The New Trend in Education :Gamification

Erdem Öztürk Muğla University/Anadolu University

Nowember 2013

INTRODUCTION

In Education,students need to be motivated in all

aspects.Cause,what lead them to complete learning and

internalizing lies behing their inner motivation for the

challenge they are being faced. So,because of this fact

researchers have been studying on the things that can push

students into a better and more qualified mood of learning.It

should have been something that will capture their attraction and

willingness on the subject.After a while,it turned out that this

things could not be something different than games.

Young learners have a really few resistance to boring

classes and teachers.It is in their nature,you can not change

this easily.Especially,if you are foreign language teacher.the

difficulties you are going to face with become double.Cause, you

need to find something that will make strange words and concepts

familiar to the students.At this point,most of the responsibility

remains to the teacher.Teacher should show his or her students 1

something which will promote both their attention and

ambition.While doing this the best thing that a teacher can make

use of is gaming.

Gaming would be a great material for an teachers.But there

is something that teachers should not miss; you can not use

gaming in all your class activities.Because;you may not be

successful in teaching some of the topics in schedule only by

using gaming.Some subjects may require more detailed work.At that

point ‘’Gamification’’ steps in to the breach.

At this article,I will try to tell you what gamification

is,why it is used for,the implications of it in learning and

worldwide examples on it’s use.

Definition: What is gamification?

Gamification simply means applying game –like teaching

methods to classrooms.Game-like stands for stating that these

methods are enjoyable but not actually a game.Students will have

aims to fulfill and points to reach at.Between the points of

start and finish,students will have to deal with the tasks they

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were asked due to current education schedule.They will take

rewards and punishments(Punishments that will slow or push them

back in the process.).For example; it will be possible for them

to gather badges and get level-up’s acoording to their

achievements.

Ramires and Squire (2012) state that; The point of

gamification is to exploit instinctive human reactions to basic

stimuli in order to get you to do something you otherwise

wouldn’t do. It utilizes collecting and hording impulses by

providing you a list of badges to complete. It gives you skinner

boxes and experience bars and leveling up mechanics in order to

make you feel more productive. It creates a positive feedback

loop where every action you take to the benefit of the systems’

owners grants you more rewards.’’

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Rewards not only mean rewards to children.These young

learners need acceptance in the group they are working.The

children who are in early childhood and adolescence periods need

praise about what they are doing.That would become an accelerator

factor in their learning atmosphere.Any task that they are going

to be successful in,may contribute to their self-realization and

self-confidence.

Difference between games and gamification:

Game GamificationGames have defined rules& objectives

May just be a collection of tasks with points or some form of reward

There is a possibility of losing

Losing may or may not be possible because the point is to motivate peopleto take some action and do something.

Sometimes just playing the game is intrinsically rewarding

Being intrinsically rewarding is optional.

Games are usually hard and expensive to build

Gamification is usually easier and cheaper

Content is usually morphed to fit the storyand scenes of the game

Usually game like features are added without making too many changes to yourcontent

(Gamification Education - Gamification.org Portal)

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Students should not be discouraged in any unpleasant

circumstance.This principle must be considered during our

classes.If they can’t handle any tasks at one time,teachers may

give them some extra time(Depending on the

task;minutes,hours,days or weeks) not to discourage and break

their willingness.This kind of system may prevent less-workers

from the fear of falling back during the process.

There is no doubt that gamification will maximize students

autonomy too.The more a students collects badges and gets level-

ups the more they will take responsibilities on their own

learning.At that point teachers will see that students will work

not only to gather badges but also create new ways of

studying.They will try to discover new things to be different

from the other group members.

‘’A well-designed gamification system can help players take

on meaningful roles that are fruitful for learning. By making the

development of a new identity playful, and by rewarding it

appropriately, we can help students think differently about their

potential in school and what school might mean for them.’’ Lee,

J. J. & Hammer, J. (2011)

The Implications of Gamification:

There are plenty of ways that a teacher can apply this

method to the classes.It also varies according to the platform

you are going to set it on.If you have available chances on

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forming and setting the system on the internet it would be far

better of course.You can form a web-site that each of your

students will have an account in.Each of them will have their own

profile of studying.And they will be able to see their

classmates’ performances here.Teacher will send everyone a daily

task.So,every student will try to accomplish them daily.For

example;a set of 5 tasks realted to reading will bring student a

badge if they done correctly.Badges will be classified to lessons

or subjects.The one who collects the more badges or reaches the

top limit of badges for the current level will be able to advance

to another level.

