic School in Covington, and I really got to put my research into practice. We played the game Super City by David Garrett, and adapted it to fit the settings and problems with their science and social studies units. This was in their STEAM class, so after the residency, they used the stories from our games to inspire visual art pieces.

You’ve already mentioned VRBS and an example TTRPG that uses that rule set, Super City. From our previous conversations, I know it was created by David Garrett, the system is free under Creative Commons, and that you are a big fan of it!   Can you tell us more about how VRBS works, and the advantages of VRBS over other TTRPG rules or systems?  

VRBS – by the way, I usually pronounce it “verbs”** – presents the ideal balance of flexibility and structure to teach students the core loop of traditional TTRPGs. Players take action to respond to a problem in character, roll dice to find out how well it worked, and take turns until the team solves the problem or fails. For years, I couldn’t find anything in the goldilocks zone between games with daunting three-pound rulebooks and games that assumed too much improv skill and previous knowledge of RPGs to work with beginners (especially without a GM). A typical VRBS game (rules, scenario, character sheet, and space for note-taking) fits on two sides of a sheet of letter paper, but it gets players straight into the action.

Instead of traditional stats, each character starts out with 3 verbs they are good at doing. In Super City, David Garrett’s game about students at a superhero school, these are themed as your character’s superpowers. So maybe you start with Fly, Blast, and Lift. The scenario has roll tables for setting, problems, and citizens to save, so you roll up a situation and someone describes it (the game can be played with a GM or with players sharing the GM role). On your turn, pick ANY verb and say how you use it. If it’s a verb on your sheet, you have better odds of success, but you can try anything you can imagine. In our example, you could Blast the giant robot’s processor and get a bonus to your resolution roll. Or could try to Interrogate it, which would be riskier because you don’t already have that skill.

Resolution happens with a 1d6 system, which makes it accessible to anyone who can find a standard die. Add any bonus points from the verb you used to your roll. Whether you succeed or fail, you get to describe what that success or failure looks like. A total of 5-6 is a Success. A 7+ is a Big Success- describe how it’s even better than you expected, and add one point to the team’s Energy pool (Energy is a team resource- if it runs out, the scene ends in failure). Rolling a 1-4 is a failure. When you fail, lose one energy, describe how something unexpected happens when you do the verb, and gain a bonus point for the verb you failed at.

The fail-forward mechanism is where the game really shines as a learning tool. Characters (and all humans!) learn through their mistakes. This is what makes stories interesting. The game highlights this important storytelling lesson; it rewards players with improved chances on future dice rolls (an extrinsic reward) and the chance to describe their character’s failure and how it affects the story (an intrinsic reward). If you try a new verb and fail, you get to add it to your sheet with a bonus point. The only way you can get new skills is by trying something new and failing at it!

VRBS is adaptable by design, thanks to the System Reference Document (SRD) that powers the mechanics of the game. D&D is like a luxury sports car: to tinker with it you need to consider a lot of different systems and mechanisms that all interact to make it work. VRBS is like a hot rod: there aren’t a lot of moving parts, so anyone with a wrench and a blowtorch and a free Saturday here and there can modify it and make something unique that will run pretty well. So I’ve found lots of ways to hack it for the classroom.

It sounds like VRBS would be great for younger students, but have you also used it with older students? Can you share other examples of how you’ve used VRBS in schools?   

During my residency at Prince of Peace, I ran Super City with two groups of students during their Art and Technology block: a 3rd-4th grade combined class and a 5th-8th grade class. I wanted to support students in independent GMless (or, more accurately, co-GM) play, so I divided the duties of the GM into four roles. Each role received a card listing their duties and a tool to help carry them out:

• The Scene Setter used roll tables to choose the next scene situation and was also in charge of describing it.
• The Note Taker summarized main events for each scene so that stories could be adapted into comic book form later.
• The Goal Setter used a problem progress bar tool I made (not native to VRBS, but helpful for collaboration) to set a difficulty (number of successes) for each scene’s problem. 
• The Peacemaker resolved disagreements using the questions: Does it follow the rules of the game? Is it helping all players feel safe and comfortable and have fun? Does it make sense in this story world? 

[Dan is describing an innovative "Student-Led" role-playing experience, one of the "degrees" from my Degree of TTRPG Facilitation Framework. I love how he's taken what can be a complex task and structured it in a way to "share the burden" amongst the students!  -- Adam]

We also used a version of Beau Jagr Sheldon’s Script Change tool to empower students to pause the game and call for a re-do on choices that overstepped the boundaries those questions imply.

We started with a couple play sessions to learn the game- once with me as GM, and once with the shared GM roles in place. Then we started folding in academic content. Using a Chalk Talk routine, we brainstormed setting, character, and problem ideas to get characters interacting with ideas from science and social studies units. The 3rd-4th grade class was studying US regions, so students’ ideas included landmarks (San Andreas fault, farm in Kansas), jobs related to regional resources (lifeguard, miner), and natural disasters common to different areas (earthquake, tornado).

In 5th-8th grade, students were learning about cell structures in their life science unit. We generated ideas that used a city’s buildings and institutions as a metaphor for a cell’s organelles based on their functions. Combining different students’ ideas, Cell City became an archipelago of island neighborhoods in a sea of cytoplasm, surrounded by a seawall representing the cell membrane. It included an Endoplasmic Reticulum Airport for transporting goods between the islands, a Ribosome factory that supplied local KroGoo stores with food goo, a Mitochondria power plant, and it was controlled by a nucleus: a giant neon sign that sent out reminders about the laws of the city (the DNA). After a few sessions of adventures with individual super squads, we finished with a whole class showdown when the Nucleus got a virus that sent the Nuclear membrane guards to attack the whole city, while at the same time a giant bacterium was attacking the cell wall. Students were invested in the story and characters because of their independent play sessions, but the whole-class session allowed everyone to share out their character actions and pursue shared goals. As a facilitator, the whole class session gave me an opportunity to assess how students were approaching gameplay, and also call out great examples of the Cell City metaphor in action.

