The Quest to Gamify EducationOne goal: To increase student engagement by incorporating game mechanics within the classroom.Gamification of EducationI've found this multiple times, and have had this shared with me more times than I can count, so I'll throw this out into the ether as well.
Created by Knewton and Column Five Media For me, this provides a concise overview of why I am doing what I am doing. A growing and healthy relationship with games is a reality, and I truly believe that games can help provide insight into how to become better educators and provide a more meaningful experience within the classroom.
Levels, Zones, and a Storyline...Oh My!So while up at 3am to feed our little one, I was hit with a simple idea for solving a problem that had plagued me. I have created units based around awarding XP for completing quests, each unit being worth 8500XP or so. What I was struggling with was how each units' XP would correlate to a player's (er, student's) total XP. Do I simply add it all together? But that would mean a student might miss out on certain outcomes, critical knowledge, or skills by doing more in one unit to reach a passing grade. Do I scrap it and rework everything for next year? I had really considered this, but after putting so much thought into my work so far I figured there was too much valuable there just to give up. It hit me last night, well, this morning actually. Say a course were to have 5 units/themes, and each unit/theme had its own XP scale (see a previous post where I linked my WW1 unit), what if the amount earned in a particular unit amounted to 1/5th of the player XP? Then, to extend the game feel, each unit/theme is referred to as zones. As students progress through each zone they are earning two things really:
This lead to an exciting discovery... I truly want to include a discoverable narrative for my game, er...class. By distinguishing between direct player XP and Zone XP I now have the means to incorporate the story. Enough zone completion XP will unlock pieces of the narrative and direct player quests. Students may work for a week or two completing zone quests when they will trigger a class based quest that will provide direct player XP (not calculated at 1/5th) and will unlock a piece of the storyline to interact with. The class based quests could be guild oriented (like suggested in my last post), individual based, and could take very creative forms that would rely on skills and personal inquiry. I then went a little Mass Effect with my thinking... 
What if progress in the storyline and zones mattered for the ending? Now, I haven't written the story yet, so I have no idea where I'm going with this except to impress upon my students that by completing zones to a certain extent (averaged across the class) and performing in certain ways during the direct player/storyline quests, the class will control the outcome of story characters and the ending itself. Not only are they in control of their progress through the course, but they are also in some part, in control of the narrative. I feel that this could increase collaboration in the class, as their progress as individuals is directly connected to class progress as well. Leadership, mentoring, and a strong class community are certainly positive outcomes in this scenario. The class as whole will benefit with the knowledge that individual and communal progression is meaningful. Through meaning comes engagement and deeper learning - I like this, a lot. So what's next? Well, set pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard, as it were) and create a powerful classroom narrative. One question though: Sci-fi or Fantasy? Cooperation in the Classroom: We Can Learn From GamesIt is rare, nigh impossible, to find a game that doesn't involve some aspect of cooperation amongst its players. Even your average combat oriented, first-person-shooter (FPS) utilizes a cooperative team element to enhance its gameplay. Single-player role playing games like Skyrim seem to diminish the cooperative element, seeing as how only one person can play at a time and there is no in-game, online interaction. Easily forgotten though, are the countless online forums, websites, and discussion boards that exist to discuss game experiences, tips, strategies, and discoveries. Typing 'Skyrim Youtube' into google produced over 135,000,000 results. This represents a very powerful online community dedicated to collaborating on the elements of a concrete, single player game. Whether the cooperative component exists within the game or without, it is a necessary and meaningful component, and works to enhance and change the way individuals connect to the game. It is this strong collaborative element that I am striving to incorporate, in a meaningful way, into my classes. Cooperation seems as if it is an easy component to integrate, as I defy you to find a K-12 teacher that doesn't utilize group work or other such cooperative activities already. My issue is that if I am trying something new with gamifying education, shouldn't the tasks also represent a new shift? How can a cooperative task be more than just group/partner work? How can my cooperative activities reflect the teamwork in FPS games or the online communities in single player games? A cooperative activity or endeavour should work to extend, influence, and enhance the learning of those involved. A major concept that has shaped my focus for a few months now, is establishing a strong community of practice. Coming from the work done by Lave and Wenger on situated learning, communities of practice refer to groups who share a common profession/craft/interest and work together to further their knowledge. The structure of a community of practice is defined through the following processes:
