Chapter 8. Resources

Within this chapter you will find a combination of books, articles, online directories, and videos that will provide you with even more inspiration and guidance in creating your own digital breakout adventures. Additionally you will find invaluable help from fellow librarians and game developers within the recommended communities.

Directories

Breakout EDU Digital Sandbox

https://sites.google.com/site/digitalbreakoutjb/sandbox

This massive listing organizes of hundreds of community-created free breakout games in subject areas ranging from history to music to library science and includes all grade levels from K–2 to adult. After you have created your first digital breakout, consider adding it to the directory here and join the community!

Digital Breakout Tools

https://www.symbaloo.com/mix/digitalbreakouttools

This Symbaloo board is a visual collection of links with sample breakouts, tutorials, and tools for easy digital breakout creation.

Educational Resources

Build Your Own Digital Breakout

https://sites.google.com/site/digitalbreakoutjb/how-to

This Build Your Own page is a list of instructional screencasts to help you begin building your own digital breakouts from the folks at Breakout EDU. They cover topics such as how to use Jigsaw Planet, how to create a lock form, how utilize FormMule, and much more. This is great starting point for those who prefer to learn visually.

Build a Breakout Experience in Metaverse

https://youtu.be/bkCXRQndkgg

This step-by-step video includes detailed instructions for how to create a digital breakout using Metaverse, a free augmented reality platform.

Digital and Physical Breakout Edu Games

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLe8tTlhDRH6H482EVeMdL-Ym3OeQYJln7

or

https://bit.ly/2PKZIgk

The EmTech (Emerging Technologies) channel on YouTube has a series of six instructional videos for creating digital breakout games and hybrid live and online games detailing how to use shorts in Flipgrid to create digital clues, how to build a breakout in OneNote, how to create interactive clues in Google Drawings, and more.

YouTube Videos

https://www.youtube.com

A quick search of YouTube for the term “digital breakout” will return hundreds of results, including videos walking game designers through every aspect of creating these unique games and their puzzles. Get inspiration for challenges and technology platforms here.

Articles

Mastering the Digital Escape

https://www.smore.com/cvf4p-digital-escapes

This helpful article by Jana Dixon details the steps to creating a digital breakout using the Smore platform and provides numerous examples.

Resources for Creating Digital Breakouts: Ideas for Making Your Own Activities

https://www.theliterarymaven.com/2017/04/breakout-digital-escape-room-ideas.html

The Literary Maven (Brynn Allison) has written an excellent article on how to design your own digital breakout games.

Create a Digital Breakout

https://infinitelyteaching.com/2018/12/18/create
-a-digital-breakout

This tutorial article from Infinitely Teaching provides a helpful infographic and illustrated instructions for designing digital breakout games.

30+ Digital Escape Rooms (Plus Tips and Tools for Creating Your Own)

http://ditchthattextbook.com/30-digital-escape-rooms
-plus-tips-and-tools-for-creating-your-own

This useful article from Ditch That Textbook provides more than thirty examples of complete digital breakouts culled from Twitter responses.

How to Create a Digital Breakout for the Classroom

https://engagingandeffective.com/how-to-create
-a-digital-breakout-for-the-classroom

This instructional article from Engaging and Effective Teaching provides details for how to design these online games complete with video tutorials and puzzle ideas.

Community: Facebook Groups

Digital Breakout

https://www.facebook.com/groups/379270622
498900

League of Librarian Gamers—ALA GameRT

https://www.facebook.com/groups/LeagueOfLibrarian
Gamers

Breakout EDU

https://www.facebook.com/groups/breakoutedu

Library Teachers (Breakout EDU)

https://www.facebook.com/groups/breakoutedu
library

Library Escape Room Enthusiasts

https://www.facebook.com/groups/19221744747
31812

Related Books

• (Spoiler: Shameless plug for my book!) Escape Rooms and Other Immersive Experiences in the Library by Ellyssa Kroski, October 2018, American Library Association, https://www.alastore.ala.org/content
  /escape-rooms-and-other-immersive-experiences
  -library.
• Breaking into Breakout Boxes: Escape Rooms in Education by Holly Elizabeth Johnson, July 22, 2017, CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.
• Escape the Game: How to Make Puzzles and Escape Rooms by Adam Clare and Samet Choudhury, August 3, 2016, CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.

You should now be well on your way to creating your very first digital breakout game for your library. Don’t forget to share a link to your game in the BreakoutEDU Digital Sandbox list as well as your newfound expertise within the community!