 There it goes. All right, good morning, and welcome to this week's edition of Encompass Live. I am your host, Christa Porter, here at the Nebraska Library Commission. Encompass Live is the commission's weekly webinar series, where we cover a variety of topics that may be of interest to libraries. The show is broadcast live every Wednesday morning at 10 a.m. central time. But if you're unable to join us on Wednesdays, that's fine. We do record the show every week, and it is then posted onto our website for everyone to watch. And I will show you at the end of today's show, where you can access our archives and see all of our today's recordings and all the previous ones. We do a mixture of things here on Encompass Live, book reviews, interviews, mini-training sessions, demos of services and products, basically anything that we think may be of interest to libraries. Here in Nebraska, the Nebraska Library Commission is the state agency for libraries. So we provide services, training, and consulting to all types of libraries across the state. So you will find things on our show that are for academics, publics, K-12 schools, museums, correction facilities, anything that has anything that's a library. We will have something there for them. We do have Nebraska Library Commission staff that sometimes will come on and do presentations on our show on Encompass Live about things that we are offering specifically here through the Library Commission. But we also bring in guest speakers. And that's what we have this morning with us on the line. You can see there is Meredith Ficus. And she is at, she's actually here in Lincoln, Nebraska, as I am, correct? Yes. But due to scheduling and whatnot, and right now it's actually snowing. If I had my blinds out, you see out there, we're doing this as a remote session here. And she is at our nickel middle school, part of Lincoln Public Schools. And this is a session that Meredith did. Now you did this at our conference last year, right? Yes. I can't remember. Yeah, the NLA, our Nebraska Library Association and School Librarians Association's joint conference last fall. And there's a lot of great sessions that are always at that conference. And I don't get to get to all of them, because it's just only so much time in a couple of days. But for ones that I've either heard a lot about, good things about are that I personally is interested in, I invite them to come in and come up us live and share things in a two more wider audience. So that's how we ended up with Meredith on the show this morning. And she's going to tell us today how to have breakouts in your library. So I'll just hand it over to you, Meredith, to take it away. All right. Well, welcome, everyone. I'm Meredith Ficus. I am in my 10th year in the library. This is my eighth year at Michael Middle School. And this is my third year doing breakouts. So something that I'm really passionate about, so I'm really excited to share with all of you today. My focus is school library, but I will try to talk about how it can be used in a public library, although my experiences won't be as great since I don't have that. It looks like we have a mixture. Looking at the people who registered and who are coming in, we have a mixture of mostly public and school, a few universities as well signed up, interesting. Awesome. Yeah, I'll try to tailor for everybody here. So starting off, if you've never heard of breakouts, I kind of wanted to give a quick introduction. It's a little bit like escape rooms, if you are familiar with those around the area. Only it's contained with a box and in kind of a one room setting either in the library or we do in classrooms. I'm hoping this video will work for you guys here. This is from Breakout EDU. They are a company that kind of started this whole thing. So this is their kind of overview video on it. Oh, maybe it's not. There we go. Tired of students sitting in rows, bubbling in worksheets? Introducing Breakout EDU. Breakout EDU is a revolutionary new product that allows educators to bring gaming into the classroom in a meaningful way. Breakout EDU is great for getting learners out of their seats and moving around. Each game requires critical thinking, collaboration, and creativity. Breakout EDU is great for learners of all ages including adults. Each game is centered around the Breakout EDU box and players have a set amount of time to open the box. During a game, players need to successfully navigate a series of mysteries and solve engaging problems. All games feature a blend of physical and online puzzles. Each breakout kit comes with a physical box and a series of blocks and other items that can be used to play any of the Breakout EDU games. New games are being added to the store on a regular basis and there are many free games to get you started. Teachers and students can also use the online templates to design their own games. Learning has never been this much fun and the classroom will never be the same again. Every classroom needs a Breakout EDU kit. Let's reinvent education together. Breakout EDU, it's time for something different. All right, so that's just kind of a quick introduction to what breakout is and how people are using it in classrooms. I have seen public libraries use them just as well. I know in Lincoln here our public library offers different breakout sessions. So it can be used both public and school, doesn't necessarily have to be tied to curriculum. This is one of the reasons I love breakout. I never get more engagement from my students than when we do a breakout. I can get almost everyone engaged, even students who normally don't do an engagement with classes and really kind of standoffish. I remember the very first breakout we did, a student who we had been trying all year to get engaged was the most engaged one. He was running around the room. He was like one of the first groups to break out just because he got so into it. So that's what I really love and it's the students doing everything. Like I have to do all the work and set up but then it is students for 40 to 50 minutes doing all the work. And it's a way I can get them to do math problems for 50 minutes without a single complaint. So that's kind of a fun thing. They have to use teamwork, which is really important that we're always trying to teach our students and just allow them to kind of think through things in a different way. So I always love it. It's always my favorite day whenever I do breakout days in the library and my teachers love it and the students love it too. They get excited whenever they come in the library and they see all the boxes lined up. So like I said, breakout EDU, you kind of actually started this company. Two men kind of started it up. And so on the website and you can go to the website there, there are a large selection of free games. These are written by people like me or other teachers that they just write