This creates a very concrete focus for pursuing creating a meaningful cooperative environment, but it's missing the game...feel... Following Lee Sheldon's lead, perhaps having students create Guilds a-la World of Warcraft and work together against a game system (me) makes logical sense; as WoW is one of the most successful games ever, why not mimic it - As a guild, the small groups would attempt to define roles for themselves, create a charter of sorts to help guide behaviours, work together to accomplish tasks relating to the game world, and create resources together to be utilized by their, and other guilds in the class. The real goal though is for the cooperative activities to move beyond our current concept of 'group work' and into the realm that mimics the successes of collaborative online communities. The guild system, guided by the mechanics of a community of practice, is the most concrete framework I can conceptualize. I don't have any idea what this would actually look like yet, but I feel confident that I can work within this framework to create something to, well, beta-test it! Story Matters HereHmmm...I wonder if AMC will take notice of my use of their tagline... So with a newborn entering my life - 5 weeks old now :) - obviously my gaming has toned down somewhat. A combination of effective planning, systematic nap-times, and a very understanding wife, I have managed to log a few more hours on my xbox over the last week. Fear not! I'm not neglecting my baby, and by baby I mean xbox... Over Christmas I had purchased Red Dead Redemption (the GOTY package), yet it sat by the wayside as Skyrim and a pregnant wife took chief focus in my life. A recent baby shower - read 4 hours to myself - meant I had an opportunity to try a game I've been dying to play . And play I have. I mean really, doesn't this just look amazing... So now I have encountered the situation where I intensely dislike that in this free moment between feeding and sleeping I am choosing to write, rather than shoot-up some bandits, hunt some game, or play a round of Liar's Dice. But why? Is it the stunning vistas? Is it the treasure hunting challenges? Is it the multiplayer? Is it the achievements? Is it the combination of all the above? Truthfully, none of the above apply. What I find myself missing most is discovering the story. I am so engrossed by the plight of our protagonist, John Marston, that I find myself eagerly anticipating the next stage in discovering the story. For me, story matters most here - and I feel the same must be true for my classroom if I am serious about gamifying my classroom. Truly, you tell me, has "the story" not been a major component for you in a game? I have wilfully and mindfully stopped playing games (cough cough...Dragon Age 2) part way through and never finished because of such dry and inane stories. I have only encountered one game whose mechanics were so strong that the story really didn't matter (thank you Dark Souls). Story is also a missing component from many of the gamification platforms experienced today. Games like Foursquare or Fitocracy gamify one's life, but there is no narrative. These guys have broken that mold, and I think their product will be that much better for it - once it comes out for Android phones :P Also, I have recently been looking into Situated Learning - the short version: The context in which learning takes place should reflect the application of the learning - and I have been considering how a strong game design could allow for a straightforward learning context, or more interestingly, how a game can create an artificial context for learning to take place, a la Code Hero. So now I struggle with the combination of these two concepts: How do I go about designing a strong narrative for my course curriculum (be it Socials, English, or Planning) that helps to create a situated learning environment? For Socials I am considering a model akin to what Assassin's Creed implemented - experiencing history from the POV of someone who lived at the time, through the use of advanced technology. Mike Shumake at Getting Smart hits on this idea too, stressing the narrative and having students be an outsider (Dr. Who style) interacting with history. The buy in from the students though will only be as complete as the story that you (er, I) will provide. This will of course include relatable characters, plot twists, discovery, and a satisfying conclusion - no small task. But story will matter. Beyond XP as grades. Beyond badges and/or achievements. Beyond any kind of guild, community, or cooperative challenges. If I am to incorporate a strong game system into my class, story matters.