I also had a chance to adapt Super City for an AP French class at Boone County High School during a residency with American Legacy Theatre. We started out trying to do more improv-based work, but we ran into some challenges. It was a tiny class divided between three fluent heritage speakers and two non-native speakers. As a result, class discussions often involved three students chatting comfortably in French while the other two struggled to keep up or get a word in. The uneven comfort with conversation was especially challenging for improv, with the triple challenge of understanding a scene partner, deciding what to say, and how to say it in French. 

The TTRPG structure brought us a softer approach: giving each player a turn to describe what they are trying to do, then roll the dice to determine the outcome and describe what it looks like. This gave a natural rhythm of spotlight shifting that allowed everyone to share and get help when needed without feeling like it was interrupting the flow of the story. Since the current vocabulary unit was about Self-Discovery (describing strengths and weaknesses, comparing the inner and outer self, etc.), I translated and expanded the Super City character sheet to include descriptions of each character’s secret identity to target the unit’s grammar and vocabulary in a new context. It worked especially well with the small student-teacher ratio. I could see this being a good rotation station style activity in a larger foreign language class (a great way to practice transitive verbs in particular!).

I put an outline of my hacking process and links to the tools I created into a document and resource folder to help other educators hack VRBS games for their classrooms. Hopefully others can join the quest!

In June 2025 you attended a “Dungeons & Desks” PD facilitated by Kalli Colley and myself.  You told me in previous talks that you found it valuable, which I'm glad!  How did something you learned there help you in your educational work?   

For starters, it was a great example of hands-on PD that uses the methods to teach the methods. We were playing educational games pretty early in the session, cycling through small-group and whole-group discussion as we reflected on the rules and the various stages we played through. One of the example games that stuck with me was a simplified D&D-powered scenario that recast the dynamics behind the Mayflower Compact into a space mission. In the scenario, a small group of scientists doing planetary research ends up stranded with a larger group of workers who just want to survive.  [The TTRPG is one I  adapted from a simulation scenario created by Teach Democracy; the simulation is also described in my book. -- Adam] The experience showed the power of pre-generated characters and Auto-GM scenarios for guiding a story.  ["Auto-GM" is another example from the Degree of TTRPG Facilitation Framework. -- Adam]  By bolting down a lot of variables in character creation, it opened up focus on the debate at the heart of a significant historical moment. I recently heard a talk by Susan Haarman through Tabletop EDU, who described the gaming table as a micro-democracy, and connected gaming to John Dewey’s idea of a “dramatic rehearsal” for civic life. Putting those two ideas together, I like the idea of a whole-class campaign structured like a representative democracy.

Coming from a drama background would be a huge asset for playing or running TTRPGs.  If nothing else, I would think it gives you confidence to model for, and lead students in, role-playing and structured imaginative storytelling.  But what if we don’t have a background in theater?  If we are educators wanting to use TTRPGs but we aren’t actors or directors, what can we learn from the dramatic arts? 

I think the biggest thing I bring over from drama is a sense of playful collaboration. Inside the magic circle of a game or the given circumstances of a scene in the rehearsal room, we have a lot of freedom to try new things, make mistakes, and then try something different. We get comfortable doing silly acting exercises, then use the safety of that space to experiment with ideas for telling the story. As a director, I try to empower my actors to make their own choices by helping them understand the stakes and situation their character lives in. Then I can ask them what they would do instead of telling them what to do. 

Some of the best GM advice I’ve read is to ask your players questions about the world, and then incorporate their ideas into play. It lightens your cognitive load, honors the creativity of the people around you, and gets others invested in your shared journey together. It’s equally good advice if you’re a teacher, a director, or any other role where your leadership guides someone else’s experience.

A side note on the subject of verbs: one of my favorite drama tools is action analysis (sometimes called beat analysis). Actors can break down a scene based on their character’s motivation, objectives and tactics, each expressed as a verb. I think this process primed me to see the VRBS system as a bridge between TTRPGs and dramatic storytelling.

How have students reacted to your educational TTRPGs?  How do you know their learning is more vibrant, deeper, memorable?

We closed each game session with a Stars and Wishes share-out, and students were always excited to share the highlights of their characters’ actions throughout the session. I was also intrigued by the way that the Cell City setting worked for students in various stages of the middle school developmental mind warp. For kids in the thick of the change, who often struggle with abstract thinking, there was a concrete task to latch onto, with a small menu of go-to choices to lean on. At the same time, the setting creation process let the students who were still in younger imagination-brain mode share wacky ideas and allowed students who had crossed over and regained their capacity for metaphorical thinking to apply it in a way their peers could relate to.

In the AP French class, I could tell the TTRPG was an effective learning tool because everyone was naturally applying their language content in a new context. Students at all levels of fluency were seeking out new vocabulary words to describe their superpowers and their impacts on the story world.

What’s next?  What would you like to try with TTRPGs in classrooms that you haven’t done yet?  

I have so many ideas! The structure of whole-class and small group play could be used to simulate representative democracy in a whole class setting. We saw a little of that with different superhero teams joining together, but it would be interesting to lean into that dynamic more specifically.

After reading Hamlet’s Hit Points by Robin D. Laws, I think it would be interesting to adapt the VRBS system to explore different ways an existing literary or dramatic scene might play out. The book shows a way to analyze a text by finding the inflection points of a character’s rise and fall. It would be interesting to actually roll some dice on an action at each inflection point and see where you end up.

My two-year-old daughter loves bugs, and as we were watching some ants together I got the idea to use nature observation as a tool to identify animal-action verbs for a game of heroes who merge with other creatures.

In a math class, I think there’s also a lot of potential in examining different probabilities in various card and dice resolution systems. It could be used to make stronger choices for a crunchy RPG session, or it might be used to show how designers choose different layers of probability to match their system to the stories they want to tell. Stories of bold risk-taking often use luck-pressing systems, card-driven prompt games offer variety in a predictable structure, and stories of gradual personal growth often give level-up bonuses to make success more likely over time. This might be a good hook for students with literary strengths who might have trouble relating to the world of numbers.

In any case, I’m always open to the adventure of making new discoveries with other educators. One of my secret powers as a teaching artist is sharing the planning load for weird new ideas, then helping unpack the surprises that emerge.