their own games and those can get uploaded as free games so anybody can use them. They do have once for their platform access where it is ones that the company or the company pays people to write the games and a lot of those are more, you have to have paid for the platform to get it. But then they do also have digital breakout. So if you don't wanna go through the hassle of buying the boxes and everything, there are digital ones that you can do although those tend to only be, I noticed most of those games you can get done in about 15 minutes. So that's kind of more just a quick activity for students or for your patrons. But then you can also order their kits. You can also get questions from them. I found they are some of the most helpful people at responding to questions, especially I also am on their Facebook group and they almost always are answering questions. They actually offered, when I said I was gonna be doing a presentation, they offered to look over my presentation for me and offer ideas. So they're super helpful there. Yeah, they've been great. It sounds like from that video that they are very excited about what they're doing. Yeah, they're reading a script and putting out the video. He was like, this is awesome and we wanna do it and let's change things up. Yeah, they are really all about it and I believe they started as teachers. And so they kind of get it and know how it works. And so they, and they hire the teachers like this summer I was able to actually write a few games for them that they paid for me to do. So they actually are very helpful and willing and excited about this. And they're always open to suggestions too. I see on the Facebook thing, people offer suggestions all the time and all of a sudden like a month later, it's up on their website or whatnot. So they're really good about that. So here's just kind of the breakthrough of their website. So you can for free get a whole bunch of digital and user-generated games, which is fabulous. You just have to sign up with an email and that's more also to protect the games themselves. So that for in my case, I don't have students logging on and going to the game and getting all the answers to the game. So they kind of have to, you register just so that kind of a protection there. There is their platform access. It's a year access. It is $60, $50 dollars. I buy it every year, not so much to use their games, although I have used a couple of their games, but I like to use it to get me puzzle ideas for when I'm writing my own games. So I kind of look at what other people use for puzzles and then I can kind of tweak and tailor that to my own games. So I have found it useful and helpful for me for that. And then you can also buy where you get the box and then the platform access with that. And so you get the year access when you buy the box that way. So those are just different things you can do. If you buy multiple boxes, you can buy multiple platform access. And so then if you buy like three boxes, you get three years of platform access or you can give platform access to three different people. Kind of however you choose to use it. So the kids itself, here's what you get from- Not that price from what you get for a whole year. Right, I mean, it's pretty good. And actually if you review, I wanna say my renewal from my platform access this year was actually only $50 dollars. So they give you discount on renewal. So it's really not that bad. And especially with all the games access that you get, it's pretty good. And then here's the box. I actually do not have an official breakout EDU box, but our district library does and I've borrowed theirs a couple of times. So their locks are really good and they are very good. I've seen if one of your locks breaks or if a kid changes the code and you don't know what the new code is. And yes, that happens. They are really good about like helping you either figure out what the new code is and helping you get it or replacing your locks for you. So they are all about their quality and they just added a whole bunch of new things. So if you got one a while ago, they've added some new things, the color wheel, the red lens viewer, I think are like the two biggest ones, maybe the shape wheel. So they added a bunch of new stuff, probably this fall, I think is when they added all of that. But you can also be like me and I purchased my own and I hope you guys can see. So I have the box and I bought my boxes from Dollar General for a dollar. And the reason I did it this way is because I bought eight boxes and buying eight boxes through breakout EDU was just not in my budget. So I do it this way. And then I got like all the locks from Amazon that I just put on a half and then put on the box. So I was able to kind of make my own breakout boxes. So you can more than likely, if you don't have the budget for breakout EDU, you can always make your own boxes. And like I said, mine were a dollar from Dollar General or Dollar Tree, one of the two. And then I am in talks with my STS teacher to make me boxes, have the students make me wooden boxes. But a lock on them is my next goal since these the kids can open and pretend they break out. So, so yeah, budget is an issue. Again, I wanna say it was maybe $30 a box when I was all set in through for it all. So that was a little bit easier of a price point for me, especially making eight of them. So then the games themselves, like I said, you can use games from breakout EDU website all the time. You can also modify games that are on there. I just did my eighth grade socialized teachers just finished Westward expansion. And there were three Westward expansion games on breakout EDU. And so I just took two of them and picked and chose clues from the two and put them together and made one breakout game from that. So, or there'll be ones where I'll like all but one of the clues. So I'll just change that one clue and make it better for what my purposes are for it. That's nice that you can customize it because you know best, you may know best what your students or your patrons may, how they will work with it or what might catch their attention. Yeah. And so it's really nicely like give you everything but then you can always be like, you know, I really like this part but I don't like this part and changing just that one clue. And then it's not as much time intensive just modifying games to work for you. And I know breakout EDU, especially for public libraries, they do have a lot of kind of team building games or team development games that aren't tied to a curriculum. And so those would be like great to use in a public library, just grab one of those games and use it that way. Or you can do what I love to do and just write your own. I've probably written about 30 different games for my teachers. And the reason I love writing my own is there are a lot of the games on breakout EDU website. They'll say, oh, this