Before Christmas my students and staff spent a few fun filled afternoon periods playing the web version of Deal No Deal, which was an exciting and educational activity. While playing students worked on partner assisted scanning (I would move the mouse over the suitcases in a 3 second scan for them to pick suitcases with a wireless switch), greater than/less than, and communication skills including answering yes/no questions. They also loved showing their allegiances to various staff by choosing whose advice to take. We tallied up who made the best deals and talked about the value of money. Eventually a friend even made some great Deal No Deal boards for us to use on Boardmaker SDP while playing the game.Today we returned from a great community based instruction trip about 35 minutes late (due to snow and a pizza that took 35 minutes to be served) and the paraprofessionals in the room decided that they wouldn't mind giving up their breaks if they could play Deal No Deal with the students (which meant I could fill in the data sheets and write daily notes home).
The only catch was that our host school now blocks the Deal No Deal site, which we didn't know until we tried to play. This isn't a huge loss, there are plenty of other fun educational activities we can do, but it does lead one to question why certain web filter decisions are made. Other than my class playing three times was there a problem in the building with kids playing Deal No Deal?
What do you do when sites are blocked in your school?
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