Dan, I am thoroughly impressed by your structured Polyhedral Pedagogical approach! A school would be lucky to have you as a teacher or as an artist-in-residence.   I usually end these KyEdRPG Spotlight interviews with a variant of the same question:  What advice would you give to a teacher who wants to start using TTRPGs in their own classroom?

First, don’t feel like it has to be a huge undertaking to plan. If you can engage your students in building out the game world with you, they will be more invested in it and it’s less prep up front. Build onto students’ ideas and ask questions that lead toward specificity and imagery, or show where the danger is in a place or situation.

Second, make sure to model the gameplay as a whole class before breaking into smaller groups. Take a day to teach the “what is this thing we’re doing” and another day to layer in any tools you are using to support GMless or co-GM play. I like to use a giant die we can toss to whoever is taking a turn in our first learning session.

Finally, remember to have fun and show that you’re having fun! Your energy and enthusiasm feed your players.

A big thanks to Dan Burkey for taking the time to be interviewed!  If you would like to work with Dan, be sure to reach out via his website.

Kalli and I will be leading our next educational TTRPG session as a FREE two day workshop at the Frazier Kentucky History Museum on June 11 and 12, 2026.   For more details and a registration link, visit here.  Hurry -- seats are limited!

**Correction 4/20/26:  In the original interview, Dan shared reading in an old blog entry that VRBS may have stood for "Virtual Reality Battle System."  David Garrett, the creator of VRBS, explained in an email to Adam that VRBS was never an acronym, nor was "Virtual Reality Battle System" a phrase he used.  As Dan himself said, Garrett just pronounces it "Verbs." I've now amended my entry to avoid perpetuating the error.   Additionally, inspired by Dan, Garrett has now made four of his VRBS games (Super City, Spookytown, Dweomerdale, and .Agent Purrvocateur, all of which are appropriate for young players) free for digital download!  Find them at the Amalara Game Studio online store.

KyEdRPG Spotlight: Librarian Laura Mann and TTRPGs for Literacy

 

Librarians -- and the library -- are often the heartbeat and hub of a school.  Since extracurricular game clubs are frequently held in such learning spaces and therefore led by a librarian, it shouldn't be a surprise when such educators also use an innovative approach like tabletop role-playing games (TTRPGs) as part of their instructional time too.  They recognize it as an engaging way to enrich student literacy (and a little numeracy as well).

When librarian Laura Mann told me about the TTRPG she had created around a book her middle school students were reading, I was eager to see it in action.  Last month, I visited Laura at Bernheim Middle School (Bullitt County), a beautiful and recently renovated building.   

Walking around the nooks and tables, I was impressed with the sixth graders' eagerness to play the game.   I took pictures and conducted an interview with Mann to share the details (and her resources!).  As an aside, I am also proud for Laura to be our first Kentucky librarian to be featured on the Kentucky Educators for Role Playing Games website!

Laura, welcome to Edtech Elixirs!  Please share your educational journey. 

My teaching and library careers have been a dynamic journey, to say the least.

I first stepped into the classroom in January 2011 as a substitute teacher in Bullitt County, fresh off graduating from Campbellsville University the previous month with my BS in Elementary Education. I quickly gained a host of diverse experience, moving into specialized roles such as Reading Interventionist at Vine Grove Elementary (Hardin County, 2011-2012) and Math Interventionist at Old Mill Elementary (Bullitt County, 2012-2013). This period of focused, one-on-one teaching truly helped me get my foot in the door and it was during this time that the library truly began calling to me. 

While working as a Math Interventionist, I took on a part-time role as a Library Page at the Louisville Free Public Library and began work on my Master of Science in Library and Information Science. This paved the way for my first full-time role as a Library Media Specialist (LMS) at Nichols Elementary (2013-2014). After a brief return to the classroom to teach second grade in 2014-2015, I took a sabbatical to complete my MSLIS. The question was, where would I take my skills? Back to the public schools or into the public library?

I decided, at this point, I would try the public library again and took on a position at Spencer County Public Library in 2016, where I continued until 2018. I loved the job, but discovered my true love was students. I was offered a position as the LMS at Bloomfield Middle School in Nelson County Schools (2018-2019) before moving into a District LMS for the next 5 years. All of this rich experience has led me to where I am today: the Library Media Specialist (LMS) at Bernheim Middle School, back in Bullitt County. This is a role I absolutely love, and I can't wait to continue it for the foreseeable future.

What is your personal experience with playing TTRPGs?

My experience with actually playing TTRPGs is limited, but my interest is not! I've always loved playing board games, and hearing a good story. TTRPGs combine the best of both worlds into one.

I watch streams and videos of others playing on various platforms, and it always looks like such a great time. I was struggling to find friends to play with, but I'm hoping to join the TTRPG group that meets at my local Bullitt County Public Library branch—as soon as I can clear my schedule for their next play night!

Some people outside of education may be surprised that school librarians “teach classes.”  Can you briefly describe your related arts schedule with your middle school students?

One of the great perks of my current role is the flexibility it offers. School librarian schedules often fall into three main categories, depending on the school's needs:

• Fixed: While not exclusive to elementary schools, this is very common in such settings, where the librarian is part of the Related Arts rotation teaching classes for most of the day.
• Responsive: This is the ideal scenario—the librarian is free to schedule their time as needed to serve students and staffulty (staff + faculty).
• Partially Responsive: This is the schedule our school uses. 

I'm very lucky to only teach two classes per day, which rotate every nine weeks. This partial teaching schedule is a huge benefit because it frees me up for the rest of the day to focus on critical library operations. With the help of my fantastic library aides, we manage the constant flow of activity: fixing Chromebooks, checking out books, and making sure the library runs smoothly all day long.

What inspired you to bring TTRPGs into your learning space?

I wanted to add TTRPGs to include a little more fun to our learning, but also to deepen the learning with Kentucky Academic Standards for Library Media—especially in the Collaborate domain. I'm thinking specifically focusing on pushing past basic "group work" (like dividing up a poster project) and moving toward the high-level collaboration detailed in standards like M.CL.T3.A “Learners identify collaborative opportunities by: Deciding to solve problems informed by group interaction.”

