New Home Forums Community, Engagement & Gamification Gamifying Education

22 replies, 7 voices Last updated by  Bella602 6 years, 6 months ago
Viewing 15 posts - 1 through 15 (of 23 total)
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  • #23545

    Andy Freist
    Mountain Guide
    @andyfreist

    Here is an awesome little video that explains some of the nuts and bolts of how education can be gamified (and why is SHOULD be gamified)

    Thoughts? Ideas?

    #23553

    Caroline
    Adventurer
    @calliope6

     

    YES. Totally. In my world teaching music to very young children is always about play – I mean that is the beauty of music – music is all about play – I mean the best way to learn is to play 🙂 . Thanks for posting this video I love the idea of the gains and successes of each student help the collective group of students. That was the big thing for me. Also the point about agency and control. Yes this is brilliant – and yes you are right education should be gamefied. My gf put wokoman on my phone (I protested) But making my piece of toast called Mr. Bakey grow in order to get other characters has doubled my weekly walking and leaves my motorbike unused!

    #23609

    Dr.Wayne Buckhanan
    Adventurer
    @waynebuckhanan

    A colleague and I spent quite a but of time over the last 3 years decoupling the points and the grade with the same “count up, not down” philosophy. We didn’t get as far as developing all the actual tasks students could “grind” on to earn more points, but we definitely put in the basic design time.

    Our core focus was on how to get students to do the things that will build their skills without it being about points that go directly to their grade. This has obvious implications for adult learning, but is a different beast since our tribe will not be working towards the grade nor will they have a limited amount of time to do it (unlike the school year!).

    Add in the need for prompt feedback and being able to self-select the topics and you’ve got fun things to design a course around!

    #23611

    Sharyn Warren
    Adventurer
    @SharynWa

    This is excellent, Andy! I’m also going to share this on FB, if that is OK? My grandson with pretty severe ADHD is a gaming whiz kid. I think that part about “agency” is really, really important. I’m also mulling over how to better incorporate these concepts into my course. I ran an Inner Fire Scavenger Hunt 2 years ago to try to build my list. That was underwhelmingly unsuccessful, but I did learn a lot. 1. The little bit of actual gamification that I was able to pull off was fun and engaging for my participants. 2. The point system was too onerous. 3. People who say (and believe) they don’t have time or energy for time consuming or challenging courses actually have plenty of time and energy if the activity of learning is fun enough. Thanks for this.

    #23830

    Lisa R
    Adventurer
    @lisa.russell

    This is a really refreshing conversation, particularly for someone who has come from 8 years of working in a subsection of online education that can’t even process that new educational models are out there!

    I’m really taken with the idea of infusing mystery and I’m going to think about how I can embed that into my course. I also think agency is important, particularly when addressing transformations where the starting point can feel helpless.

    I’m not sure about the idea of restricting high achievers’ progress until they’re able to bring on those who are struggling in the group (assuming I interpreted that bit correctly – it’s late and I’m sleepy!). Don’t get me wrong, it’s feels like a noble and valuable idea, but I think people appreciate being able to learn at their own pace in online education and it would be frustrating to be held back as much as it’s frustrating to fall behind where you’d like to be. So I’m now wondering how we can hold the needs of individuals in the communities we create, as well as the needs of the group, and should one take precedence over the other? For me, it feels like the group, community experience, though crucial to the journey, supports the primary, individual transformation, rather than the other way round.

    Such an interesting conversation. I need to think about this some more!

    🙂

     

    #23872

    Bradley Morris
    Mountain Guide
    @bradleytmorris

    I really appreciate you bringing these questions to the table @lisa.russell because for our beta 2.0 group that’s starting June 27th, we are discussing some of these questions:

    1. Do we make it so that a new checkpoint opens every two weeks (similar to this time) OR do we make it so people can work at their own pace. It can take them 3 months to get to the top or it can take them 12 months.

    2. How do we create the feeling of “tribe” in a big community? We are thinking about creating camps, kinda like how in Harry Potter they had houses. Each camp would do camp challenges and work up the mountain in a supportive vision with closed circle masterminds, etc…

    3. Do we make it so people have to submit some form of homework or complete a challenge before graduating to the next checkpoint?

    Feedback and thoughts on this are welcome.

    The goal is to increase engagement, connection and the quality of what each adventurer creates.

    Loving this convo!

