Long Story Short Game
Mindprint Rating
Tags
Skills
Mindprint Expert Review
Pros
- This is a great way to help students develop social awareness skills because each turn requires listening and sharing information appropriately.
- Players can text/tweet answers directly to the storyteller from their phones which makes this game especially appealing and unique for some teenagers.
- The game provides suggestion cards with acronyms and emotions for text and tweet answers to help students who may have difficulty with initiation or flexible thinking.
Considerations
- The storyteller decides whose response gets the highest score which could cause hurt feelings or disagreements.
- This game requires writing and drawing so it may be uncomfortable for students who have writing difficulties.
- There are a lot of words on the cards and each turn involves various activities, so it may overwhelm students with attention weaknesses.
Mindprint Expert Review
Long Story Short is a fun game that can be used as a tool to improve listening comprehension, social skills, and the ability to understand and express ideas. In this game, the storyteller chooses a topic from story starter cards, and tells a true or false story to the other players. The other players must decide if the story is true or false. Next they make the “long story short” by creating a headline, text, tweet, or illustration on a dry erase board. This game can be a great way for an adult to help students with language weaknesses since players must tell a cohesive story or listen to a story, remember details, and then summarize the main points but all in a fun way. Alternatively, students strong in these skills can play together and have an enjoyable time while strengthening these skills.
Academic Benefits
Improves academic skills
- Provides sufficient and varied types of practice problems to maximize understanding and generalization of the targeted skill/concept
- Manufacturer claims alignment with Common Core/Known Standards
- Presents educational concepts accurately
- Explains answers so students can learn from mistakes
- Better for teaching the skill to new or struggling learners
- Better for practicing or refreshing the skill
- Skills are practiced through authentic, meaningful problems (not just rote practice)
Fun
Engaging for the Mindprint recommended age range
- Appropriate for a broad age range to use and enjoy
- Visually appealing to children in the target age range
- Adults would enjoy playing with a child
- For electronic games, gives positive or encouraging feedback
- Offers ongoing, progressive challenge
- Overall - Enjoyable. Given the option, students would choose this option
Easy to Use
Understandable for children in the Mindprint recommended age range
- Provides teaching guidance for adults to support the child and set appropriate goals
- Student should be able to use independently after first use
- Student graduates to the next level or topic only after meeting a benchmark
- Can effectively understand and monitor student's progress (email report or in product)
- Does not require excessive set-up time after first time use
- Can be fun as a single player game
- Multi-player game which fosters collaboration or cooperation
- Well-made for the cost
- For electronic games, can play without sound
- For electronic games, allows user to save work
- For electronic games, voice/sounds are appealing and pronounces words properly
- Provides options to play in languages other than English/Good for ELL
- Presents information in multiple formats (voice over, pictures and text, etc.)
- Overall - Easy to use
Cognitive Concerns
May not be advisable for students with the following cognitive needs
- Attention
- Requires a disproportionate amount of writing
- Fine Motor Skills
- Requires a disproportionate amount of writing
- Self-regulation
- Multi-player activity that requires cooperation or has potential for disagreements
- Multi-player activity with a clear 'winner' and 'loser'
- Visual Discrimination
- Requires scanning in multiple places for words, objects or numbers
- Words used during activity can be too small or difficult to read
Manufacturer Description
Long Story Short is a hit party game that mixes social media with the time-tested fun of storytelling. Each round, the Storyteller shares an experience or story with the group using the fun story starters. The storyteller tells a story that is either true or false. Players then make the long story short by creating a headline, drawing a picture, writing a text, or crafting a tweet for the story told. Players compete for the best short story. Long Story Short will have everyone ROTFL for hours. LOL! #fungame