Wednesday, 13 December 2017

Open Badge Passport

Before taking part in the Rudai23 course I never encountered Open Badges before so here's a quick summary of what Open Badge Passports are all about...


What are they?
They are an open standard developed by the Mozilla Foundation to recognize, validate and demonstrate learning that happens anywhere. Open Badges are digital credentials, created and issued by organizations such as schools, vocational organizations, companies and employers for their students, members, staff, clients or partners.

Why?
Open Badges were developed because there is a strong need in our web-enabled society to recognise and demonstrate all the informal learning that happens through work, hobbies, volunteering and various other activities in our lives.

Ease of use?
I've been a fan of Mozilla for years and anything they do is fantastic.  The program is really easy to use and intuitive.  It works well with other platforms also.

What to do with it?
When you have been issued with a badge you can share it across all you platforms and show those you are connected with online what you have learnt.  It's a great way to show further learning and interests you have outside of the formal 3rd level education you have under your belt. If you use LinkedIn the completed badge shows up under the heading of Accomplishments.

Where can you share your badge?
You can share your badge to several different platforms really easily.  By clicking on the buttons over the badge;


Open Badges Passport, sharing your badge

This video (HERE) shows you how to share to your LinkedIn account and this is where it will be:


Open Badges Passport on LinkedIn

By clicking on other buttons above the badge (green circle) you can share to Facebook, Twitter & Google+ with ease just like this;

Facebook
Open Badges Passport on facebook

Twitter
Open Badges Passport on Twitter

Google+
Open Badges Passport on Google+


I think Open Badge Passports are great and I'm going to look into how I can design a few myself for training the Wexworlds Committee receive for Child Safety Awareness, Disability Awareness, Social Media Promotion & Event Planning.

Hugh thumbs up and I'm giving open Badge Passport a 10 out of 10.


John The Captain Ryan



Tuesday, 12 December 2017

The Walking Dead, Season 8 review @ Mid Season stage (episodes 1-8)

This is Carl...


The Walking Dead, Season 8 review


Firstly I have to start with saying there is a spoiler in this review, most already know about the mid season shocker but if you don’t you have been warned.

Walking Dead Spoiler Alert


(image www.nerdreactor.com)

Wow, that’s all I can say.  A major depart from the graphic novels happened last night in what was a closely guarded mid season finale.  We find out that Carl got a little ribcage nibbling so he steps up, defends Alexandria with his life and saves the day.  What at first seems really heroic is diluted a little when we realise he was going to die all along.  If you rewatch the episode you can see little cookies.

The Walking Dead, 1st & last episode with Carl Grimes
(images courtesy of AMC, first and last episode of Carl Grimes)

During the eight and a half years that Chandler Riggs has graced the screen his character is one that has traveled the gambit, a quiet shy boy, brought out of his shell, after the death of his mother. Hershall losing his head and months on the road when the jail is lost hardens him to the reality of the World he lives in.  He is still a young boy coming to terms with the ending of the world and learning how to survive.  At the start of this episode he reminds Rick that they can’t kill all the Saviours and that not all of them are bad.  As soon as a character becomes a beacon of hope and the moral compass of the series you can tell they are going to die.  One of my fave characters was Dale...and look how that turned out.

I’ve religiously watched and rewatched every episode of the Walking Dead and read quite a few of the comics (although not nearly enough of them yet) but the writing has gone downhill the last couple of years.  I think the killing-off of Carl is a last ditch attempt to salvage a dying brand. Actually, when you think of it a lot of post-apocalypse series fall in the same way.  Once they learn how to live in the new World, there is the inevitable fighting over limited resources.  The moral question of how far will they go do keep themselves and their family safe.  When the main conflicts are resolved what next? 