The First Real StepOkay, so a number of things have happened. 1) I discovered that Lee Sheldon (a professor who has been stylizing his courses like a MMORPG since 2009) recently published a book - The Multiplayer Classroom So I ordered it, received it, digested it, re-digested it, scoured, searched, and scraped as much as I could from it. A bonus in the book has been the number of case studies identifying educators around the globe who have enacted gamifying education in their classes - there is a lot to learn from. 2) I took the first real step to gamify my classroom by designing two units with grading replaced by accumulating XP. I took two existing Social Studies 11 units (Government and World War 1), kept my basic assignments the same, and grouped everything into three tiers of quests relating to thinking skills ala Bloom - here check my google doc - WW1 Unit 
i) Bronze Quests relate to lower order thinking skills ii) Silver Quests relate to the middle range iii) Gold Quests relate to higher order cognitive skills Each unit is worth 8500xp, but one need not accomplish all the XP to pass or even achieve an A. Essentially, the breakdown of assignments and their XP value are designed so that a student will have the opportunity demonstrate the outcomes of the course and utilize critical cognitive skills. Doing everything in the unit would be redundant if they can demonstrate their knowledge and skills after only a few assignments within each quest level. A student will control their level of achievement and skill development by choosing quests relating to interest level, and desire to reach a certain level. Additionally, Bronze and Silver quests are essentially pass/fail. All or none. Either it is done correctly, or the quest needs to be repeated for XP. The tasks are basic enough that I can provide direct feedback on what they may have missed. Gold level quests are based on a rubric which can allow some XP to be gained even if things have been missed. My students like this, so far. They like the forward progress. They like that they are not penalized for early mistakes. They like the opportunity for choice. Where am I going from here? Well, I need to restructure this system for an entire course, rather than just a couple of units. Additionally I am working towards creating a narrative for how each quest is communicated to the students, as well as an overarching storyline for students to discover. Still, this first step feels like a step in the right direction for me. An Outline for DesignAs I have been researching and exploring more into whether Gamifying Education is a viable option of increasing engagement, and hopefully learning, I came across this website: http://stratsynergy.wordpress.com/ demonstrating game design and and marketing. Not that I think one needs to market their class to their students, but really, doesn't it sometimes feel like we need to sell our students on something before they'll even try? Anyways, on the site I came across two charts. The first lists 16 basic desire as outlined by Steven Reiss in his book, Who Am I? . 
Now, whatever your opinion on World of Warcraft is, one cannot deny that the game is popular. One cannot deny that people do feel intrinsically motivated to play and succeed in the game. One could throw out an offhand remark about how someone is just addicted to video games, but I believe that would be a mistake, and would ignore that larger implications. If this person is just addicted to video games, why are they preffering this one? Why are they not equally addicted to all games? Some games simply don't provide what World of Warcraft offers. The chart above demonstrates how one game address at least all of Reiss' 16 desires. This is not simple addiction. Compulsion, maybe. What cannot be denied is that players are intrinsically motivated to play. They feel great and real senses of accomplishment when they play. How can an educator use this? Here is a perfect example of how instrinsic desires can be shaped by a game. I certainly plan on looking at my practice and examining whether or not what I offer in my room can connect with these 16 desires. Combine this with a game mentality, and I may end up with a few minor successes. Really, what have I to lose?
On Criticisms of Gamifying Education #1
Over the weeks I have done a fair bit of reading about the criticisms of Gamifying Education. There are a number of fair criticisms that I have come across, and I intend to comment on them all...but not all at once mind you. If anyone out there...anyone...has any comments on any part of the discussion I would love to hear from you. Fire me an email, or simply comment below. Now, let's get at it...
One criticism that I have stumbled across a number of times comes from psychological stance. The argument is generally formed in two ways:
1) Education should not try to rip-off principles employed by gaming, because they are principles that seek to undermine the player/student.
2) Most players/students see through the gaming principles, and will either become disconnected due to the subversive hoop-jumping or will be disconnected with their learning.
To start it off, there is no such thing as gaming only principles. Game mechanics/principles rely on psychological principles. Games didn't invent achievement systems or extrinsic rewards - the realm of psychology demonstrates and identifies their effectiveness - games just utilize these principles extremely well. I would argue that a teacher needs to examine what games do well to engage the player, and tweak these systems for the classroom. Games have done 90% of the work by already designing effective engagement systems!