I love how you wrapped your TTRPG adventure around a text the students are reading.  Tell us about your game!

The official title is “The Bernheim Riddle”, a play on the book we are reading The Bletchley Riddle by Ruta Sepetys and Steve Sheinkin.  The game mechanics are based on a simplified version of Dungeons & Dragons.

The first step in setting up the game was making sure the students had a grasp on Character Sheets and how to use them. At the start of the term, students made Character Sheets for themselves. This was to help them understand the sheets for later game play, but also to help me get to know them better. We played a brief game using where students had to follow the Community Agreements (being respectful, responsible, safe, kind, courageous, and using excellent work ethic) while finding a lost library book. 

 A copy of the Filling Out You Character Sheet (Google Slides).

Then, we began reading our book. I wanted to create a strong connection to the historical world of Bletchley Park. We started with some light research on the people who actually worked there. We would play our game as these people.

Students used the official Bletchley Park website, using its "The Roll of Honour" page to find their historical figure. Their research was focused on discovering key information such as who the person was, what their specific job was at Bletchley Park, and any other available biographical details.

A copy of the Bletchley Park Research Sheet (Canva).

Then, we completed Character Sheets for their historical figures. This was a challenge for them as strengths were not listed on the Bletchley Park website. We had to think about what specific job they had and what skills the person doing that job may have. I used a base character sheet I found from a member of the Dungeons and Dragons Aotearoa NZ Facebook Group (posted by Abigail Ea) and edited it to ensure the skills and strengths perfectly matched the historical context we were working with.

A copy of Laura's adapted Character Sheet (Canva).

The original Kids Character Sheet by Abigail Ea.  (Please support the creator!)

Copy of Filling Out Your Historical Figure Character Sheet (Google Slides).

Once students had their historical figure’s sheet completed, we could begin our game!

Each student has taken on a role within their group. There is a leader, an ambassador, a dice tamer, an adventure tracker, and a writer. Each person has specific roles/jobs they are responsible for.  For example, the ambassador is the only person who can come ask me questions!

The narrative centers on a mysterious person named "Enoch" who has been causing problems at the famous code-breaking facility, Bletchley Park. Throughout the game, students take on the roles of their Bletchley Park workers and must figure out Enoch's plan by breaking codes and ciphers, making decisions as a team, and dealing with the repercussions of their choices.

To make the game manageable, I split the entire story into four weekly sections, each with a clear stopping point: "Part One: The Whispering Witness," "Part Two: The Missing Machine," "Part Three: The Double Agent’s Diary," and "Part Four: The Evacuee’s Enigma."

Since I have so many groups and can't possibly be a Game Master for all of them, I built a self-guided system that requires minimal involvement from me after set-up. This allows groups to move at their own pace and collaborate without interruption.

The two main components are the Canva Slide Decks which function as the narrative and clue delivery system,  and a Google Form which acts as a sort of Game Master.

For example, if students are required to interpret a Morse code message, they submit their answer into the Google Form. If they put in an incorrect answer, the Form simply tells them, "That is not the right code." If they get it right, the Form validates the answer, links them to the next section of the Form, and provides the link for the next Canva slide deck.  

[Editor's note: you can learn how to create "Response Validation" rules for how a person answers on a Google Form from this help site, to replicate what you might see in a Breakout EDU game.]  

If students choose to talk to a certain non-player character, the slide deck will take them on that path. They'll get information that is either helpful or sends them right back to their choices—simulating the consequences of real TTRPG interaction. While this system does limit the range of options, it allows groups to work through the game on their own, making decisions without the need for constant intervention from the teacher.

As an example, here are the "Part Three: The Double Agent’s Diary” Canva Slides which were what the students were playing on the day you visited:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

How have the students reacted?  

Some students are excited to play and ready to take on the challenges. Others are not sure where to begin and don’t participate as much with their groups. I'm thinking of revisions for next time to keep everyone involved.  Students do regularly ask when we are going to play the game again, since we only play on the last day of the week.

What feedback have you gotten from the staff at Bernheim Middle about using a TTRPG for instruction?

Our band/music teacher is very much into RPGs of all kinds and was a bit jealous of my class. He mentioned skipping his classes to come play with mine! My principal Chase Goff came into the class to see my students playing.  He later shared with me, “I really enjoyed talking to the students about the tabletop games.  Honestly, I have never played these or engaged with them so it was really cool to see it.  I also thought it was great to see the students productively struggling, having to back up and try again.” 

What’s next for TTRPGs in your library?

I plan to incorporate TTRPG with my classes the rest of this year. I will, however, use different books for each grade level just so I don’t have to read the same book twice a term for the entire year! I will choose from Kentucky Bluegrass Award books in an attempt to drum up excitement for those selections. I know we will not finish our current read and I already have students clamoring to be the first on the list to check it out! It shows me that the students are in love with the book, regardless of how they feel about TTRPGs.

This has been awesome, Laura!  Thank you for sharing your story.  Last question:  What advice would you give to a school librarian who wants to start using TTRPGs in their library?

Just try it! Even if it is with one class or coordinating with another teacher. Was there a big learning curve? Yes. Is there a lot of prep before you can even start? Absolutely. Has it been a fun adventure and a good opportunity to try something new? For sure. 

Special thanks to Ms. Mann for taking the time to answer my questions, and inviting me to visit!

KyEdRPG Spotlight: Ben Little and his Periodic Table TTRPG

When I presented about TTRPGs in education at the Aurora Institute Symposium last year, one of the attendees was Benjamin Little, a secondary science teacher in Massachusetts.  Mr. Little teaches as part of "an innovative, competency-based program at Brookline High School for up to 48 students, entering grades 10-12, who feel they will find more intellectual satisfaction and be more academically successful in a non-traditional setting," where "students get the chance to experience engaging, experiential learning that takes thematic topics and explores them in great depth – often culminating in performance-based assessments" ("About ACE").

As I heard about his clever approaches of incorporating some TTRPG-style play in his classroom, I was intrigued.  After we talked briefly at the conference, we promised to stay in touch.  