Well, we know that Rick has nobody left.  Judith is not his, Carl and Lorie are gone.  Will this send him over the edge or will he just hunker down?  Michonne is the one to watch, she had turned into a passive character the last 10 episodes or so but with her latest hack and slash job is the old AND BETTER Michonne re-emerging.  She has been Carl’s mother figure for years and even before Rick & her came together had forged a great relationship with Carl.  Yes, Michonne is the one to watch for.

In saying all that, Carl isn’t finished, he is still alive and what will he do in episode 9, will he finally finish Neegan in a duel to the death with an agreed outcome that whatever happens peace will reign?

Unfortunately, most fans would agree the writing has let the series down in the last couple of years so something drastic is needed.  With the actuality that Chandler Riggs is off to college the writers grabbed the opportunity and made something of it.  Will it be enough to return to a more gritty interesting series, I doubt it although Season 9 has only recently been confirmed it will probably be another season of fighting and main characters dying.  It’s hard to see how it should or will go.  There will be a cross-over for Morgan between the Walking Dead and Fear the Walking Dead next year and that could be interesting.  Maybe that’s the way to go, have a kind of mini reboot, you know when a series starts and an episode is devoted to introducing us to a character.  Maybe do that, concentrate on some of the main characters and their new lives now.  I actually like the sections in The Stand when they are discussing laws, morality, justice and rebuilding the community, getting the electricity back and all that.  I would like to see a few episodes of the Walking Dead with the new community of Hilltop/Alexandria/The Kingdom coming together (maybe with some Saviours) and how they start rebuilding.


And this brings us nicely to Maggie.  Now there’s a woman large and in charge.  Her story is going to get very interesting, but it should have happened two seasons ago, too little too late probably, she should have stepped up when Glen had that lovely little party with Lucille but maybe now, AT LAST, Maggie will be master and commander of everything.

Walking Dead, new leaders, Michonne & Maggie

(images courtesy of AMC, the real people in charge now?)


Since the start of Season 7 (Glenn & Abraham’s date with Lucille) there have been 24 episodes of floundering.  The Negan story arch has gone on about 25 episodes too long.  Just move the frack on already.

We should exclude the whole of Season 7 from the canon of the series.  I’m really torn with giving a rating for the first half of Season 8 but I’m going with a 7 out of 10.  It’s just been too slow going anywhere, the flashback storytelling style has been really annoying and it should be Carl leading the new and improved Hilltoppers/Kingdomees & Alexandrians.



John The Captain Ryan

Friday, 8 December 2017

Reflective Blog (Thing 13)

Another Reflective post, I’ll be blogging about what I’ve done the last month and Things 10, 11 & 12 including networking, collaborating and my World Wide Web presence.

Reflection Time

I find blogging enjoyable and cathartic.  It’s an easy way to get your ideas onto “paper” and a great way to get your message out.  With a small amount of computer skills and a couple of months practice it’s possible FOR ANYONE to have something that looks good.  I remember trying to create an online presence for my local Scrabble Club about 12 years ago, this was before the likes of Blogger, Wordpress and ready-made websites like Go-Daddy.  It was a nightmare and that was even before you tried to upload some images and change the font.  Everything was so fiddly and time consuming.  Today with the use of Blogger you’re up and running in minutes.

My previous reflection concentrated on the look of my blog and I’ve played around with it a little since then, my favourite addition being the recent posts widget (note to self, write a short blog on tweaking the appearance of a blog) -  

Recent Blog Widget

I was aware another reflective blog was imminent so I did a mini mid-season reflection after 77 days and posted about it HEREThis purely looked at the stats; I concluded that to reach more of an audience I needed to concentrate on creating good content and share it across my social media platforms.  A well known saying is “write what you know” so I mostly stuck to writing about Scrabble and wrote these 4 blogs;

Scrabble & Literacy Skills viewed 261 times - HERE 

Introducing Scrabble at your library viewed 264 times - HERE 

Starting a new Scrabble Club viewed 54 times - HERE 

And I went all out combining a blog about Dogs at Christmas and Scrabble viewed 250 - HERE  

A Dog is for Life, Just like Scrabble


These four blogs together got 829 views by 7th December.  That’s a great success. They were shared across Facebook, Twitter & Instagram amongst several pages including those dedicated to Scrabble, Libraries and the SPCA.  I’ve also trying to encourage more collaboration between the Rudai23 participants. 