Extrinsic motivation is not slight of hand, nor is it undermining, it is a real principle that I don't think is being applied effectively in classrooms (Note: I am a secondary teacher, so when I say classroom, I do mean secondary classroom). Additionally, I would argue that when psychological principles are strategically and effectively utilized within a game system, the motivation ceases to be extrinsic, and becomes intrinsic. A player cares not for some external reward, but they begin to truly care about what they are doing and the steps they are taking because they know it's helping them progress further in the game. Intentional and progressive implementation of game mechanics into a classroom can accomplish the same thing, or so I believe.
Over the last 5 years I cannot count how many time that I have heard colleagues, and myself, reminding a student that they should care about their grade. That they should be intrinsically motivated to earn those good grades, but that is bunk. If a student doesn't care about grades (and really what's your best argument for why they should - tweet @mrlemmen) will they complete items and learn? If a student is focused on the A, are they actually learning skills and applying their knowledge, or are they just crossing their t's and dotting their i's so they can get the best mark possible? I ask you, are the students who get top marks actually learning, or are they just hoop jumping?
How can we be sure learning is taking place? Hmmm, look back at the two points above - Are grades undermining student learning? Do students see through grades and see noting but subversive hoop jumping? Grades are a game mechanic, just a very poor example of one.
What then could be a stronger game mechanic: What about learning being reflected through an experience system?
The experience system relies on a player solving tasks in order to grow, move on, and progress. Tasks have point values reflecting the difficulty level of the tasks. A player will eventually reach higher levels after a certain point value has been achieved. At higher levels, different areas with more challenging tasks open up. Thankfully a player has learned skills and knowledge from their previous levels, because they will need this in order to solve these new tasks. One can fail a task, but can repeat it indefinitely until they are successful. One gains the same number of points whether it took them 1 or 50 attempts, and why not, the job is to complete the task. Imagine this instead of grades. Imagine a system where students can try again. Imagine a system where prior knowledge and skill development is a necessity. Imagine that rather than 86% = A, you say that students who reach level 5 or higher will receive an A. Imagine freeing your students from the immense weight of grades (a weak game system), but providing them a numerical measurement that can actually reflect skill and knowledge. Grades are a very weak game mechanic. Experience could be a very powerful game mechanic.
When someone discusses gamifying education as only including extrinsic rewards, they are approaching the subject from a very narrow point of view. Game mechanics are more than just giving badges, achievements, or random trinkets - they can be a part of it though. Think about what happens when you attempt to learn a new game, not just a video game mind you. If you haven't learned a new game in a while, try a new board game - I recommend Settlers of Catan, Pandemic, and Citadels. Well designed games employ psychological principles to keep you playing, but do so in strategic and intentional ways. They do not seek to mildly entertain, they seek to engage and provide the player with a means of connection to a larger goal. They provide knowledge in stages, and challenge players to build upon pre-existing knowledge. The latest installment of Risk (Risk: Legacy) unveils a mechanic where every game played will provide a lasting an meaningful effect on the next game, and so on. The board will become marked with stickers changing elements of the game. Game cards will be ripped up and thrown away. The player does not know what will happen next, yet does know that decisions made now, will have meaningful implications later - could that sentence alone help capture what could be done within a classroom?
For game mechanics to be subversive, or to disconnect a student from learning, one would have to choose a game mechanic that does those things. The solution is pretty simple then, do not choose game mechanics that are subversive or disconnect. There are many examples of mechanics that seek to engage and challenge, why not focus on those. To see the value of game mechanics, one must already enjoy games and see their inherent value. Games alone are not enough though, one does need to get in touch with what helps to make a game engaging for you. And please, game mechanics are just simply psychological principles applied in a specific and intentional manner - games did not create these principles, they just apply what happens in most humans (and other animals, I suppose) in a specific and intentional way. A key parting thought - If any of you out there are educators, how much of your practice is specific and intentional? How much of your practice is simply comprised of, 'Well, that's just how it's done'.
Specifically and intentionally applying game mechanics need not result in a subversive, hoop-jumping environment; unless you really want to design it that way.