    #23874

    Andy Freist
    Mountain Guide
    @andyfreist

    @calliope6 – I totally hear you on the idea that music is all about play. Just this last weekend I had a deep-dive studio session with a friend of mine, and we tapped into a space of pure joy and uninhibited expression. We felt like children who were simply playing, creating worlds of sound. That is indeed my happy place. I strive to create that sort of playful environment in the elearning world. And so my question to both you and me is “what is it about music that brings about that playfulness, and how can we apply that to e-learning experiences?”

    @waynebuckhanan – That is awesome! I am really resonating with the “count up, not down” philosophy. I’m with you on the fact that adult learning is a different beast – especially online adult learning. One thing I want to point out that you mentioned about is how having a time-frame (the school year) is effective. We are actually seeing that the engagement factor of The Great eCourse Adventure may be much higher if we implement a “must complete by” timeframe for the course. We are noticing a lot of people will go on “stand by” mode for extended periods of time, then its quite a process for them to get back in the swing of things. So we are definitely looking at ways to implement this in our course 🙂

    @sharynwa – Yes, absolutely you can share it! If you click the title of the video it will take you to the actual youtube page where you can easily share it. Yes, agency is so crucial because it creates a real sense of (healthy) self-importance. It makes the player/student feel like their participation actually matters – and it matters to more than just them, but to their fellow players. And yes I totally agree – no one has “enough time”, though we certainly make time for the things we want to do.

    @lisa.russell – Thanks for your lovely reply 🙂 I hear you on your point about not wanting to restrict high-achievers progress, though I think you may have misunderstood the idea. What I heard there was the idea of creating challenges/awards/higher levels of achievement that are only possible when the entire group achieves something. So high-achievers aren’t kept from winning the game, its simply that there are higher levels of achievement available if (as a bonus) if the entire group wins together 😉

    Loving this thread!!!!! Go team!!!!

    #23891

    Lisa R
    Adventurer
    @lisa.russell

    @andyfriest – I like the way you put it better than the way it came across to me in the video!

    @bradleytmorris – Great questions! For me, number 1 is easy to answer – I feel that people should be allowed to complete at their own pace. People have different amounts of time they can dedicate to their learning. It would be hard on the ones who had less time if they felt that they weren’t meeting ‘expectations’, somehow, even if this weren’t overtly said, because they could be working really hard in the time they did have. (Can you tell that I’m one of the ones who doesn’t have much time?!). To borrow from the fable, there are hares and tortoises in all kinds of learning; online education is in the GREAT and enviable position of being able to honour both.

    For 2, I like the idea of camps. How many people are you imagining in each one? It feels like it could be like having a little wolf pack to run around the mountain, hunt and howl at the moon with…

    3 is interesting and I think learning style could be important here. For example, I like to do things in a linear way, completing something and only then moving on. But I know that @waynebuckhanan went through all the materials for a first swoop, and is now coming back and working through everything again. And there could be other ways that other people are moving through the content. Now that there are Bajillion attached to completing things, this could change the conversation again, as you wouldn’t want people whizzing through, getting all the $ and then getting nothing when they go back and do the work for real, so yes, maybe requiring submission of something at each stage before $ are awarded could be a good plan.

    Also, have you guys ever played Candy Crush (?!)? They had a map with all the levels on it where you could see little pictures showing where other people were. Given that you already know how competitive the gamification makes me, I know you won’t think less of me when I say that it was soooooo satisfying to move past someone on the map! What about setting up the GEA checkpoints on an actual map, a bit like the ones we print out for our tent walls?

    🙂

    #23900

    Dr.Wayne Buckhanan
    Adventurer
    @waynebuckhanan

    @andyfreist, the time limits of a school term are a mixed blessing. They definitely add a component of pressure to get things done. They also embody a sense of artificial finality that comes from being permanently judged on a temporary ignorance (or a temporary ability to regurgitate facts in some cases). I lost momentum early here when you guys had that gap between the first three modules and the next ones.

    I think the “every two weeks” releases of content are really artificial and a “one size fits some” solution. I’m cool with content not being available until I’ve done the work. I also want to be able to move forward while I’ve got the momentum. I wonder if there is a balance to be had in the email sequences prompting people to take the next step balanced with some real time constraints of live calls focused on specific modules that each “camp” or “cohort” have access to together.

    And with your current plans to keep the community open year-round and only open trips up the mountain every so often, that might work well. Maybe even encourage those who are still sitting at the base of the mountain to join in the next group that is going up at a decent pace. The option for those who have been around to join a given trek could be nice for many people — some going for the first time, others as veterans who can help keep folks on the trail and/or who just like making the trip up the mountain with other people rather than “by themselves.”