Thing 10 was setting up a Facebook or Twitter, I had great fun resurrecting my old Twitter account and have started tweeting my blogs with great success.  The blog covering this task is HERE 


Thing 11 task was to work on my personal online presence; I’ve written a new bio and updated my online presence.  For years I’ve always been aware of my online presence and with the scary fact that half of all future employers check out your online presence before an interview, I’ve always kept it clean and professional.  There are no videos of me getting drunk and doing stupid things.  My blog covering this is HERE . I’ve just started my LinkedIn page so will be working on that over the next couple of weeks.  This will take a while as I want to fill in all the jobs I have done, experiences and skills I have.  I will also be joining with others I know or that have the same jobs, experiences or hobbies.  This kind of work takes a lot of time, fine-tuning your account.  I’m aiming to have this complete by the end of the year.

Things 10 & 11 have helped me develop my digital footprint and I am happy with what is “out-there”.  When I finish tweaking my LinkedIn account in the next couple of weeks this will complete my personal brand and when I get it to a stage I am happy with it I will work on connecting with as many people as possible and of course sharing it across my social media platforms.   I find working on something like LinkedIn cannot be rushed and cannot be done in one sitting.  You need to look at what others have done but I do love the part of going through your CV and jogging your memory about all the things you can do.  I have a consistent message and most importantly I’m happy there is nothing on the web that I am embarrassed about.  However, at the end of the day I will be working with Wexford County Council so my online presence doesn’t matter when it comes to job promotions and interviews.    

Thing 12 is all about Collaboration so I discussed how the Wexworlds team collaborates HERE. I’m looking forward to using a new event planning application next year whilst putting together Wexworlds 2018.  I've also begun reaching out to other bloggers.

My Blog Stats at 8th December 2017


The slowing down of the tasks has helped me work on my blog a little more and develop my online presence. It would have been much more difficult to get to where I am without easing up on the deadlines.  In conclusion, I’m really happy with where by blogging is going and my ever developing online presence.  My blog has now over 3350 views with a massive amount of that traffic coming from Facebook.  I will need to use Twitter and Instagram a little more in the future so all my eggs are not in the one basket and hope to help others shares their blogs too.  A great way to get a blog noticed is cross promotion between other bloggers so I will be looking for a few other bloggers to do this with.

That’s me done for now.

John The Captain Ryan   

Collaborating (Thing 12)

Every year I help organise a Sci-fi convention – The Wexworlds Festival – and over the years we have used several tools to collaborate and share information.  


Did you work face to face, virtually or via a combination of the two?

Wexworlds Meetings and collaboration


We use a combination of both to share information and organise ourselves.  You really cannot beat meeting face-to-face so we schedule monthly meetings when we are about 10 months out, fortnightly meetings for the next couple of months and then have a meeting every week for the last 6 weeks before the event.  10 months out we are reviewing the previous year, updating our policies, aims and brainstorm the big ideas.  This wouldn’t work through any other method as the magic happens when a group of nerds get together and start bouncing ideas around. For day-to-day communication we use Facebook messenger, we have a group just set up for the committee and it’s very handy as we are all on Facebook and can bounce/reply really quickly.  We share documents on email, when we send an email to each other we put a quick message on messenger to alert each other to check your mail.   


