LOL with Garticphone

 

When I was teaching at tenth grade for English Cross Program, after they had finished doing their collaborative work, one of my students, Callista, asked if they could play a game. She offered us a GARTIC PHONE, an interactive guessing to drawing game. Yes, drawing like on the paint app on your laptop.

 

More people join the game, the merrier the play will be. I recommend to have more than 4 people to play the game since the result you find may make you laugh at hard.

 

First thing first, get to GARTICPHONE

Then write your preferred nickname. The more mysterious, the better.

Click START. If you are hosting, your screen will be this way.

To share the link, click INVITE and send the link to the other participants. Wait for them to join. To make sure that they notice, read aloud the name joining the game shown on your dashboard.

Before playing the game, make an agreement for the rules and theme to play. I would recommend you to set the rules: (a) whether there will be only a word, a phrase, or a sentence, (b) is it in English or another language, and (c) no bullying matter, curse words, or racism. This way, the other participants will play fairly but still be having fun.

Let’s take an example: one word or a phrase about fruit. For a starter, as a simulation, have them write one word. After they all manage to understand the game, increase the difficulty to a PHRASE or even one CLAUSE / SENTENCE, like: the ugly duckling or the half apple. Each of participant is demanded to be creative.

After giving your first word(s), then you’ll a word(s) you need to draw on the white blank on your screen. Draw as creative yet appropriate as possible to the clue given. There are some tools you can use to draw, such as: pen, eraser, shaper (square and circle), line, paint, undo, and redo. In addition, there are some colors you may use to enhance the result as expected. Be careful, to switch to any tools before application.

Thus, the next phase is that you’ll get a picture (drawn by other participants). You need to guess the word(s). This will continue to 4 or even more turns depending on the number of participants playing the game.

After all the phases, if you are the host, you’ll see the result from all of the participants’ creative works and guesses. Click START to reveal all the works.

This is the moment when everyone has a laugh. The misunderstanding context to the super-trying-hard-drawing will take us into an understanding that things can change when it goes from one to the others, especially when the number of people are having different point of views.

 

This brings much joy yet makes the other participants learn something new about communication and understanding each other. In some occasion, I played this in bahasa Indonesia with my students to release the stress after Math Quiz. Here's an example: