Classroom Ideas
Escape rooms are a blast – for kids, teens, and adults! Virtual escape rooms are a great way to really up student engagement. We’ve laid out all of the steps to easily make a custom escape room on almost any topic. Using Google Forms, you will be able to design a creative and fun experience for students, even in the virtual classroom. Whatever subject you teach, your students will love this activity and you’ll get major cool teacher points!
Follow these steps to make your own virtual escape rooms:
Step 1: Pick a topic for your virtual escape room
The first step to creating any escape room is to determine a topic. After you have chosen a topic, determine what clues you are going to use to lead students out of the virtual escape room. In this example, we created a math escape room that practice numbers and operations. Students need to solve five clues in order to put together the five-digit combination and escape the virtual room.
Step 2: Create your form and add a title
Create a Google form. Add your title and description here as well. Based on our topic, our example could be titled “Can you unlock the code?”
Step 3: Header Image
Add a Header Image to your escape room to engage the students with the topic. To do this, click on the paint image at the top of the screen and then click on “choose image.” You can also change the color of your form and the font on this screen.
Step 4: Write a clue
Write your first question/clue that will begin to lead students to the final answer. Choose “short answer” for the type of response so students will need to type their answers into the response box.
Step 5: Add response validation
Select the three dots at the bottom of the question and choose response validation. Enter an exact answer that students must type in order to move on. This can be either a specific number or a word response. Also, add a response if they get the answer wrong, like “try again.” Make sure you have selected the “required button” as well for each question.
Step 6: Add another section
Add a new section by selecting the button that looks like two parallel lines. Title your next section and add your clue, just like you did in the previous steps.
Step 7: Finish the remaining sections/clues
Create the rest of your sections and add in your clues for each one. Make sure that each question is required, has response validation turned on, and it says “continue to next section” under each clue.
Step 8: Write a final question to escape
Create your final question for students to unlock the escape room. This should include aspects of all of the previous clues so students can get out and win. For example, you may require students to use all five of the previous answers to unlock the combination and escape the virtual room.
Step 9: Add a winning picture
Add a picture to the last section to celebrate your students unlocking the escape room. Click on the small picture icon and add any picture of your choice. You can also add a brief congratulatory message to them.
Step 10: Try it out
Test out your virtual escape room before you use it with your student. You can preview it by clicking the eye button at the top of the screen. Make sure that all of your clues are correct, try putting in a wrong answer, and go all the way through to the end to ensure there are no glitches with your Google Form.
You can use virtual escape rooms for grades or just for fun! Go with themes your students love such as dinosaurs, memes, Among Us, etc. The sky’s the limit!