Was your experience positive, negative or neutral?
You get out of a meeting or collaboration what you put into it.  That might sound silly, but just like making a presentation if you are prepared for the meeting it runs much better.  I do a lot of preparation beforehand and a have strict agenda otherwise the meeting gets sidetracked very easily as we start talking about the newest movie, TV series, development in technology/gaming etc.  We have the same core of volunteers now for 3 years so our meetings are very positive and we get a lot accomplished.  I think this is due to the fact we all work different schedules and it’s sometimes hard to organise a meeting so we know when we do get together we have to work really hard and stay focused. 

Did you use any of the tools outlined above?
We used Trello last year to plan our launch event but it didn’t work really well.  This is because some of the committee didn’t have reliable internet and we all have different levels of ability when it comes to technology.  We found going back to Facebook messenger was the best.  Two months out we did up a spreadsheet for our to-do-list, planning deadlines, promotion, advertising etc.  This was shared on email.  This is really good because you can see when item A needs to be finished as it affects items B, D, G & H.  It helps focus people and they can see clearly how any small job is part of the bigger machine. For the 2018 event we haven’t decided what to use but we have a new Events Manager on board who has experience using different event planning tools so we will see what they will introduce. 
 
If you had to do that project again what tools outlined above do you think would have been the most useful?
Ultimately, meeting face-to-face is still the best way to go.  For the 2018 festival we will be breaking into three teams, (1) Admin & finance team led up by the Treasurer, (2) Venue & Events team led by the Secretary and (3) Communications & Marketing team led by the PRO.

Wexworlds Teams


The three teams will meet independently & work regularly on assigned tasks.  Once per month the three team leaders will meet.  This means that most of the committee and volunteers are spending their limited, valuable time working on things for the festival rather than coming to meetings.  This, we think, will maximise time spent working on the project and minimise time spent at meetings.  As to what collaborative tools we will be using, we’ll  just have to wait and see what our new Events Manager introduces.  We will probably use Google Drive as all the committee can now use it.

That's it for now.

John The Captain Ryan

Thursday, 7 December 2017

Starting a new Scrabble Club

If you are thinking of starting a club, it’s quite easy.  Answer these questions and you will be well on your way...


Start a Scrabble Club
(credit: FOX network)


Rules & Dictionary?
See my previous post HERE for the basic rules and how to play duplicate Scrabble – a great variant for new players and groups.


Who?
Will you be catering for young or old people?  If you have young people what will the age limit be and be careful that the club does not turn into a "babysitting service".  If children are attending do you require a parent or guardian present and check you have the necessary child protection policies and vetting in place.  If you are going to cater for the mature generation ensure that all the necessary requirements are on the ground floor, with the least amount of steps to climb/descend.


Who else is out there?


All Ireland Scrabble Association

Your first port of call should be the All Ireland Scrabble Association – AISA. Find them at www.irishscrabble.org.  When you set-up a new club let AISA know.  It costs nothing and you get some promotion out of it.  It will also help new players and clubs keep in touch with what’s happening.  You can also find them on Facebook HERE (page) and HERE (group).  


Insurance?
Will you need public liability insurance or will the venue have insurance.  Sometimes a pub or hotel's insurance will cover your activities.  If you are going to use a community centre or public area you may need to get insurance. 


Formal or Informal?
I believe there is room for both, but that is of course only my opinion.  This is really up to you.  Normally both will not work together as you will have members that will be quite serious, and want to get on with playing Scrabble.  On the other hand you will have members that will enjoy the social side of the night out, having a laugh and a chat and playing Scrabble at the same time.  Of course you will have people that love Scrabble so much that they will participate whatever the setting is like.  This is really a question you need to ask all the members and decide what the majority want.

Aids?
Will the club allow aids.  That is to say will players be able to check words in the dictionary and lists before placing their word down.  There are 2 sides to this issue:   

One side is that if you allow people to use aids they may learn more, see words they can use and impart that knowledge onto others.  Of course this may lead to people to fish through the book trying to find that magic 7 letter word with 3 i's, 2 l's  etc.  