Ben -- or "Mr. Ben," as his students call him -- has tried some new things since our November meeting, and in the spirit of reflection we all find ourselves doing at the end of the school year, I thought it might be a good opportunity to celebrate his accomplishments! Here is our interview.

Ben, welcome to Edtech Elixirs!  Share your educator story.

I began teaching biology in 2006 in Tanzania, where I was stationed for the Peace Corps. I spent the next decade adding science subjects, countries, and states to my teaching repertoire. It was the perfect preparation for the job I have now, teaching Biology, Chemistry, Environmental Science, Forensics and Nutrition to mixed grade level classes of sophomores, juniors, and seniors in the ACE program at Brookline High School.

What kinds of games do you personally play?

I’ve been interested in the fantasy and sci-fi genres since I was old enough to read. I distinctly remember the original Final Fantasy video game on Nintendo, and how immersed I became. I have been playing games ever since, although my experience with full-blown TTRPGs has been limited.

You’ve shared in previous conversations that you use a TTRPG gaming mechanic in your Chemistry class.  Share what you’re doing, and how it’s evolved and changed.

Student art of the character Plutonium.

I invented a TTRPG to teach the periodic table that I call Elementopia.

The unit on the periodic table is traditionally one of the most boring units in chemistry, as teachers focus on atomic radii, electron configurations, and ionization energies. This reductivist approach can help some students see the patterns that will become important later on to understand bonding patterns and molecular formation, but it completely misses the depth of properties that the elements have or what technological applications any of them are used for. For any students not interested in chemistry for chemistry’s sake, this is a huge turnoff, as they don’t even know why they’re supposed to be learning all of this boring garbage.

I started doing an “adopt an element” project to get students to become familiar with elements’ personalities. This finally got them to appreciate the character and uses of a single element, but students still didn’t learn much about trends of properties across the table or, for some, spark their interest.

Student art of the character Fluorine.

I then had them illustrate their elements, personifying them as characters. They would incorporate a number of properties into their designs, and put it on a poster with information about its properties and uses. These really got students engaged, but I noticed that they still weren’t necessarily learning the trends on the periodic table, and realized I needed a different product.

Next, I invented a simple turn based game where they would turn their research about properties into character attribute scores. I took the basic mechanic from Dungeons & Dragons, but modified the attributes to reflect chemical and physical properties. Some of them were the same, like Strength and Constitution, but things like their magical ability and Charisma changed to Reactivity and Luster. The scores for the attributes were determined by the properties the element displayed: Strength would depend on density, hardness, and weaponization, Dexterity on malleability and state at room temperature, Reactivity on toxicity, flammability, ionization energy and electronegativity, etcetera, with a total attribute score calculated by adding up the points from each indicator.

Once they had their character's attributes, they needed to come up with attacks and defenses. These could be based on attributes, such as “I am going to body slam you with my density,” but students also needed to incorporate uses and applications, like “I negate your electricity attack because my element is used in lightning rods.” The power of each move is based on the attribute score that it draws from plus the roll of a 6 sided die. One character attacks while the other tries to defend, and the one with the highest power move (attribute plus roll) wins out, as in if the attack score is higher the attack is successful but if the defense move is stronger no damage is inflicted.

Student art of the character Sulfurious.

The first round of this was fun, but it quickly became apparent that I needed a lot more structure. I added hyperlinks to the character attribute sheet to resources and tables to streamline the research process. I simplified the basic attacks so that they all inflict one Hit Point (HP) of damage after a student who ran the D & D club at the school made a broken Boron dragon whose moves were all ridiculously overpowered. I added the opportunity to get creative by allowing a single super move and single passive ability that could afflict conditions, break the simple turn based mode, or do extra damage.

At this point the kids were really into it, but the tournament at the end was kind of a let-down because they did all this work then only used their character once or twice. So, I added other modes of play, like exhibition matches, where they could gain experience points by playing each other for homework outside of class that would increase their base HP. I had prizes for winning battle royales and beating raid bosses like score boosts or 8 sided die that they could upgrade to. Kids really got into it!

Student art of a Mercury Alien.

To learn about all the trends on the periodic table, I came up with lore. Each elemental family acts like a class of character. Students in the same family have to write a tome of lore, or family biography, about their group. I make these available to students, and have an assignment where I ask them to identify strategies for playing against other elements. Finally, I was getting most students to learn about all the trends on the periodic table, because they wanted to win!

I noticed that the emphasis on competition was not motivation for some students, or even turned some anxious kids off, though. After all, they could still pass if they made a character but didn’t ever win. So, in my most recent revision of the game, I’m adding a mandatory campaign mode. I’m turning the periodic table into a “map of Elementopia” that they will use as an actual game board. In each region, there is a boss element that exemplifies that group of elements that they must defeat by strategically teaming up with each other to make a party that will counter that boss’s strengths and capitalize on its vulnerabilities. The cooperative nature of it should appeal to those kids that shy away from competition, and finally require that they really understand not just some, but all of the groups on the periodic table.

That's all so amazing! And kudos to you for all the work you've put into this project. How have the students reacted?

Students that have never played games are initially apprehensive, but it’s so highly scaffolded that they don’t usually have difficulty. Students that are really artistic or are gamers are always really excited, and many of them will start planning their character’s units before the project begins or continue playing the game long after the class has ended. The most interesting take is from students that took chemistry and didn’t pass it in the mainstream before coming to ACE; they all start out thinking they hate chemistry then fall in love with it. I just had one of those students visit me. They are studying music production in university now, but their favorite leisure activity is watching chemistry videos on YouTube. Most students really enjoy and learn a lot from the game, and a few have even made characters without taking the class because they just want to.

It could certainly be a challenge to convince non-gamer students to give this kind of instruction a try. It sounds like you've built in some very helpful supports.

Thank you! As I mentioned, the competitive nature of the tournament is off-putting for students with anxiety, and the open-ended nature of the moves can be hard for students on the autistic spectrum and other "concrete thinkers" to wrap their minds around. The cooperative modes that I’ve added have helped the anxious ones, and sitting with me to concretize ideas has helped those for whom abstraction is a barrier.

Besides some reluctant students, what other challenges have you encountered?  How did you overcome them?

