» Gamification in Education: Epic Win, or Epic Fail? Have you ever felt that each move you made in life was part of a bigger game? These days it just may be, as a trend referred to as “gamification” has swept industries as diverse as marketing, travel, and even education. While turning everything into a game sure seems like fun, it’s not as easy as it sounds. This article will explore the trend towards gamification, as well as some of its criticism.WHAT IS GAMIFICATION? “Games are the most elevated form of investigation.” Gamification is a strategy by which ordinary processes are infused with principles of motivation and engagement inspired by game theory. While games have been a popular activity throughout history, the Internet and social networking have inspired a whole new wave of players actively engaged in daily gameplay. What is it that attracts so many people to become so deeply engaged in these virtual environments? “Game design isn’t just a technological craft. But wait! “Gamification is the wrong word for the right idea.
Can Playing Video Games Help With Dyslexia? By Linda Poon, NPR Most parents prefer that their children pick up a book rather than a game controller. But for kids with dyslexia, action video games may be just what the doctor ordered. Dyslexia is one of the most common learning disabilities, affecting an estimated 5 to 10 percent of the world’s population. So programs should emphasize training the brain’s attention system, they say, something that video games do. When people with dyslexia had to shift their attention between sight and sound, their reaction was delayed. “It’s not just shifting attention from one location to another, but we should also be training shifting attention from sound to visual stimuli and vice versa.” “It’s not just shifting attention from one location to another, but we should also be training shifting attention from sound to visual stimuli and vice versa,” Harrar, who is dyslexic herself, tells Shots. The study was published Feb. 13 in Current Biology, Copyright 2014 NPR. Related
Gamification in Education: Top 10 Gamification Case Studies that will Change our Future New to Gamification? Check out my post What is Gamification & my Gamification Framework: Octalysis Education Gamification in Action. There’s a lot of potential in the field of Education Gamification. I believe that humans have an innate Desire to learn. If you ask children, “What is work?” Clearly there should be a way to help kids learn from what they do best – play. No longer viewed as a mundane process for presenting information while testing for retention and understanding, the modern educational challenge involves tasks of engaging students, stimulating their interests, retaining their attention, and maintaining a positive attitude in a nurturing environment Key to these goals is the effort to maintain a rich communications environment that encourages feedback and reinforcement, not only between the instructor/teacher and students, but also between the students themselves. Education Gamification Example #1 – DuoLingo:Learn a language while translating the Web What about you?
ClassBadges Is A Free Way To Gamify Your Classroom Looking to find a new, simple, and free way to gamify your classroom? There a new web tool out that you should probably know about. It’s called ClassBadges and it’s a free online tool where teachers can award badges for student accomplishments. Teachers can set up an account and award the badges whenever they wish. Pretty straightforward. Request an invite to create an account (it looks like right now, they’re working on handling a higher capacity of users), and once you do, you’ll be able to create a class list. You’re able to choose what badges are awarded (and they’re customizable!) See Also: The 50 Best Videos For Teachers Interested In Gamification
Defining competencies via Gamification Build out Learning Competencies through a Gamification Strategy – something simple and something that works! Competency development is one of the most foundational and tricky areas of learning. Building out good competencies- which map to good learning, that map to good assessment- allows for a full feedback model that you can use to track learner development and understand and address knowledge gaps. The challenge with delivering training on a competency model after it is built out is that often times it is presented in a way that is much too formal for the average learner to get much use out of. Many times you have built excellent terminal and enabling objectives, fantastic performance objectives and have spent a good deal of time mapping everything to a learning plan with assessments and gap assessment models built in. A strategy that I really like and have implemented in the past is to build out a Gamification model that maps competencies into tangible elements. Assign Points: Author:
How to teach punctuation You might also try putting a period at the end of a “thought.” And what about semi-colons and colons? Well…maybe those are for exceptionally long breaths and thoughts? 1Attack the Old BeliefI’ll stop short of saying telling students “Forget everything you learned before about punctuation,” but I think a good starting place is finding out what students already know.
Gamification increases engagement and retention levels - HRreview Gamification is on the rise and has become one of business’ recent buzzwords. But what are we talking about? Defined as the use of game design mechanisms in non-gaming contexts, the term gamification was first introduced in 2002 by computer programmer Nick Pelling. The concept, which borrows elements from game thinking, has been recently used to address challenges in different fields, such as recruitment, learning, employee engagement, and retention. Although the idea behind gamification has been around for a while, it is only in the last four years that attention has grown exponentially – up to the point that some critics report an abuse of the term. What seems to be evident is that gamification has brought tangible benefits to business, such as the ability to reach a larger audience, connect with prospective employees, and promote employer branding. The applications listed above should have given a hint of the potential of gamification for business purposes. Article by Sergio Russo
How to Apply Gamification in Education | Tablets For Schools Gamification, and the gamification of education in particular, is a huge and complex area. We have written about gamification in the past (in the form of educational apps that gamify subjects such as maths or languages). But what is the theory behind gamification? And what is the best way for educators to actually create gamified versions of traditional subjects? Here’s a very quick introduction to a trending topic we will explore more in 2014. What is Gamification? Gamification involves introducing game design thinking to areas that aren’t traditionally games. How Does Gamification Work? However, gamification, despite the name, is about much more than making boring subjects “fun” – though this is the common perception. There is also a positive bias toward constant learning – the more the student knows about the subject (ie, the mathematical formulas), the better they become at the game. (*) Image courtesy of Gwyneth Anne Bronwynne The Process of Creating Gamified Learning
Gamification in Education The breakthrough happened after the student took the Bartle's Gamer Profile Quiz and we found out that he was a "killer." Off-the-charts killer, but achievement meant nothing to this student. Just like grades. No, we haven't identified the next school shooter, and I sure wish that Bartle hadn't named one of the four gamer profiles "killer" -- but nonetheless, this student identified with this profile. Jane McGonigal mentioned it in her Gaming Can Make a Better World TED Talk when she discussed an epic meaning. My so-called "killer" student (and we really should rename this when applying it to education!) My ninth grade students have partnered on an epic quest with grad students at the University of Alaska Southeast and members of the Gamifi-ED OOC to study serious games, create an encyclopedia of serious games, and ultimately to create their own serious game in Minecraft. 1. Game mechanics are part of game theory. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Endgame: Finding a "Killer" Tool