The other side is that if you do not allow aids, players will have to learn their words as quickly as possible and it will probably create more competition in the short run.  However, in the long run this may lead to the club member's vocabulary becoming stale and outdated and when new words are introduced, the club members will not become aware of the additions and may fall behind in national play. 


The first option is probable more suited to a new club starting out with fairly new members and the second option will probably suit long standing clubs. 

Visitors?
Will visitors be welcome to your club.  If they are, let AISA have a name, address and contact number so anyone travelling to your area can check in advance and join in your clubs activities.  Remember visitors - "When in Rome, do as the Romans". 


Cost?
Will you be charging a weekly admission fee, or a yearly membership fee, both or neither.  Don't forget that most people will want to see some return for their money or at least they will want to understand where the money is going.  Your club should not be really run at a profit, because that gets very complicated as you may have to register as a business, pay tax and things could get very complicated!! 


Copyright?
All material using the name/logo/design of Scrabble must include the following text - Scrabble® is a registered trademark of J.W. Spear & Sons Ltd., a subsidiary of Mattel Inc., © Mattel 2003. All rights reserved. 

I think that's about everything I can think of to get going but if you have any other queries send me an email at j.j.ryan2014@gmail.com

John The Captain Ryan

Tuesday, 5 December 2017

Declaration of the Rights of Boys & Girls – Book Review

I just came across this awesome book by Élisabeth Brami & Estelle Billon-Spagnol. Straight away it’s getting 10 out of 10 planets so you really have no need to read any further, but for those who are curious read on. I’m proud to say that Wexford Libraries have this title on their shelves.


Declaration of the Rights of Boys & Girl by Élisabeth Brami & Estelle Billon-Spagnol
(image from Little island)

Title: Declaration of the Rights of Boys and Girls
Authors: Élisabeth Brami & Estelle Billon-Spagnol
Publisher: Little Island Books
Ages: 3-100
ISBN: 9781910411278

It’s a delightful book challenging stereotypes of what boys and girls should do, their feelings, who they should love and how they should act.  It has funny descriptions of what jobs, hobbies and what they can wear.  It is quite frankly a book that every child from the age of 3 should have on their shelf.

It has one unusual aspect, the girl and boy sections are separate, you turn the book one way to read one side, flip it over to read the other.  Its funny how in writing, designing and publishing a book about equality and diversity that the girl and boy sections are separate but it’s not near enough to lose any rating points.

Declaration of the Rights of Boys & Girl by Élisabeth Brami & Estelle Billon-Spagnol
(image from Little island)

The illustrations are fun and cheerful, girls having the right to be dirty and boys having the right to wear pink.  I love the way it uses the format of “Articles”, just like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights with Article 15 for both boys and girls being

...The right to fall in love with anyone they like...

Declaration of the Rights of Boys & Girl by Élisabeth Brami & Estelle Billon-Spagnol


Amnesty International also supports the “declaration”, which debunks received ideas and stereotypes – a quirky list of invented rights, which reminds us how important it is to value equality for all.

Whilst a lot of work has been done to empower girls, yes they can be outspoken, strong and even astronauts we need to do a lot more work to show boys they can be compassionate, shy and (Article 10) "not to be muscly without being called a sissy”.  Ultimately, the book does a fantastic job of spreading a message of equality without being preachy or insulting to anyone’s faith.   There’s really not much else to say except buy it now.  A must read for all ages.




John The Captain Ryan

Monday, 4 December 2017

From Aardvarks Anoraks to Zebus Wet-suits (Thing 11)

Everything is on the internet

About me - John Cunningham Ryan

I've had a social media presence for over a decade at this stage, I had a Bebo account and since 2009 a Facebook account, I was very sick that winter and out of work so started playing Scrabble with people all over the World.  For me the 9 months of sickness was brightened up by Facebook and being able to connect with people from all over the World, at different times of the day and night.  There was a lady from California I regularly played Scrabble with, she only had a short window in the evening (her time) when the kids were eventually got to bed and for me I was awake all night so it made no difference. 