The biggest challenge that I’m facing now is the traditional thinking of chemistry educators. It remains one of the most traditional, formulaic, and pedantic fields of both science and education. Most of them think there’s only one way to learn chemistry, even if that doesn’t work and isn’t interesting for many students. They also don’t value the completely novel content that the project inserts: nowhere in chemistry do they actually talk about technological applications or the intersection between physics properties like conductivity and magnetism. Most other teachers think what I do is boutique and cute; I think I have revolutionized the way that the unit on the periodic table can be taught, and made chemistry relatable for everyone, not just formulaic thinkers.

I plan to overcome this by going above and beyond. I’d love to launch a website that students can use to create characters. Every normal person that I talk to wishes they had learned the periodic table this way. Once enough people know that it’s possible, I hope that other chemistry teachers  will take notice. This actually started to happen after we met at Aurora 2024; students that saw the project in a workshop went home, found the chemistry teacher in the hallway, and demanded that he contact me about how to do the project. I hope that even more will contact me after reading this.

Student art of Dragoron the Boron Dragon.

Do you have some future plans for using TTRPGs in the classroom?

I plan to develop a version of Elementopia that is less work; it would still be educational, but more focused on storytelling and game play and geared towards the masses. That will probably be my retirement project.

I also use games in a bunch of my other classes. I use a game to teach about natural selection in evolution, competition and carrying capacity in population dynamics, the cycling of Carbon in climate change, and more! Most of these don’t rise to the threshold of TTRPGs, but I do have an idea for a TTRPG about the dueling energy and environmental crises. In it, students would play as countries. They would have to produce energy via various methods (solar, geothermal, nuclear, wind, coal, etcetera) to meet constantly rising energy demand, while also tabulating greenhouse gas outputs and avoiding catastrophic climate change. Each nation/character would have affordances and limitations according to its economic and political approach. For example, Germany would get to start with lots of wind but couldn’t develop nuclear power, or China would be able to build plants quickly due to government sponsored industry but would have their energy demand grow faster because of rapid modernization.

That would be a great educational tabletop role-playing game!  Last question. What advice would you give to an educator who wants to start using TTRPGs instructionally with their students?

Don’t get intimidated. It doesn’t have to be perfect to still be good, and you can tweak it continually to make it better, like how I developed my project over many iterations. Enlist student feedback! I use former students as bosses, and even had a few help me balance the attributes of the game so that no one attribute would be overpowered compared to others.

Thank you Mr. Little for all you do for your students!  Be sure to reach out directly to Ben via email with any questions, comments, or feedback.

This interview was slightly edited and condensed.

KyEdRPG, Part Two: The Power of a D & D Club

 This is Part Two of a three part series to kick off a new website, KyEdRPG, and how role playing games can positively impact student learning.  In Part One, we celebrated the launch of the website itself. In this entry, we prove how a D & D club can be a wonderful extracurricular opportunity...before or after school, in person or virtual!

File image from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gaming_Dice_%284434184961%29.jpg.

Justin Gadd is a Kentucky social studies middle school teacher who recognizes the multiple ways that a Dungeons & Dragons extracurricular club can improve student learning, both socially-emotionally as well as academic.  After hearing his story, I asked Justin if he would agree to an interview, which I'm happy to share below (slightly edited for clarity).

Justin, welcome to Edtech Elixirs!  Share your educator story. 

Hello, My name is Justin Gadd. I am currently a Social Studies teacher at Marnel C. Moorman K-8 School. This is my 4th year of teaching and my second year in Shelby County Public Schools. I have taught both ELA and Social Studies for 8th, 7th, and now 6th grade.

When did you start playing role playing games?  What got you started?

I got started playing role playing games when I was first introduced to D&D in college by a friend. I had only heard of it in pop culture prior to that, and when he invited me to play, I gave it a shot. We played the Curse of Strahd story and it was so much fun. My first character was a Mountain Dwarf Barbarian named Tor'uk. I have played as a Bard, Warlock, and my current character is a Ranger, and I have been involved with my current campaign as a player for almost 3 years now!

What RPGs do you personally play today?

Currently I am only playing D&D but I have played some different one shots from friends that were set in different time periods but same rules as D&D. My favorite was a holiday themed one shot I played that a friend ran where we all played as different holiday movie characters to try and save Santa! I think it goes to show the versatility of tabletop RPGs.

You've shared with me that you started a virtual D & D afterschool club at your previous school when the pandemic began, which is equally impressive and awesome given the obvious challenges.  Tell us more about that experience.  

I worked in Oldham County Public Schools from 2019-2021.  I began a DnD club with a co-worker at the start of virtual learning in 2020. We created it because we wanted something that was engaging, free, and something we could do safely from home at a very stressful time.

In the first year of the club, in the spring of 2020, we had about 5 students and it was pretty fun, although we didn’t use many manipulatives, maps, or dice rolling.  It was more description and imaginary story telling.

In year two (2020-2021), we were teaching part virtual, part in-person and this time we were able to get a consistent group of about 8-10 students every week. The club itself was still virtual but it was from 6-8pm every Tuesday as that was a time that worked for everyone’s schedule but wasn’t terribly late.

We were able to use some funding to give each student their own set of dice but virtual rollers were utilized as well as virtual apps such as dndbeyond.com which is also free, and it can be used for effortless character sheet creations and managing a character's inventory.  But really, the start up cost for a club was not terrible as there’s so many free online sources now for D&D and other RPG games.

I should point out that in Shelby County, we have a Profile of a Graduate, and what they do in D&D definitely authentically applies several of our PoG competencies: Effective Communicator, Responsible Collaborator, Critical Thinker.  

The best part of the experience was we were able to build a really great community with these kids and it was such a stressful time where we were still part virtual and Covid was still looming. I had one student tell me after a game that “D&D nights are so great because it’s one of the times I laugh the most all week” and parents emailed us telling us how much fun it brought them and they wanted to start playing with their kids too!

Parents playing with their students, that's fantastic!  I also love how playing D & D ties into your district's Profile of a Graduate, and clearly there is some great social emotional learning going on, too.  Can you elaborate further on the academic benefits of students playing role playing games?

