Glyffix Play
Technology in education, or edtech as it is often called, is an incredible trend that the world is quickly embracing. Activity in the edtech space abounds. More specifically, games in education continue to increase as teachers and children alike are demon
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28. GLYFFIX PLAY A Modern Image-Based Form of Language Play
INTRODUCTION
Technology in education, or edtech as it is often called, is an incredible trend that the world is quickly embracing. Activity in the edtech space abounds. More specifically, games in education continue to increase as teachers and children alike are demonstrating the value of play in learning. Play undoubtedly provides an effective method for learning by children. As David Crystal (1996) eloquently points out in his paper about language play and linguistic intervention: “language play is at the core of early parent-child interaction” and “given the amount of play in pre-school child society, a principled transition in early readers might enable children to move from a world in which language play is so important to a world where language play has been so marginalized” (pp. 340–341). With respect to language play, I would like to introduce you to a language play solution that is modern, visual, puzzling, logical and frustratingly fun – it is called Glyffix. I am A. J. Funn, the author of Glyffix, and I have been doing language play with my children for more than 15 years. Glyffix derives its name from hieroglyphics and is a modern day play on “words hidden in pictures”. Glyffix embraces technology and gamification trends and wraps language play in a modern visual and playful puzzle language where “readers” and “writers” alike can communicate and learn at the same time. In its simplest form, Glyffix offers a single image or “glyf” representing a single English word or symbol. 1 In the example below, the glyfs, translated, reveal the phrase “I like you”.2
This Glyffix example is simple, visually appealing, and arguably more engaging than reading the simple printed phrase “I like you”, which, by the way, is also a set of images and symbols strung together that our minds have learned to be able to decipher quickly over the years.
J. B. Cummings & M. L. Blatherwick (Eds.), Creative Dimensions of Teaching and Learning in the 21st Century, 277–285. © 2017 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved.
D. VANDENBORRE
Glyffix has the ability to engage learners while developing several essential skills including children’s language, numeracy, computer, visual and decoding and problemsolving skills. Glyffix’s mobile games have shown improvement in learners’ analysis, prediction, spelling, phonics, vocabulary, and reading skills. Glyffix is visually stimulating, but the real beauty of the language is in the learning that comes with its play. Glyffix is not a brand-new concept, but an evolutionary iteration and variation of a language play concept that has been around for many years and in many forms called Rebus. With a modern Rebus, a single visual is often designed to represent encoded phrases. Below are examples of Rebus that reveal phrases:
Answer: Top Secret Answer: Once in a blue moon Answer: No Time to lose
There are plenty of Rebus puzzles similar to this online, but my favourite Rebus resource is an automatic translator found at MyRebus.c
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