This was before businesses were using social media and the likes of LinkedIn.  I used to help run an LGBT social night in the mid naughties and remember promoting on Bebo and sharing photos.  How time flies, now the internet and social media is a huge promotional machine for everything from aardvarks anoraks to zebus wet-suits.  Every person, their dog, business, favorite hobby, pastime, TV series and book has it's own stand alone social media and internet presence.

In Thing 10 I set up my own LinkedIn account and am just learning about it.  One of the tasks in Thing 11 was to write your own bio.  I've done this and updated all my social media and presence on the internet with it.  I've even added a note on my Facebook account with my bio but as my Facebook account is strictly for friends only. this limits the exposure from Facebook.  I've filled in as much of this information as I can across the different platforms.  My bio is as follows:

John Cunningham-Ryan, aka John “The Captain” Ryan

Bio.
I’m 41, married since November 2016 and living in Wexford where I have lived most of my life. Since 2012, I have worked as a Library Assistant in Wexford County Council Public Library Service, prior to that I worked in different sections in Wexford County Council since the summer of 2001. I love working in the library service. I studied Business Studies (Hotel & Catering Management)at Athlone Institute of Technology & worked in many hotels, restaurants and even at a deli counter in a supermarket for 1995-2001.
I have worked for years with Wexford’s LGBT community and co managed the Equality Campaign in Wexford in 2015. Also since 2015 I have been a volunteer with the Wexworlds Festival; a sci-fi, fantasy, horror and gaming convention in Wexford. I am the Treasurer of Wexworlds. I started a blog in 2017, other hobbies include Scrabble, photography, reading and building lego.
John Cunningham-Ryan

That's me and my Thing 11

John The Captain Ryan

Friday, 1 December 2017

Introducing Scrabble at your library.

Why not start a Scrabble Club in your library?  Here are the basics and how to play a variation called DUPLICATE Scrabble which is a great QUICK method for a group of people to play & learn. (only 1 board needed)  


The Basics.

Each person pulls letter tiles at random from a bag.  You have 7 tiles to work from.  The objective of the game is to make the best word/score and play it on the board.  Words are placed in a straight line, reading from top-to-bottom or left-to-right.  At any stage the board should look like a crossword with every word on the board connecting to another.  When you connect a word to another it’s called a HOOK.  When a word is played, replenish your tiles by the number of tiles you played.  You should always have 7 tiles on your rack.

The Board & Scoring.


Placing a word across a premium square allows you to score more points as follows:

Light Blue - Double letter score, i.e double the score of THE TILE PLACED on the square
Dark Blue  - Triple letter score, i.e triple the score of THE TILE PLACED on the square

Pink - Double word score, i.e double the score of THE WHOLE WORD PLAYED
Red - Triple word score, i.e triple the score of THE WHOLE WORD PLAYED

Premium tiles are ONLY valid for the first move, i.e. you only score it once except for in move 4 below.

If you use all tiles on your rack AT THE SAME TIME you score an extra 50 points. (i.e. play a 7 letter word or maybe an 8 letter word hooking on to an existing letter)

If you haven’t played for a while, take out your scrabble board and play along.  First 3 moves below and their scoring.

Move 1. 


Move one must always play through the middle pink tile which is a DOUBLE WORD SCORE
DOG; 2+1+2=5 DOUBLED is 10. TURN SCORE = 10

Move 2.


SHARD played by sticking an S onto DOG.  Also get score for creating the word DOGS but DOGS does not get doubled.
SHARD; 1+4+1+1+2=9 DOUBLED is 18.  DOGS is 2+1+2+1=6. TURN SCORE; 18+6=24


Move 3.