is about Egyptian history or ancient Egypt. But then when I go on to it, you really don't have to know anything about ancient Egypt. It's just kind of like the theme of the game. And a lot of my teachers use this as a review or a formative assessment of what do the kids know? What do they not? And so I kind of need them to show what they remember from class. And so I tend to write based off of our curriculum versus just grabbing a game off there. And so that's why I either do a lot of mine are either modifying or writing my own for that purpose, just because it better matches my students and my teachers and what we are actually doing with our standards and curriculum. But it is a little challenging. I know this is what scares a lot of people off is writing their own games and not knowing what to do. The way I jumped into it is, like I said, I got that platform access and I just looked through probably 70 to 100 games. And any time I saw like a clue that I liked, I wrote it down. Like, oh, here's how this clue will work. And I just wrote it down. And so by that point, I'd looked at almost 300 different puzzles. And so then I kind of had ideas of what puzzles I could use. And so then I could more tailor it to my objectives. So a lot of times then whatever I wanna do or whatever theme you wanna do, I'm thinking like public libraries say you wanna do like a Harry Potter theme or something like that. You kind of have to- For the upcoming summer reading program is on a universe of stories. Anything, space and universes. That's gotta be some fun things to come up with. Yes, so you can do some great space ones would be fabulous. So just knowing kind of what you want them to know. So I always ask my teachers for their like unit test or what their final project is or what notes they give the kids during the day. So it's like, okay, here are the main things you're asking for the students. Or you know, if you're like thinking public libraries if you want to do the space, you know, okay, I want them to know the different planets and stuff like that. And I wanna say there are some space ones on the breakout EDU website. So check those out for maybe the summer program that would be awesome. But then once I know like what they're looking for then I can just kind of say, oh, here's where I'm gonna do my puzzle. So actually this is a test. Hopefully you guys can see this on my little screen that I got from my FCS teacher just asked me right. And there was two questions like how much the body is made up of water and what part of your brain is made up of fat, like what percentage? And so I'm like, well, those two percentages right there give me a four digit number. So now I'm gonna create a puzzle around that four digit number asking the kids those two questions. So they have to know that the body is two thirds water or 66% and 60% fat for the brain. And they put those two together to get their four digit code. So it's just kind of, I just kind of like look through all their stuff and all of a sudden I'm like, oh, this would make a good four digit code or this would make a good three digit code. And so it seems like when you start using the actual kids, the breakout UV kits more, you're gonna see that in everything, right? So you're gonna see all these numbers, I need to use it. Right, whenever like they see stuff, I'm like, ooh, that I could use that or oh, that would make a good word or kind of puzzle. So yeah, you start to kind of see things as the teachers give them to you. So like I said, really going in and reading the other games is what saved me. I probably have four or five pages of just clue ideas that I go back and look through. And especially considering they're adding new games all the time on the website, I continually get different clue ideas. And sometimes it's just as I'm like staring at it, like I had teachers gave me moon phases. And just, or they're like, I want to know the tides, where the moon is in position for each tide. And so as she was like talking about it, I just was working through my head and was able to come up with a puzzle of a way of doing it. So it's just kind of piecing through. I tell my teachers if they want me to write one for them, they have to give me a month in advance. It doesn't take me a whole month to write, but there'll be sometimes where I'll sit there for two weeks just staring at the notes, trying to figure out puzzles and really struggling. And then all of a sudden one day, I'll write three puzzles in that day on it. And so it's just kind of, all of a sudden things just kind of come to you. You just kind of have to let it happen. So that's why I tell my teachers you really got to give me a lot of time in advance to write these puzzles. So that kind of helped. And then I have them for the next year. So I also like writing on, books. So I'm thinking like public library, you could do book clubs. I know one of the books we read with our seventh graders is Drums, Girls and Dangerous Pies. And I wrote a breakout based on the book. So you could do it after like your book club reads and finishes the book or your teens finish a book club or something. You could do one on that book itself as a way of them just kind of having fun with it at the end. So that's kind of writing it. It's kind of hard to talk through the thought process on it more than just know what your objectives are and look at other games. And when you start looking at other games, you start to get it. The hardest part for me actually is creating the narrative, the story of why you need to get in the box. And I actually had an eighth grade student this year tell me, oh, you know, I love doing that. So if you just want to send me what the breakout's going to be about and what class it is, I'll write your narrative for you. So he's written two for me already this year because that's the part I just struggle with writing. So utilize help, get other people to help you. It's definitely worth it. And then I always go over, you wouldn't necessarily have to do this in public but in the school, I always then go over with my teacher the game. And a lot of the times they'll tell me, oh, you know, my students really won't know that vocab words or maybe you should use this one instead because they know their students best. And so they really helped me out in making sure I'm tailoring it to what they've actually taught in class and what the students are learning. So that's kind of writing your own. We do have a comment. They're running the game. We do have a comment. Tammy who's from Genoa Public Library says, she, I guess it just says, I have a lot of fun writing my own games. So. Yeah, they're so much fun. I love doing it now. I, so and I love that they know they can come to me with that. But yeah, just coming up with the puzzles and the first kids, I always tell them whenever they run my first puzzle, I'm like, all right, you guys, am I getting