The academic benefits of tabletop games is pretty broad if you come into it with an open mind. There is creative writing when crafting a backstory for your characters and their motivations. For those who run a game as GM (Game Master) or DM (Dungeon Master), there is planning involved in preparing the story, and how they decide if one thing happens, what happens next? There is math and probability in the dice rolling, and making those calculated risks based on their character statistics is vital to success. In Shelby County, playing D&D definitely applies to several of our PoG competencies.

• Effective Communicator: Students have to be able to communicate their actions with the players and DM running the game. 
• Responsible Collaborator: Team work! It is so important to success in the game as well as the choices you make can have ripple effects in the story and world of the game! 
• Critical Thinker: Thinking about your actions and the affect they have on others and the success of your mission.

Now that students are fully back in person, what are you thinking of doing differently with a D & D club this school year? 

This year I hope to start a D&D club with the Quest program in October, which is an in-school club or area of interest for students to participate in for 9 weeks.  It would be Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings for 45 minutes and could be a fun experience to introduce the game to others and be able to play some D&D consistently.  

What advice would you give to someone trying to start up a club like this in their own school, especially if they have little or no experience with playing D & D? 

The advice I would give to someone wanting to start a D&D or tabletop gaming club is to first just ask around and do some research! See who's interested in your school community in playing or helping run it. There are so many resources on the official Dungeons and Dragons website for beginners wanting to start and even some beginner book sets with all the rules and stories written out for you. For my beginner players I give them a pre-made character (available from the website) and then have them come up with the back story for their characters. Knowing how to play without having to stress about the whole character creation process gives you more time to focus on the play time!

I have found that overall, the D&D community on Facebook groups and Reddit can be very helpful resources for asking beginners. Just searching "D&D for beginners" brings up loads of helpful links. The next thing I would say is don't go too big your first time around. 8-10 is about the maximum size of a group I would run if you were the only DM because that way every player can feel included. If you have students who know how to play, encourage them to DM and then you can have more players in your club and smaller player-to-DM ratios. And feel free to reach out to me via email to ask questions!

Last question, and for this one forgive me if I geek out with you a bit.  D & D has some changes and expansions coming up, such as the Spelljammer sourcebook which allows your characters to play in outer space, and a playtest of a new backwards-compatible edition that will be launched in 2024.  What are some things about D & D that keep you excited about the game?  

 I love to geek out about stuff! I think taking D&D into space could be a lot of fun. The beauty of Dungeons and Dragons is it is quite literally limitless what stories you can tell and "Homebrewed" spells and items you can use. For example, my DM, whose campaign I have been in for almost three years, mixed Call of Cthulhu stories with the regular D&D world and it's so cool! Teachers could make a story with any content or book they are reading with a bit of time and effort. I am grateful for shows like Stranger Things making Dungeons and Dragons "cool" for kids because it makes it that much more engaging when we bring it into schools.

A huge thank you to Justin for taking the time to share his insights!

Be sure to check out Part Three, where you'll hear how a Kentucky teacher uses a custom-created role playing game as part of his lesson plans.

Verso

At the beginning of March, I had the fortunate opportunity to attend and present at the KySTE conference in Louisville -- the first time the conference was back in person since the pandemic started.  (I was literally at KySTE in 2020 when the world shut down, a story I shared here.)  As if fate wanted to re-affirm for me the value of KySTE, I learned of a new tool in the very first hour of the very first session of the conference that got me so excited, I knew I'd be doing a blog entry about it!  The presenter was Roslyn Manning -- more with her in a moment! --- and the tool was Verso.

Verso is a platform for virtually managing discourse in your classroom.   At its most basic, a teacher can create a question or pose an issue, and students can not only respond to the prompt, but to each other.  But Verso has an extensive set of tools that make it much more than just a place for an online conversation thread.

How does it work?

Firstly, you need to create a teacher or student account, either via email or through Google or Microsoft.  (I would recommend students use Google, to minimize remembering yet another username/password as well as to expedite Google integration.)

When a teacher first creates an account, Verso helps walk you through the creation of your first Class; you can create as many Classes as you like.  Each Class has a unique code that can be given to students, making it easy for them to join.  Once a Class is made, you have two basic kinds of discussions you can push to students: an Activity, or a Check-In With Students.

An Activity is the much more robust and customizable option.  You can attach files, links (to websites but also to videos), or something from your Google Drive to build schema before they address the prompt.  Next, you provide instructions in a Rich Text Format editor box.   You can give conversation starters, as well as suggest contextual and academic vocabulary to use.  There are several toggle settings where you can allow students to provide video or audio responses, upload files or images, or even limit them to 500 characters or less.  Lastly, you can indicate a specific start and end date for the Activity, turn on moderation if you want to approve responses before they appear, and determine whether students can comment on each other's responses.   After an Activity is launched, you have some other editing options, such as hiding student names from each other for anonymous responses and comments (although the teacher can still see who said what).

There are several features here worth mentioning that elevate these Activities.  Firstly, while you may not want or need to include every single aspect for every discussion, the formatting suggestions Verso provides is excellent scaffolding to ensure students engage in high quality discourse.    For example, your directions can provide sentence stems to model what a response or comment should sound like, and vocabulary suggestions are a reminder of both academic jargon that is appropriate to the content topic as well as discussion phrases that strengthen argumentation.   This leads us to a second useful feature: from the teacher's dashboard, you can even view responses that highlight when this vocabulary is used!

Check-In With Students is the other task option, which is much more template driven.  Its purpose is not so much open ended discourse as to have students reflect on their recent learning and/or how they are feeling.  While a Check-In may be limited in its customizations, the advantage here is that it can be quickly pushed out -- perhaps as an exit ticket at the close of a lesson, or a social-emotional learning (SEL) pulse check at the start of the day. 

Creating a Check-In can be done in just a few steps.  Note the potential categories in Step 2 which help shape the objective.

Once student responses come in from a Check-In, it's easy to see what category the students have self-assessed themselves so you can plan your next lesson accordingly.

How could you use it?

Verso clearly can make student online discussions more engaging and rigorous, as well as make SEL and learning reflections easy to push out and analyze.   Don't forget to utilize audio and/or video responses to increase equity for EL and ECE students; that way, the focus is on the quality of their responses' content as opposed to the medium of the reply.

