Thursday, October 27, 2011

Gaming in education

Today I attended a seminar at Penn State about gaming in the classroom. This was presented by Chris Stubbs.
  • Games can integrate and add value to lessons.
  • All games can be use in education

What is a game like element?
  • needs  to be compelling
  • can be used to alter motivation
  • piece of a game that adds something to it
  • objectives - can be overall objective, can be spelled out or subtle embedded within a game
  • scaffolding - gives a player enough information to play, but not so much that it keeps them from playing. (WOW- great example), constantly reuse skills or topics learned and reflect, start off easy, use it!
  • expression and progression - progression bars, meters, fill up bars, level up
  • feedback - sound cues, grades, meters, numerical, fail or “die”, progress, success
  • competition
  • achievements  - badges, developer creator goals, objectives of the game (mini quests), about feedback, accomplishment, positive reinforcement, allow for reflection, shareable and social
  • narrative - gives background information, gives context, story telling
  • role play
  • choice - character, reactions, gives ownership to players
  • fixed rewards
  • interval rewards
  • lottery
  • modifiers
  • ownership
  • status
  • ranking


Gamification  - takes pieces of games to make it more compelling (improve engagaement or change behavior) - takes these elements and use in different contexts

How can we use these elements in the classroom?
  • Attendance
    • Extra credit ball - 4 x a semester a ball is tossed out (inside the ball are numbers) the ball gets tossed out into the crowd a student picks a number, whatever number is pulled, that's the number of extra credit points is given that day to students.
    • A code is embedded in a presentation to unlock quizzes or extra credit points given to students who attend class
  • Experience and meters
    • Start out with an F in course, each item handed in then meter goes up, shows progression throughout course
  • Give objectives that are clear (a rubric)
  • Blogs - start a leader board (based on comments) - bring your A game to a blog post


Risks
  • extrinsic motivation
  • competition doesn’t work for everyone
  • over justification effect - constant feedback etc. ask to do without an extrinsic reward - the motivation is at times lost
  • privacy - use systems that are not all about grades, most items are not required


Examples of frameworks that already have this to import into your class:

2 comments:

  1. I want to always read your blogs. I love them Are you also searching for Nursing case study writing services? we are the best solution for you. We are best known for delivering Nursing case study writing services to students without having to break the bank

    ReplyDelete
  2. I want to always read your blogs. I love them Are you also searching for Nursing thesis writing services? we are the best solution for you. We are best known for delivering Nursing thesis writing services to students without having to break the bank

    ReplyDelete