any pigs? I don't know if it's super hard or super easy. So let's go. And they just kind of, yeah. And there's sometimes where I'm like, oh, that one's really hard. Okay, you guys are gonna get a lot of global hints on this one. I did not think it would be that hard for you, but it's just, yeah, it's a lot of fun to do it and write your own. If you're nervous, I would suggest taking some from the Breakout EDU website first and running those to get yourself comfortable with how breakout works work. And then you can jump in and just kind of start writing your own. They do also have on the Breakout EDU website of templates for writing your own games and also instructions for how students can write their own games, which I haven't attempted that yet, but I'm waiting to have teachers who are willing to take that on with me. But I think that would be a lot of fun to have the kids, maybe like my eighth graders write one for next year's eighth graders or whatnot. I think it would be a lot of fun. So running the game, there's really a couple of different ways you can do it. So I always start off, I tell the students the narratives and the rules. I just have it projected up like you have five locks and this lock has this many directions because my directional lock doesn't have a set number of directions like the one on the Breakout EDU website. So it could be 12, it could be three. So I always tell them how many directions it is just to give them an idea. But then I actually have and this works for me. It may be completely different for you. I know like public libraries and thinking you probably can do everything with just one box because you can limit how many people sign up to do it. I will have like a class of 30 and so I have to find a way for 30 kids to do the breakout. And I'm not a big fan of 30 kids all doing one game together. Because I feel like at that point kids can take themselves out and not get engaged in the process and that's not what we want. And so I always divide them up into groups of three to four. And so my way of doing that then is I print everything I need. I don't hide stuff around the room because when I hide something as soon as one group sees it and then all seven groups go and find the same thing without doing any of the work to solve the puzzles. So I've stopped hiding stuff. I still think in a public library if the future was doing one group and everybody's working on that one thing hiding is great. Or if you're doing a small class hiding would be great and you can hide different stuff for them. But I give them everything they need upfront. I just have folders that I've color coded and I just hand them the folder everything's inside that they need. And they just go with it then. I've made up hint cards where they get two of them. And when they ask me for a hint I take the hint card away or out of hint cards they don't get any more hints. I have said that they have to be unanimous. So if one group member is saying no we're not gonna use one because otherwise they'd start fighting about using it or not or they get mad that one person used it. So I give them their folders, their hint cards. I set the timer. Most of my games are 40 minutes just because we have a 52 minute period. So by the time I've done my introduction and then pass stuff out and then if we wanna then you have the 40 minute game and then time to kind of reflect and clean up and get ready for the next class because my next class is coming right away. So putting all the locks back on the boxes that pretty much takes me my whole time. So I set mine at 40 minutes just because that's the timeframe I have. You can adjust to whatever your needs are. And then afterwards we kind of debrief and talk about what things went well, what things didn't, how teamwork worked and all of that sort of nature. So there's kind of two ways of doing it. If you're just doing one group, one box out there, put it out there and they take the locks off and it works fine. Like I said, I do eight groups and so when I first started, I did not have eight boxes, I had one. And so the way I had to do it was I had one box up at the front of the room that had all the locks on it. Then each group got X number of tickets and the tickets were color coded to match their folder. And every time they wanted to come up and attempt the lock, they had to bring me a ticket. And so that stopped kids from just coming up and guessing all the time. They had to actually have an idea of what the answer is to come up and use it. I did allow them to earn more tickets because I generally gave two tickets over what, however many locks I have. And so the way they can earn more tickets, I tend to do burpees because we're in a middle school and it's fun to watch middle schoolers do burpees. So when they do 10 burpees, I give them their ticket back and that's always my favorite part of the day when they do those. And my PE teachers let me for it. Yeah, you know, it's all about cross-curricular. I throw math and reading and all my breakouts. I got a third PE in there too. So, and I only make one person in the group do it. So it's not like I make the whole group do it. So there's normally one kid who's like, I'm the burpee kid, it's fine, that's my job. But then I also like on my board will like list each group and then down the side I list each lock. So when they get the lock off, I just put a check mark in their box and then I have to put the lock back on the box so that other groups can use that. So having that check off system on the board where they can see where they're at lets you know then when one group does get all five locks off or not. You can also have each group have their own check off sheet that they just hold or that they bring up to you but having it on the board is just an easy way for me to do it. So that's how I run it with one box. I will say it's a lot more stressful this way. And if you're doing it this way, I really suggest partnering with someone so that there's two adults in the room. My husband actually is a teacher and he did this. I let him my box for one of his breakouts and he was all by himself and he was able to do it but it was a lot more stressful for him and there was some behaviors that went unnoticed by him just because his tension couldn't be everywhere. So that's why I suggest having two person. One person is taking the tickets, monitoring the boxes, checking off people while the other is walking around the groups, helping them with hints and all that sort of thing. So having two teachers there really helps. I've moved to multiple boxes. So now I have eight boxes. So each group has their own box. I've color coded the boxes to match the folders. And then I also have these parking lots that are color coded to each group. And I just have the parking lots up at the front of the room. Once I start the timer, I hand out the boxes. I don't give them the boxes