The same principles are valid for classroom gamifications

too.Teacher can prepare badges with his hand-made flash

cards.After each success he can give them to the students.The

ones who follow all the steps of a criteria gains extra badges

and levels.There should be a leaderboard which shows the best

performers of the day or week too.

The desire for more success is okay but in effort to get

more badges,ambition can push students to a more rivalry

atmosmeshere.This kind of atmosphere can prevent students from

working effectively in a group.Not to break students

corporation,teacher should create group centered rewards.For

instance; teacher can say that if a student gets 95 points from a

task the rest of the group or class will take 30 bonus points for

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that task.That way students will try to encourage each other at

the beginning of the activities.

From the first level to the last one, the amount of

difficulties should increase properly.It will help students to be

aware of their capabilities. Furthermore,it will give them

chances of learning new things on the context.

According to Lee, J. J. and Hammer, J. (2011) some of the classroom implications may be like these:

Read an optional library book on the topic being taught in

class?

Receive “Reading Badge’’

Get perfect attendance and complete all homework assignments

on time for a month?

Earn an “On Target“ badge.

Some World-Wide Uses of The Tecnique:

Class Dojo Class Dojo is a really famous internet-based classroom

tool.As it is told in the paragraph of web-site gamification it

includes daily tasks and personal achievement profiles that are

sharable with parents and administrators.Probably, this going to

a future tool in education system.

(www.classdojo.com)

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( Personal profile results of a student in Class Dojo.)

Skoolbo Skoolbo is another internet tool that is used by 8 million

children who are between the ages of 4 and 10.It was designed to

improve literacy abilities of children.It also includes rewards

and unlock processes in accordance with the children’s

accomplishments. Sue Pike, Head of Junior School at the

Australian International School in Singapore, said:“As a school,

AIS has been delighted by the level of engagement of our students

and by the improvement of their skills both in Literacy and

Numeracy. Skoolbo has certainly captured their attention and

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motivated them to earn points and to reach ‘Superhero’ status.’’(

Lepi,2012)

The World Peace Game The world peace game is a kind of political simulation that

lets students to discuss and find solutions to social, cultural

or international crises without breaking any human rights or

peace.Game can be played with the help of a model of an

settlement which will actually represent their

neighborhood,cities or countries. Teacher wants students to think

that they have something to talk about social issues and asks

them to find reasonable solutions to these.

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‘’The idea was to "make the world work for 100% of humanity in

the shortest possible time through spontaneous cooperation

without ecological damage or disadvantage to anyone", thus

increasing the quality of life for all people.,’’(World

Game,Wikipedia)

CONCLUSION We are leaving in a non-stop changing world.In this

environment like all the other fields education can’t resist to

this change,actually it should not resist,too.It is high time to

leave classical education methods behind.People have to deal with

something that will connect students’ real world and their

requirements in education.To do this gamified solutions would be

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the best thing to consider.They won’t get bored that way,the

challenging system won’t let them get bored.This method will give

educators the opportunity to create autonomous learners whom

they were struggling to see for years.Furthermore, students will

be aware of the fact that the best comprehension occurs in the

coordination with their friends.So,we all need to be informed

about this technique and its applications.This is going to shape

our future.

REFERENCES

Lee, J. J. & Hammer, J. (2011). Gamification in Education: What,

How, Why Bother? Academic Exchange Quarterly, 15(2).

World Game - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. (n.d.). Retrieved

November 21, 2013, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Game

Gamification Education. (n.d.). Retrieved from

http://gamification.org/education

Lepi, K. (n.d.). Skoolbo: The World's Largest Educational Game

You Don't Use (Yet) - Edudemic. Retrieved November 20, 2013, from

http://www.edudemic.com/skoolbo-the-worlds-largest-educational-

game-you-dont-use-yet/

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Ramires, D., & Squire, K. (2012). Gamification for Education

Reform.

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