BGA in the classroom

[datab]

Hi folks,

A teacher here, trying to figure out if I can use BGA in the classroom.
(1) I’ve got a premium account so I can get past the “same IP” issue.
(2) I could “friend” the class and do friend invites or invitation links.
(3) I can set up a game and have one student play on my account.

But.. if I want the whole class to play I’d need [numStudents/numPlayers] premium accounts all doing steps 1-3 above.

Am I missing anything? Has anyone actually got this happening? Multiple accounts/games I mean.

(I’m contemplating using BGA for an interschool tournament but wanted the kids to be able to practice first)

Cheers, Simon.

[RicardoRix]

I wonder if you can setup a private tournament and invite everyone. It might get passed the 1 premium / table restriction you have, since it is setting up the tables automatically for you.

[Blacktango]

Keep in mind that you have no restriction if you don't play premium games (which are many on the site)

[nik592]

Keep in mind that you have no restriction if you don't play premium games (which are many on the site)

I think the issue with the premium account is due to the fact that all players will be on the same IP, and you need at least one premium account per table to do that.

[Kishkumen]

Did this work for you? How did you get around the 100 ELO rating for participants who are brand new to BGA??

[turtler7]

You can definitely create a tournament and invite the participants to it to avoid any issues about the same IP just using the tournament creator as the only premium member.

You will need to set the tournament up to restrict the group that can join it.
You will need to set the tournament start time to something where everyone can join it then it launch at a decent time.
You will need to invite each player individually so that any under the 100 Elo limit for tournaments in that game can still join despite not meeting that requriement.
You will need to send the players the main tournament page link since the "you have been invited to a tournament" thing is not always reliable. If they manually visit the page with the direct link it will let them click to register.

The final downside of this is that the next round will not start until all games have finished or if using harsher time limits might time out games that were not complete within the round time window forcing forfeits as it moves on to the next round.

[datab]

Thanks for the detailed description turtler7. I’d dumped it in the too hard basket. Time to take it out and give it a try! Cheers.

[datab]

Just for anyone else reading this topic... you can indeed set up a tournament as described by turtler7 but unfortunately games only work if there's at least one premium member. (Otherwise it flicks the last player to the "become premium" screen and won't let the game start). So not useful in the classroom. Oh well...