beforehand because giving middle schoolers boxes when they don't have a job with it is just asking for them to goof off and not do anything. So I wait till the timer starts then I hand out the boxes too long. They can attempt the locks as many times as they want then and then when they get it, they bring it up and put it on the parking lot. I do have to, if I notice they got a lock really fast or they haven't completed a puzzle and got a lock because they heard the answer from somebody in a previous class, I will pocket their lock and tell them they have to prove to me how they got it before I will give them their lock back. So that's just one way of taking care of the little cheating that middle schoolers like to do. And I'm sure all grade levels, but that's my experience. But then when they get the lock off, they have to come and put it up on the parking lot versus leaving it at their table because when it's left at their table, just unconsciously they start fiddling with it and some of the locks are pretty easy to change the code. And so if they change the code, you don't know what they've changed it to. And so I always make them bring their lock up right away. That way I also can see who's closed, who needs more help. Like if one group only has one lock and all the others have three, I tend to kind of go towards that group and see if I can kind of help steer them a little bit easier. But I found running it this way cuts the stress on my life so much on these days. Because I can just more walk around the room and monitoring. I don't have to be tied to one spot at the front of the room taking tickets and all of that. So if you can do multiple boxes, great. It works fabulous. But there is a way to do with the ticket system if you just have one box. And like I said, I'm thinking especially public libraries, you guys can, I know ours limits how many people can sign up for their breakout that they're doing. And so you can limit it to, okay, only seven or eight people can be signed up for this breakout. Then you don't have to necessarily worry about that because you have everybody just working on the same one, which is kind of helpful in that regards. Here's my- I wanna keep it under control. Yeah, keeping it in control. My very first breakout, we had never done before. And it was, I mean, this was three years ago. So it was still pretty early and breakout, EDU as well. And it was me and my two eighth grade socialize teachers and they love to combine their classes and teach together. And so we're like, oh, let's give it a try. So we had 60 kids in the library doing this breakout with, and this is at the time I only had one box. And it was the most stress thing. I just looked at them, I go, I love breakout, but we're never joining together again. So I'm never doing 60 kids again. That was too much. 30 is about good. Having more than, for me with my puzzles, having more than five in a group really starts to kind of diminish it. So I never really allow more than five per group. And I try to keep most from three to four. And that's just better management as well. So anyway, going back, I avoid prizes. I never hand out anything with my breakouts. When they open the box, it is a piece of paper that says hashtag crushed it. And that's what it's been every time for three years. And so the kids know the only thing in that box is that piece of paper. And the first couple of times a group sees it, they're like, it's just a piece of paper. But now they don't care. It is still like, they're like, no, I'm getting in that box. I am doing it. And there's been some kids who they've done five or six breakouts. And then the very first time that they've actually broken out, it's so rewarding to them. They get super excited. So it brings in that intrinsic motivation versus the extrinsic. Which is what I really love. I do do recognition though. So on my board, I write up times and we calculate fastest time and success rate. And so I always tell them, here's your goal. Here's the time you're going for. Let's see if we can up our success rate. And then I take their picture every time. Every group I take their picture and I have a bulletin board in my library that says break out wall of fame. And I just print their pictures and I tape them up there. And we leave them up. Last year I left them up all year. This year I started doing more breakouts with my teachers. So my board was filled after first semester. So the second semester I just put all the pictures out on a table. I said, take your picture if you want it and let them just take them and they could take them home. So they actually, I think the recognition helps with that as well. So I don't have to give them things. It's more I just recognize them and the great work they did. That's great. The satisfaction of completing it is what they're all they want now, which is awesome. Yeah, and that's what it's really moved to. I do know some of the librarians in our district will give bookmarks, especially if they'd done it. Like one did it off one of our Golden Sower which is our state award book. They did one off the Golden Sower and then they gave them a bookmark of that book. So that's kind of a cool, I think you can do that. Giving them bookmarks or things like that. Little things. But yeah, I did in, I don't know if you've read Drams of Girls and Naders Pies but for that breakout I did give them a little prize. One of the big things in that book is orange tic-tacs. So when kids did break out I would give them a few orange tic-tacs but that's just it tied to the book and it wasn't a huge prize. I also can't afford to give away candy or pops or things of that nature every time a group breaks out just because I do so many of them. So it started off kind of that way for me but it's turned into more, no, I want you to open it to open it. Like I want you to be one to open it because you know that's what's gonna give you. There are my directional locks and I don't know what it is. The directional locks I bought brick on me all the time. I've probably lost eight from them just not working and it's not the kids doing anything. It is I would set the lock and then I close it and I go to open it and it opens. I close it again. I go to open it and then that won't work. So I stopped doing my directional locks and moved to, they write it on it. I still love the directional lock puzzle though. So now they have to write the directions on a piece of paper and if they get it right, I have like this little picture of a directional lock that then they go and put on their parking lot. And so that's worked out for me. I know some people will do like zip ties where if they get it right then they cut off the zip tie or if you have like a different type of key lock maybe that's the key that you give them for the directional lock or any other lock that it's just not working for you. And then like I said with me doing eight