A New Game, An Old Game Upgraded

If you haven't been to the Quote Puzzler site for online word games, or if you haven't been there for awhile, you'll want to take a minute to go see what's new there.

For starters, the Quote Puzzler has been upgraded to a new, more responsive, more robust game environment. It has also been converted from Java to Flash, which is an exciting new wrinkle, since it means that the new version of the game works in many more browsers than the old version.

Also, a new game called Triplet Scramble has been added to the site. Like Quote Puzzler, Triplet Scramble is a game involving a scrambled quotation. But with Triplet Scramble, the quotation is divided into groups of three letters. These groups (triplets) are then scrambled. The puzzle solver drags triplets around the playing field, trying to arrange them in the proper order to spell out a quotation.

The very best solvers who have been testing this game out have been solving the daily puzzle in anywhere from a minute to three minutes.

Choosing Games Appropriate For Your Students

Since The Problem Site first began, there have never been "grade level" indicators on any of the games. No notices that say: "This game is designed for ages 4 and up". This was a deliberate choice - part of the premise of this site has always been that students should be challenged to push beyond limits, and discover what they are capable of. Telling a student "This game is too hard for you because you are only in the fourth grade" may discourage that sense of experimentation and challenge.

However, as the site has grown (now there are seventeen educational games on the site, not counting the Daily Puzzles) some teachers have commented that it would be nice to have a listing of difficulty levels - not so much for the students as for the teachers who are trying to find appropriate online activities for their students. This is certainly understandable; when there were only four or five games on the site it was much easier to glance through them all to find the right game for your class. Now the number of games can be a bit overwhelming to teachers who have much better things to do with their time than peruse games which might not be useful to them in their classroom.

Consequently, a new game survey has been added to the site. Teachers and students are being invited to fill out the survey for games they have played, indicating whether the game was too easy, too hard, or just right for their age/grade level. In addition, you may leave a comment about the game when you fill out the survey.

All this information will be used to create a new page on The Problem Site. The new page will contain an ordered listing of games based on age/grade levels, including summaries based on the comments submitted by those who fill out the survey.

If you would like to help out with this process, please click the game survey link, and fill out the survey for as many games as you have played. By taking a few moments to fill out this survey, you will help make The Problem Site a better place!