Posted on 142 Comments on Gamification in Education

Gamification in Education

What is Gamification?

Gamification is defined as “the use of game design elements in non-game contexts.” ¹ In other words, it is the use of game theory and mechanics as a way to make a task more engaging. It could be collaborative or competitive and can be found in more in more contexts, such as in businesses and in education.

gamification

Why Use it in My Classroom?

Gamification is gaining more traction in the education arena as a technique to motivate and engage learners. It is one technique to bring active learning in to the classroom. By keeping learners more motivated and engaged, the learning process is enhanced.

Some ways in which education can be gamified is to introduce Badges or Achievements in to the learning process. This incentivizes learners to perform well and achieve accomplishments.

How Can I Bring Gamification to the Classroom?

Some ways to incorporate gamification in the classroom include:²

  • Achievements: One way of using achievements is to have a points system that students can earn and cash in those points at the end of a semester for a reward.
  • Badges: Students can earn badges or certificates of achievement that can be displayed. In online education, badges can be electronic displays in the Learning Management System.
  • Levels: This overlaps with the badge system and can be used to “unlock” opportunities based on achievements.
  • Leaderboards: This also uses a point system to show a ranking of students with one another and should be used in a way where students have opportunities to progress to the top, so that students lower in the ranking system still have incentive to boost their score. An example of this could be a point system awarded for students interacting on a class blog and different point scales for different items, such as points for initial posts and points for commenting on classmates blogs.

Where Can I Learn More?

Thank you to Elliot Bristow at The Edublogger and The Innovative Instructor Blog for providing information on Gamification in education. Be sure to check out their websites.

Do you have any best practices in gamification? Be sure to share your experiences in the comments section.

¹ http://gamification-research.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/01-Deterding-Sicart-Nacke-OHara-Dixon.pdf

² https://www.theedublogger.com/2015/01/20/gaming-in-education-gamification

 

Posted on 70 Comments on Presentations with Movenote

Presentations with Movenote

Are you looking for an easy-to-use presentation recording tool? Movenote is a nifty tool that can be used by anyone to create a presentation with video and audio. It can be used by students in the online classroom to record a PowerPoint presentation with audio and video and can then be shared with the instructor, as well as the class. It helps create a more dynamic presentation than just having students submit a PowerPoint presentation. Also, it allows for a similar experience to the brick and mortar classroom presentations, by allowing students to record a presentation that can be viewed by classmates without having to choose a time for everyone to be online for live presentations. This is especially useful if students in the classroom are from various time zones.

To learn how to use Movenote, watch this video tutorial:

You can find more information on Movenote’s website too.

Feel free to comment if you have any further examples of how Movenote can be used.