groups I don't hide keys because once you hide it one place they all know where to go to look for the next one. The one time I did hide a key was I did one for my library orientation and I gave each kid a different nonfiction book that they had to find. And in that nonfiction book was the key. So they couldn't just search every book for it and every group had a separate place for the key. So you could do it that way where each group has a different hiding place for a key. But I instead when they, I hold all the keys and they come to me with either a phrase or a color combo or a different number. And if that's right then I give them the key. And having it that way has actually made making the key lock one of my favorite puzzles to make because I can make it whatever I want and however I wanna ask them a question or have them tell me something I can make it for whatever and then that's just always my key is that they have to tell me something and that gives them the key. So that's kind of a way I got around hiding the key. Organization is huge. I'm still finding different ways of doing it changing up how I do things. I tend to, like I said, I have eight boxes. I at the end of it put all the locks for that one box back in that box. And so I just stack up my eight boxes then and all the locks are within each box. Like I said, I do the file folders for all my papers and do it that way. And so I'll print like 72 copies of one of the puzzles. And then I have, if I have nine sections of classes, eight groups per thing, I have a file folder for each group. So I'll have 72 file folders with all the puzzles. And then what I do is at the end of the game, everybody just takes all the papers, puts them in the file folder and brings me the file folder even if they've written on the paper. And then either myself or my secretary go through all the folders afterwards. Anything that's been written on, we recycle. Anything that's not, we keep. And so I can keep it for when I do the puzzle next year. So this year we actually were able to reuse a lot of our games and not have to print as much which was helpful. And then I have all my boxes. I just took old plastic file folders that magazines used to go in, old magazines. And I just put all my game stuff in there. Now I have all my games lined up on a bookshelf back in my office. So I can do that. Keeping track of combos. I have a Google Doc that I just have each box and then each lock and I put in the combination and something I had to add at the end of last year was putting the last combination put in it. So it has the current combination and the last combination because I found that I'll forget to change one of the locks and the group's trying to put in the right answer and it's not working and they ask me and I'm like, no, and I go back and I'm like, oh, yep, it was the last game we did and put in that combo and it works. So having that last combo really helps me in that, yeah, I don't remember what that one was because there was two months ago we did it or whatnot. And if you're doing this a lot, I'm thinking more of a school library or a public library, have your students know the way you do things as well? Like my students now know this is how things run. I'm gonna get my folder and then I'm gonna get my box. I get my two hand cards at the end of the game. They know to go up to my parking lot. They know at the end I put everything in a fire folder. I bring it up to you. So they've gotten the routine down and so having your students help with that and know that really is helpful and a way to kind of keep things organized for you. But organizing is huge. You have to organize all your games. I've also, for writing, I've created my own template for here's the three-digit lock, here's how I get the three-digit lock, here's the papers I use for the three-digit lock and having that laid out for each game. Because then when I come back next year, I can just read over that one sheet and go, oh yeah, that's how this game works. So that's been really helpful for me. Here's Linkham. You have a question? Oh yes. Tammy again, I just wanted to know, could you laminate them and use dry erase markers in order to reuse them? I think yes. You can. Some of my stuff, I actually have laminated. The stuff that I know is gonna be utilized a lot. I don't have that many dry erase markers, so I just let them use pencils. But things that I don't think that are either colored or I don't think they're gonna be writing on a lot or need to write on, I laminate all of those so that I can keep it for the next year. So yeah, I've done a lot of laminating. All my hint cards and parking lots are laminated too. That way they stay nice from year to year as well. So here in Linkham Public Schools, we want to share our games. I'm all about the sharing the games. I don't wanna write these games just for me because that's a lot of work for just using it once a year. So we have created a lib guide. And I'll kind of show it to you guys here. Of our breakout games. Right now there's not a ton on it because we just launched it this summer. And this is public for anyone that anyone can get to? Yes, it says public for any of you guys can get to. And so there's the link on here. And I wanna say I have a bitly for it. I'll have to come back to that, put that on the slide before we share it out with everyone here. But yes, this is everybody can get to it. I just ask that if you're gonna be sharing it with people, don't like post the link somewhere else because I don't want this link being online somewhere where kids can get access to it because now the kids are gonna have answers to all my breakouts. So just be careful of where you put it and how you share it out. But we do want this open for everybody to use. So I've started putting a lot of the games I've written up on here for you guys to use. And so you can kind of see we lay it out here kind of as the story, what kind of grade level and group we use it with. And then here is a Google Drive folder and this is open to everyone. If it's not, please let me know because I believe I put the links too. It's viewable by everyone. So you'll just have to make your own copy if you wanna edit or modify things. But then we have it in here as like, here's the story and set up. So the story of how we wrote it and this is kind of how I, these PowerPoints are how I run my breakouts with the students. So I just have my, this is the screen I have up when they come in and then in a load, it's taking its time today. And then there's the story. And then I have kind of here's my rules for how, and this is what holds up in the timer. And so they see this the whole time. But then what's probably the more helpful is this lock explanation. And this is what I was talking about where I have the three digit lock. Here's the code for it. Here's the explanation for it. Now even every once in a while, I get like