Played DIXIE using the D on the board.  Double or Triple LETTER scores are always calculated BEFORE the WHOLE word is double or tripled.
DIXIE; 2+1+8+1+2 (E is worth one but is doubled on the double letter score) = 14. Whole word DOUBLED is 28. TURN SCORE = 28

As you can see the board is already starting to look like a crossword puzzle. The next 3 moves look like this.

Move 4. 



Played the word JOY.  Small two letter words are very useful as HOOKS.  Yes...DO & OY are allowed words.  This moves total score will include all 3 words JOY, DO & OY.  But note, the word played has all letters played in a straight line, I didn’t jump to a different part of the board to play some more tiles.

JOY; J is doubled and Y is doubled so 16+1+8 = 25
DO; 2+1=3
OY; Y is doubled so 1+8=9

TURN SCORE; 25+3+9 = 37


Move 5. 


Adding EN to JOY to get ENJOY; A player will really “enjoy” spotting this word.  The J & Y are not doubled again.

ENJOY; 1+1+8+1+4=15 TURN SCORE = 15

Move 6. 


Playing the word DETAILED using the E of DIXIE.  The E belonging to Dixie is not doubled again.

DETAILED; 2+1+1+1+1+1+1+2=10 TRIPLE WORD SCORE = 30
ALL TILES USED BONUS OF 50

TURN SCORE; 30+50 = 80

The Blanks


There are 2 blanks in the game.  These can be used as any letters so are very useful but scoring with them is a little different as they have a face value of ZERO.  See what move 3 would have scored by using a blank in DIXIE


The WHOLE word is still doubled but no individual score is recorded for the blank as an I.

DI*XIE; 2+0+8+1+2 = 13. DOUBLED = 26 TURN SCORE = 26

Words Allowed.

In general, all words except proper nouns are allowed, i.e. names of people, but there are many exceptions, for example JACK is a name but is also used to lift a car when changing a tire.  

The dictionary to use is the Collins Official Scrabble Words published in 2015. The library should use the family and friends version printed in 2008 - (ISBN 978-0007280834) There are several apps to download to check words.  A good one that is free can be found on the app store called "Scrabble Checker" and looks like this



Normally if a player plays a wrong word, the word is removed from the board and the player looses their turn.  For children and beginners you can relax the rule of losing a turn.

Exchange your tiles

A player can opt to exchange any number of tiles on their rack INSTEAD of playing a word on the board.  This can only be done if there are 7 or more tiles still in the bag.

End Game

The game is over when one of the following happens:

No tiles remain in bag and one player uses all the tiles on their rack.  In this case the face value of remaining tiles on opponents rack is subtracted from opponent score and added to the player who went out.

No other moves can be made.  In this case the face value of each player’s tiles is subtracted from their own score.

So, that’s enough to get started but here is a great variation to play with children and beginners in the library or classroom.

DUPLICATE SCRABBLE

Supplies: 1 x complete board.  Lots of paper to hand out. 
Set Up: Everyone sitting around a large table in view of the board.

* Leader pulls 7 tiles from bag and everyone writes down the 7 tiles (a bit like countdown)

* Leader starts a timer (egg timer or timer on phone).  Allow 3 minutes.

* When the timer goes off each player writes down their word and declares it.

* Leader places the different words on the board and helps people add up the score.

* The highest word remains on the board.

* Leader should replenish tiles from bag to a total of 7 tiles.  If remaining tiles are dreadful leader can opt to choose 7 new tiles and throw rubbish back in.

(Another option is that leader could have nice selections pre-prepared with the blank and usable combinations)

This a great way to see what words everyone found and gets everyone playing.  It’s also a quick way of playing, play as many rounds as you like but if you play about 6 rounds the whole thing will be finished in about 30 minutes.  It’s also a great way to learn strategy, particularly if you have a couple of really strong players in the group.  This is the best way to get beginners and children playing, nobody gets bored and it’s finished fairly quickly.


Best of luck everyone and email me if you have any queries @ j.j.ryan2014@gmail.com

John The Captain Ryan





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