Gamification

 

What is Gamifacation?

Means that educators apply game design elements to an educational setting. The goal is usually to make learning more engaging.

 

Here are a few of the most common game elements seen in successful products.

Purpose: is all about instilling the sense that you are specially chosen for an epic quest and are contributing to something larger than yourself. This often is communicated through narrative.

Progress: refers to an indication that you are overcoming obstacles and getting closer to your goal. This often takes the form of points, levels, boss battles and progress bars.

Pressure: is created by promoting urgency to take action, the fear of losing or the feeling that you can’t turn back now. Countdown timers, streaks and scarce collectibles are all examples of pressure in action.

Position: in gamification means there is a way to showcase your accomplishments and compete with — or compare yourself to — other peers or players. It shows up in activities by way of trophy shelves, badges and leaderboards.

Play: refers to the sensation of fun, pleasure and surprise. Typical examples of play include easter eggs, branching choices, exploration and customization.

Benefits of Gamification:

Cognitive development in adolescents.

Using gamification to aid in cognitive development will allow an increase in the activity of the regions of the brain to allow for adequate development. Games that are produced specifically for enhancing cognitive development are often referred to as "brain games.

Aids in physical development:

Exercising with an interactive game is just as effective as normal exercise. This form of exercise will be very beneficial in adolescents that enjoy playing video games but are not currently physically active. There are many long-term benefits to being active

 

Increases level of engagement in classrooms:

Scientists performed a study to measure the level of engagement students displayed when utilizing gamification in the classroom.3 The researchers assigned a point system to various daily class activities. Then the students were measured based on their level of engagement. The researchers found that the game-like atmosphere was favorable in the classroom and increased productivity.

 

Aids in accessibility in the classroom:

Gamification can be used as a teaching tool to educate adolescents of all needs. Scientists studied the effectiveness of using gamification in the form of a video game to teach students diagnosed with autism.4 The results of this study showed that this training package was effective in teaching age-appropriate content through gamification.

 

Isn't limited to the classroom:

Gamification is not limited to the classroom but can be used in learning outside the classroom. Perhaps you break up your child's math homework into sections. The child will then level up after completing each section to get hints that will solve a riddle.

 

 

Create classroom avatars: If many of your students play games that let the player create characters, you could have your students create alter-egos that they can personalize and build upon. They can “unlock” clothes and modifications by completing class tasks or develop different skill sets such as “engineer” or “historian” that you can turn into custom projects.

Award badges: This can range from handing out simple printed badges after completing an assignment to having yearlong online leaderboards. When deciding what sorts of badges to award students, be sure to think about all of your students. Focus on rewarding healthy learning habits, such as staying focused or persisting through failure, instead of simply rewarding good grades.

Turn learning into class quests: Give students agency and motivation by turning learning objectives into quests! These can be solo quests (e.g., “Speak to the music teacher and collect three facts about Italian music”) or class-wide quests (e.g., “Read 100 books”). You can give students options for which quests to go on to not only differentiate learning but also offer them more control over their learning. You could even create a class-wide quest board that encourages collaboration.

Connect classic games to school subjects: Certainly plenty of teachers have turned chapter reviews into quiz game shows. But you can work with any games you have access to. Consider modifying a property-acquisition game you like so that the properties are historical landmarks. Or have students play a word game but reward certain categories of vocabulary words.

Examples of applications:

Kahoot: Quiz lesson  

Duolingo: Streaks for daily lessons

Greenlight: Points for saving money etc