possible hints that I give the kids to help guide them to the right answer. And then, so that's the lock explanation. And then if you go back, there's the two print folder. And this has all of the things you would need to print off for the game. So here's the three digit lock, four digit lock, directional and word. So we have this for all of our different games. Like I said, I'm working on trying to put up all the ones I've written. I probably am like four or five games behind on here. So you can kind of see, and that's broken up by different categories that you can do there as well. And then we also have started doing game reviews. So if we do one from like breakout edu or like a teachers pay teachers, we kind of write down what we think of it, whether it's good, maybe if we had to change some locks, maybe how we modified things on there as well. And so you can get access to that. And then we have different things on here. Like about the Tuck ticket system. Here's the parking lot I use. So you can have it. How we do like the combination template. That's how I keep track of all my locks and all those sorts of things. So you can see there's different resources here as well for you as well as on breakout edu's website. So like I said, this is open to everyone. You can just get to it from the link here. We're gonna be sharing these slides out. I'm gonna share my slides here with Nebraska Library Commission so that these will be accessed for all of you guys as well. Yeah. Love everything linked with the archive afterwards. We'll have the archive of the actual show today and to your slides, but sort of there in your Google drive. Yep. So that's about it. If there's any questions, I'm more than happy to answer. I love talking breakouts, so. Yeah, well, it seems like a ton of fun, obviously. Yeah. Anybody have any questions? Type them into the questions section of your GoToWebinar interface. Or if you have a microphone, just let me know and you can ask your question that way. William, one just came in and wants to know how often are your breakouts done? Like how often do you mean? Kind of dependent. Yeah. My teachers have really jumped on board with this and really love to do it. Last year I made the goal of doing one breakout a month and it's turned into, I do about three or four different breakouts a month and some of that is like, I count my eighth grade social studies as one breakout, but that really counts as two days because I have two eighth grade social day teachers. So we do one one day and one the next day because they have five sections of it or whatnot. So this last week I had three out of the five days we're doing breakouts all day long. So I'm lucky and my teachers have really bought into it and really love to do it with me. I've written, I've done it with almost every single curricular area and the nice thing is if you're a school librarian this also lends into, I had one last year had never worked with me before and wanted to do an eighth or a sixth grade science breakout and so we wrote it up and then the next week or two he came up to me and said, well now we're gonna be doing this research project so I really want your help with it. And so it really got me in working with my teachers and doing a lot more other stuff which has been fun. Yeah, they get hooked on it. They start to realize how awesome the library is. Let's get to know that it can be used in almost any subject you just have to tweak it enough to work with whoever it is that wants to do something interesting. Yeah, I did French, I've done French, I've done science, I've done social studies, I've done math, I've done English, I'm doing a FCS one, Family Consumer Science, I'm doing a health one. There's one I found to go with my art teacher. So I mean, there's really anything you can think of. You can do that. If you go on F-R-I-E to use site for ideas you can see all the kind of things that are available, and even just team building, like I said, they do, I've done some with my whole staff at staff meetings and stuff. So that's kind of a fun thing to do with your staff as well, either public or school. Like a staff day or something, or yeah. Yeah, we did it after all day meetings, after lunch, so. Something fun to loosen up, yeah. Are there some other questions coming in? Okay, so what are your favorite puzzles and what are the students' favorite puzzles, like favorite types of puzzles that they've done? Okay, well my actual favorite one. Your favorite one they like. Yeah, they might be a little different. My all time favorite breakout itself is one I wrote on John Wilkes Booth. And it has eight or 10 different puzzles in it where for each puzzle they solve, they get a picture of his hideout, one of his hideouts as he was making his way after the assassination. And at the end then they have to put all the hideouts in order and that gave them their final lock. And that's been my absolute favorite one. All the puzzles in it are like pretty easy, simple ones, but there's just so many that it takes them forever. But there was one puzzle I did, it's in my ancient Egypt breakout where they had a pyramid and they had to build words down the pyramid. And then I had different colored boxes on the pyramid and the way to know the color order was on the side of the pyramid, there was a picture of the pharaoh and his beard was colored in that order. So that's probably like my favorite puzzle. That one takes the kids forever to get. They normally use a hint card on that one. I think the kids, they enjoy the crossword puzzles and word search ones. I think that's just because they know how those ones work and know what to do it right away on those. So they enjoyed those ones more, but I like to kick them outside their box every once in a while there, so. Of course, yeah, and Tammy says that, she says, I love cryptograms. The kids not so much. Yeah. Yes, yeah, they're very different the puzzles I love and they love. Yeah, and now here's an interesting question too. Have you ever had an unsolvable puzzle or at least without hints? Anything they just get? Probably yes. Normally there is one puzzle where every single group uses their hint card on that puzzle. And it's just, and there are times also if I notice the group is really struggling with a puzzle, I'll give a global hint out to the whole group and just be like, hey, make sure you're paying attention to this or like draw their eye to something. And they're like, oh, that's what we're supposed to do. But I love when I give the hint that all of a sudden they're like, oh, oh, we could figure that out. Or you see the light bulb turn on. That's like some of my favorite moments to watch with the students, so. Just takes that little extra nudge sometimes. Yeah, that little extra there. All right, anybody else have any other questions? Take them in, we can answer anything you have here right now or you can reach out to Meredith