    Okay, time to go teach in person! More thoughts on this soon, I’m sure.

    #23905

    Sharyn Warren
    Adventurer
    @SharynWa

    Follow up thoughts. I am all over the checkpoints with my course creation. I have really, really appreciated having them: 1. parsed out every 2 weeks. Giving me the sense that things do take time AND that 2 weeks (under the right circumstances) is pretty reasonable. 2. by being able to move ahead, then go back–actually weave back and forth between the checkpoints–I am able to maintain my creative momentum better then when I try the more linear “Do this. Now do this. Next do this.” approach. Turns out linear structure–which is available here–is deadly for me. Structure that allows for flowing back and forth–which is available here–is much more enabling for my style of creativity. Along with the philosophy that you and Brad have consistently offered which is: where ever you are on the mountain is the right place for you, have no fear, there is no shame here–it’s not a freaking Iron Man competition, keep going, we’re here to help–and hopefully fellow climbers will lend a hand as the need arises too.

    I started out doing each lesson as it was posted. Then I got stuck. But I watched each video, read each lesson, did what I could, marked it “Complete” and moved on to the next as it was released. I find that encountering and doing the things that I can easily do is keeping me able to keep tackling the ones that are ass-busters. Sometimes those easier tasks are placed higher up the mountain, sometimes they are further back. But by picking up the threads as I can do them, and seeing the big picture without become overwhelmed by thinking I have to tackle the big picture all at once, I am gaining traction better than if I try to do each one exactly as you have ordered them.

    Structure and organization–including gamification–that supports the level of creativity required for the kind of e-courses we are inventing, is different than structure and organization that is helpful, say, for putting a table together. Although more people might actually read the directions for putting a table together BEFORE they botch it up, if it was more fun. And not a timed competition for who can get it done fastest.

    Last thought. I am not sure how it would work, except as possibly a challenge. But having the means by which  participants in the course can (fairly easily) practice kindness, generosity, encouragement of others so that everyone is raised up will elevate the quality of this course, the forums, and each person who contributes without necessarily thinking “what’s in it for me.” Talk about a novelty in the marketing world. 😉

    #23920

    Caroline
    Adventurer
    @calliope6

    Totally resonating with what @sharynwa has just written. I found the linear thing also deadly and also a bit onerous – I lost my enthusiasm and joy to create the courses that I had loads of ideas for, and when I restarted with fresh zest I am finding it much better to zap between stuff. For me content is not a problem. or ideas of how to make the course invitational – which is a reply to the great question Andy Freist posed – what is it about music that makes it play? It is the invitation – the call and response mechanism that is playful and instinctive. But I am a slow one – and often need time to integrate and process ideas. I can deal with technic stuff  – I built quite a good wordpress website from watching you tube videos but it takes me AGES….A bit of pressure is good – too much is counterproductive. I think you guys have got a great balance on this.

    I think the gaming aspect is a fantastic way of building a sense of community and teamage, and the little challenges you are introducing are excellent.

    Yes yes xxxx

     

    #23969

    Andy Freist
    Mountain Guide
    @andyfreist

    Here’s another great video. Games make the world a better place 🙂

    #24005

    Sharyn Warren
    Adventurer
    @SharynWa

    The Yu-Kai Chou Video is excellent. Thanks for sharing this one, Andy. My tribe is clearly driven by Core Drive #1: Epic Meaning & Calling. Also #3: Empowerment of Creativity and Feedback and #2 Development and Accomplishment.

    Now to figure out how to use that information!

    #24028

    Andy Freist
    Mountain Guide
    @andyfreist

    Thanks Sharyn 🙂 Yes, his video is great!

    Have you seen his website/work? http://yukaichou.com/

    He has an entire gamification system that I am excited to dig into. I bet you could find some golden nuggets over there to help you apply these concepts to your courses.

    We will of course be doing A LOT of experimentation ’round these parts and sharing our discoveriess with all of you 🙂

    #24061

    Dr.Wayne Buckhanan
    Adventurer
    @waynebuckhanan

    @andyfreist, are you going to play along with his upcoming 3-day event?

    He certainly has me intrigued with his 5 levels talk, especially since I’ve only seen 3 of the 5 described!

    There are so many great looking models for gamification out there. It will be fun exploring them with the rest of the mountain climbers here!

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