Escape room with OneNote

Inspired by Julia Morris, Carmen Quirós, Esmeralda Salgado,Jeni Long and Sallee Clark and helped by students, staff and parents at The Ashcombe School, in June 2020 I put together an Escape room using OneNote based on a trip to Normandy.  It is my first attempt.

At a later date I may add more explanation here, but I made reference to it in a 'Show and Tell' webinar on 18th July 2020, and promised to share as soon as possible.

Here's a link to a copy of a Notebook stored in my personal OneDrive and which I believe you can put into your own OneDrive and open in the OneNote app to use or to edit.  I have replaced the Microsoft form link for recording progress with a link to a duplicate which you can import into your own Microsoft forms if you want to use it.

Here's a link to the wakelet which links to some of the games I used.

Here are links to recordings and links associated with the teachers who inspired me:

• Julia Morris
• Carmen Quirós
• Microsoft Educators Jeni Long and Sallee Clark aka Jenalee shared a template for this game.

Below is a copy and paste of the 'remerciements' I wrote in the final section.  (I knew I had written about the project somewhere and could not remember where it was during my Show and Tell sesison.  Surprise surprise, I had written it in the Notebook itself ...!).

I confess that I have not done the Year 7 Rhineland trip Escape Room yet.  Being able to see my mum after three months of lockdown has somewhat changed my priorities!  I will share it when I have done it!

Merci

I am so sorry that I could not lead the Year 8 trip to Normandy this year.  So much preparation had gone into it, especially from the office staff and Voyager, the company we were using, and I know how much you were looking forward to it. 

Instead, I offer you this little adventure, which you can either do 'all at once' (I think it may take about one hour) or you may want to go at a leisurely pace and explore some of the games and links a bit more.  There's no time limit.

Thanks to The Ashcombe Community ….

Firstly, thank YOU for taking part in this mission.  Hopefully you have had some satisfaction in solving the clues and picked up a bit of French on the way, as well as remembering that you are part of a big supportive community at The Ashcombe School, where 'taking part' is the most important thing to do!

Thanks to Monsieur Robinson who has done so much to help the school have access to technology during this difficult time, including Teams and Notebook.  It is fun learning about how to use them, and through doing this I have learnt how to use templates for pages (Insert / Page templates) and - of-course - how to set passwords for pages!

Thanks to Madame Jackson for being such a good sport (and such a good Head of Year!).  And what excellent camera skills from Monsieur Ashwood!  We will also have to thank Monsieur Jacques-Antoine Motte of La Ferme de la Mimarnel  for helping to solve the mission.  (Even though his poor wizardry actually created the problem to start with …!)

Thanks so much to La Famille Frazer.  I shared my idea with them and they came back with a flood of ideas, links, musical advice and pictures.  Not only that, but they have also been my 'cobayes' and fed back on what worked and did not work.  This would not have been the same without them!

If you are interested in making your own Escape Rooms, I'd love to hear from you and perhaps we could set some more challenges for The Ashcombe Community.    I had hoped to continue our Minecraft club at a distance, but that proved not to be easy from my computer.  So perhaps this could be a replacement activity for releasing your creativity and technological curiosity!  What about helping me to create a Year 7 Rhineland Adventure?  I have a storyline in mind…!

Thanks to the world …!

Thanks to lots of teachers across the country who are sharing ideas about using technology.  I have been particularly inspired by Julia Morris, Carmen Quirós and Esmeralda Salgado who have shared their enthusiasm for Escape Rooms in webinars and on Twitter.. 

Thanks to leading Microsoft Educators Jeni Long and Sallee Clark aka Jenalee, who shared a template for this game.  I know that Escape Rooms are usually done on websites, and to be honest they can be incredibly immersive (my next challenge is to do one using  Genially or Google sites or a mixture of the two), but for this activity I deliberately wanted to combine the adventure with getting to understand how to navigate around a OneNote Book.

Let’s hope it’s worked!

Madame Myers