at the school afterwards. If you don't have any questions right now as you're trying to get yours up and running. We will put a link to the lib guide that you have there. We'll just, we'll embed it into the page there. Not like out there for the kids to find, but we'll have as well as if you have more ideas in contact with the school. Anybody have a last name? Thank you so much for the fun idea. Ideas. Yeah, I hope you all do it. It's a lot of fun. That sounds like fun. Yeah, it sounds like very creative. And I, especially like at the beginning when you said you have them doing math for like 40 minutes and they don't even realize that's what they're doing. It's, you know, sneaky education. I love that. Right, it is. And it's fun and they learn things too. And I love the other one that you mentioned about to John looks both that how, how many steps it takes to get to the final answer and how creative it is that it just, it's definitely more interesting than just sitting in class. I think. Yeah. Well, and a lot of times they'll come up to me, they'll like solve the puzzle and they'll come up to me and they'll show me something like the puzzle solved it. And I'll just look at them. I go, okay, now do something with it. Like figure out what to do with it. You just got, and they just look at me like deer in the headlight look like wait, what? What do you mean? This isn't it? Yeah. And more the team building skills of getting them to work together too is great. Yeah. Yeah. Developing that. Yeah. Especially in middle school. Yes. All right. So it doesn't look anybody else has typed in any desperate questions right now. I think that's, that's fine. This is great. This is a lot of fun. Definitely. I'm glad to get you on today to talk about your breakouts there. So thank you very much for sharing with us. I'm gonna pull back the presenter control now to my screen to wrap up today. So there we go. So thank you so much everyone for being here. Thank you Meredith. This is the session for today's show. It is being recorded as I said and we're gonna go back to the Encompass Live main page here where we've got our upcoming shows listed but to get to the archive of today's show it will be later today posted right here underneath all of our upcoming shows. It's a link to our archives and you can go there. The most recent ones at the very top of the page and today's will be right there. It will have a link to the recording, a link to the slides. As I mentioned, I did open up over here. Here's the LPS link in public schools live guide about the breakouts. Also, since you had shown it there I looked up the video that she showed at the very beginning. So I'll put a link to that too. You wanna show me, we have a little quickie video to show off to anyone at your library there. And then there's also the page for breakoutedu, breakoutedu.com. So we'll include all of that when we do get the archive up here. Just so you know, while we're here on the archive page this is the archives for all of our shows that we've had on Encompass Live. Going back to the very beginning we started the show in January 2009. So just as long as you've been around, last year was our 10th year of Encompass Live. And they're all here on the page. But you can see everything is dated. So you can search through the entire archives you're looking for a particular topic or just most recent 12 months you're gonna make sure it's something recent. But do keep an eye on when you are watching some of the archives look at the date when it was originally broadcast. Some of these things, some of the services or products might not exist anymore. Some of the links might be broken. There might be more new, more recent up-to-date information about a certain topic, but we are librarians and this is what we do. We archive things for historical purposes. So everything will always be here, but just pay attention when you are looking through our archives. When that recording is ready and everything's good to go, like I said should be sometime this afternoon, maybe tomorrow depending on if YouTube and everybody cooperates with me. All of you who attend this morning and anyone who registered today I will send an email out to you to let you know that it is available. I also post onto our, we have an encompass live Facebook page. So if you're a big Facebook user, give us a like over there. We post reminders about what's going on with the show. Here's your, this morning we posted a reminder to log in on the fly for today's show. Any of our other past shows are here when there are recordings are available, letting people know a new show is coming up. We'll all be posted here on our Facebook page. Also out to Twitter, we do post through the library commissioners account and my own two Twitter as well. So we'll announce out there as well. So give us a like over there on our encompass live Facebook page if you are interested in using that. Keep up with things. So that will be for today's show. I hope you join us next week when we have the first of a series of two sessions we're doing. What in the world is emerging technology is next week. Amanda Sweet who is our technology innovation librarian here at the Nebraska Library Commission will be with me talking about emerging technology and how it impacts libraries and how you may be using it. So that will be next Wednesday show. And then about a month later, she's gonna do a follow-up on the ethics behind emerging technology that will be on March 13th. So February 13th next week and then March 13th for her second one. So if you want to sign up for both of those they're both here on our calendar. You can get part one and part two of Amanda talking about emerging technology. So please do sign up for that one and any of our other shows that we have here on the calendar. One other thing I want to just remind people about as well another project event that we do here if you're looking for other continuing education opportunities and more information. Big Talk from Small Libraries is our online one day online conference about small libraries. Small libraries doing big things. All of our presenters at Big Talk from Small Libraries are from small and rural libraries usually a population served or a FTE of 10,000 or less. And Big Talk from Small Libraries is coming up on February 22nd. So please you registration is open. Please go ahead and register and our entire schedule full schedule is posted here. So you can see what we have coming for Big Talk from Small Libraries. So please do pop over to our registration page and sign up for that as well. I'll be there hosting that too. So thank you very much everyone for attending. Thank you very much, Meredith of being here with me today. Thank you for letting me come on. Yeah, it was great and science stay warm. Cold weather is coming back again. Yes. And hopefully we'll see you next time on Encompass Live. Bye bye.