Here's an excellent Activity tip from Roslyn: if you want students to comment on each other's responses, turn on moderation.  Once all students have responded, turn off moderation and "publish" all the responses, then remind students to now comment.   This will give all students the best chance to receive comments since all the responses are available at once.  (Without such management, the late responders will be the least likely to receive a comment.)  

Downsides?

With the free version, you are limited to only three active Activities (and can't edit them once created and saved) unless you pay for the premium version; as of the publication of this entry, this upgrade costs $59 a year.  It would be nice to see integrations such as Google Classroom which could pre-load a Class's roster.

As I explored Verso, I was definitely curious to hear more about how it's being used in the classroom, so reaching out to Mrs. Manning seemed a natural next step.  I've gotten to know Roslyn a bit through our Kentucky Digital Learning Coach state network, and I share her passion for student discourse.   So I was thankful she accepted my invitation to be interviewed for Edtech Elixirs!

Roslyn, welcome to Edtech Elixirs!  Share with us your educator story.  

​Thank you so much for having me! I come from a long line of educators--my grandmother was an elementary teacher in Alabama, and my mom was an ECS teacher in North Carolina where I grew up. She taught in a variety of different types of schools, but for most of her career she taught in the state juvenile prison system. Talk about an interesting childhood--I grew up roaming around the local prison! I knew that I would eventually become a teacher. I think it's a part of my DNA. I've always loved reading and writing, so I decided that I wanted to be an English teacher. I attended the University of Alabama (Roll Tide!) and graduated with a B.S. in Secondary Education Language Arts. I taught Advanced Junior English in Tuscaloosa right after graduating, and at the end of that school year, I moved to Kentucky to be closer to my now-husband. In 2013, I started teaching freshman and sophomore English at Oldham County High School while completing KTIP and getting my Master's in Teacher Leadership, focusing on Instructional Technology. In addition to growing in my technology use, I also worked to earn my National Board Certification. I often participated in school and district technology initiatives--Digital Leader Network, iTeam, etc., and in May 2020, I became our district's second Digital Learning Coach. 

Why do you feel that student discourse in general – especially peer to peer – is important?

​It's no secret these days that students struggle with communication. This is a skill that ALL people learn eventually, but I think the increase in technology has the general population complaining that "kids these days" only know how to communicate in text messages. As an educator, I think it's vital that we meet students where they are, and change our instruction to better prepare our students for the digital world that they communicate in. The variety of ways students can communicate just elevates the need to teach peer-to-peer communication more intentionally in MULTIPLE ways: verbally and digitally. 

What does digital discourse achieve differently, or perhaps even sometimes better, than face-to-face discussions?

​Digital discourse, in my experience, is a gateway to deeper face-to-face discussions. So many of our students need time to process their thoughts before sharing with an audience, whether that be a digital audience or an in-person audience. And, as I mentioned previously, students are communicating in writing much more frequently than they are verbally in person or over the phone, so why would we not intentionally give them learning opportunities to practice, make mistakes, and grow in this area? I wouldn't say digital discourse is inherently better than face-to-face discussions, but in the same way that we teach our children dinner table etiquette, we also have a shared responsibility to teach our students digital citizenship through netiquette. 

As an English teacher, I used to emphasize "code switching" with my students. I never wanted to shame them into thinking that their colloquial language  is "bad" or "wrong," but I did want them to learn the appropriate settings for the language that they choose to use. The same holds true for digital discourse, and there's a lot to be learned from digital communication. Students have to analyze tone and word choice to be effective communicators through writing. For most, verbal communication is much easier to deliver and decipher because of verbal and nonverbal cues, but written communication requires far more refined skills. It's important to provide a safe space for students to practice and refine these skills.   [Editor's Note: for more on the value of digital discourse, read this previous blog entry.]

I’m highlighting Verso in Edtech Elixirs, a tool I’m pretty excited to share!  Can you share any stories of how you or other Oldham teachers have used Verso effectively?

​A good friend of mine at Oldham County High School introduced me to Verso several years ago. She will tell anyone who asks that she's not "techy," but she discovered this tool when it was in Beta and started using it with her A.P. English Literature course. I quickly jumped on board and used it to set up a Socratic Seminar with my English II course. My students struggled with verbal discussion, especially if it was whole-class, so this was an easy way to get students talking to each other anonymously and to provide tons of support for them in the way of sentence stems and stimulus material for discussion. There are so many features available to teachers that we can use to help support our students' discussions, such as the ability to comment and "star" student feedback and even hide responses if they're inappropriate or irrelevant. 

Verso  is an excellent tool to give peer feedback on their work as well. I love the collaboration that comes from using Verso in so many different ways! 

Any other digital discourse tools that you’re a fan of?  

​There are so many ways for students to engage in digital discourse such as Padlet, Google Workspace tools, and more. However, I love using Parlay Ideas as well. Be aware that it is a freemium, so you don't get unlimited Roundtables. It's very similar to Verso in that you can have students communicate anonymously with their peers, but Parlay also has a "live Roundtable" option that helps you facilitate live discussions (similar to Socratic Seminars) where students can "tap in" to the conversation and teachers can "nudge" students to share their ideas with the class. 

Roslyn, thank you so much for agreeing to our interview today!  One final question: what’s your advice to teachers just starting to integrate technology into their classroom?

​Always be transparent with your students! As a young teacher, I thought I needed to "know it all" and felt embarrassed if I didn't know an answer or made a mistake. However, students appreciate hearing, "I've never used this before. If it totally flops, we'll figure it out." I experienced MUCH more success with technology when I was totally honest with my kids about the tools we were using. And most of the time, they were much more patient in the process if they knew we were all learning together!

What are your thoughts on Verso?  Have another favorite digital discourse tool?  Share in the Comments below!

Update 3/18/24:  With the free version of Verso, you now are limited to only three active Activities and cannot edit them once created and saved.  I'm not sure if you can delete one of these three Activities in order to "free" a slot, OR if the first three you create are free and you are then forced to upgrade the account (and deleting one wouldn't help).  I've updated the entry to reflect this change.