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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