Gamification is an application of gaming culture which people are using to do all sorts of things ranging from enforcing speed limits in Switzerland to encouraging people to recycle. Gamification is also being used in education by using techniques used in gaming to encourage people to learn.
However, not everyone sees this trend as a good thing. More posts will follow discussing some of the ways gamification is being used, how its being abused, and how we might use gaming culture in schools to aid student's learning.
Hi Daniel,
ReplyDeleteA very interesting topic :)
I wonder - do you think that 'gaming culture' is something that all young people understand? i.e. is gaming culture actually part of 'youth culture'? And...what role do you think actual video games can play in the project of 'gamifying' the learning culture?
Cheers! kelli
Hi Kelli, thanks for the quesitons!
ReplyDeleteSo, after some digging, according to Jane McGonigal, 99% of boys under 18 and 94% of girls under 18 report playing videogames regularly.
http://www.ted.com/conversations/44/we_spend_3_billion_hours_a_wee.html
If these numbers are correct (assuming that Australian youth are comparative to those in the US) then it would seem like video games are a large part of youth culture.
As for how video games are used to 'gamify' learning culture, the process of gamification seems to be adding game elements to a non game activity. The role of video games in gamifying education is to inform our practice rather than being included in our practice.
The simplest example would be to take the points system from a game and apply it to one educational practice, lets say reading for example. Maybe the students could get points for borrowing, reading and maybe commenting on a book. These points might be used just to compare amongst students or it might be used as part of a larger reward system where the points are traded for prizes.
I think there are ways that the video games youth are playing can be used in their education, but gamification seems more concerned with turning the normal, less fun activities, into games in order to capture the same effort/value/attention/time that youth attach to gaming.
After some more thinking, while most gamification would not include actual video games but rather just game mechanics, games like Wii fit might be an example of a non game activity that has been 'gamified'.
ReplyDeleteMaybe when they make guitar hero work with a real guitar there will be another example