Achievements Discussion #gamify #gamification #edtechbc #educationTo help facilitate discussion, I have created a TitanPad to hopefully aid discussion: http://titanpad.com/JU1ojFlXMf The goal is to attempt to isolate what components of school behaviour, expectations, curriculur outcomes, and/or overarching positive educational ideals could be reinforced through the achievement game mechanic. If participating in the discussion, please, let's keep it OT and respectful. Thanks! On Achievements...
http://www.1milliongamerscore.com/2011/08/600000-gamerscore-now-what.html For those not in the know, Gamerscore is the Xbox community measure of how many achievements have been unlocked across all games. A player can be rewarded with achievements by performing a variety of actions while playing a game, such as: - Simply by beating a level in the game - Discovering secret areas or reaching a high enough score - Performing difficult to complete tasks - Playing the game using non-standard methods Achievements essentially reward all accomplishments, from the mundane to the extremely original; Halo Reach rewards players for executing a falling assassination, which can only be performed at one moment, on one level. Achievements provide periodic, positive, and unscheduled reinforcement. Achievements can be linked to B.F. Skinner's work on schedules of reinforcement, acting as a variable ratio schedule. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinforcement#Simple_schedules 
Must push button, must push button... Game players, unless they have worked to attain prior knowledge of the achievements in the game, never have a clear idea what actions will aid in the accumulation of achievements. Actions that could be perceived as random by the user are rewarded by the game designer. The game designer wants the players to not only feel engaged by the simple and predictable achievements, but will reward players for discovering alternate means of accomplishing tasks. Through a player's creative attempts at accomplishing tasks they will not only be rewarded with an achievement, but may also discover new and intriguing ways to experience the game.
Be proud of you... Developing the mindset of achievements equaling pride seems like a very important concept. Xbox's increasing gamerscore allows one to feel pride in having a higher number than someone else. The location based social-networking app - https://foursquare.com/ awards not only points for visiting physical locations, but go somewhere enough times, or at a certain time, or with a certain number of people and you will unlock virtual badges. These badges can come to represent not only what you value, but can define your social life through the types of badges you receive - just check out the Bender badge http://www.foursquarebadges.info/articles/61078/How-To-Earn-The-Bender-Badge-... 
Something to be proud of? Really? The big question is: How can one hijack this methodology and implant it into essay writing or research projects? Would creating 10 months of positive behavioral and curriculum based, achievements along with associated point values be worthwhile? Should a running total of each student's gamerscores be displayed?Would tangible badges be superior? I don't believe that achievements alone can fix engagement, but I don't believe that they would hurt the educational environment. It does seem like an educator would need to a great deal of pre-planning to decide what achievements will be the simple and easy to achieve, and which will represent the development of new skills or shifts in perception. I also feel that an educator would need to be ever vigilant to provide whatever immediate visual or auditory cue to award the achievement the moment a student or students accomplished the feat. It could also require a great deal of administrative competence to be aware of which achievements could possible be rewarded on a daily basis, while being careful to not award achievements to those that have already received them. It's not a bad idea, and I feel that I can institute some major and minor achievements into the classroom setting, but maybe just on a trial basis. Maybe just for the month of October. I will compile a list of possible achievements in a few days as examples, and hopefully some ideas can be generated from that.
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**ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED - READ ENTIRE POST** The Prologue
Slaying the Dragon of Apathy with the broadsword of Gamification As an educator I find myself constantly confronted with a challenging concept: Engagement After many in-services, professional days, presentations, articles, and books it has come to me that an effective means of increasing engagement could be to literally steal tactics from that which already engages many youths: Games.Now I enjoy games. I love them. Board, card, video, table-top, it really doesn't matter to me. I love games. I believe that within these games lies the secret to engagement. Games can motivate, entertain, educate, and compel. Games do this because of the mechanics behind them. I'm not simply talking about adding playing games into the instructional day, I'm talking about conceptualizing the entire classroom and the year's worth of curriculum as a game. If the game mechanics that make games like FarmVille, Call of Duty, and Settlers of Catan can be hijacked and implanted into a classroom, one might create an amazingly dynamic and engaging environment for learning. That is my goal. I was primarily inspired by this after playing numerous hours of Oblivion for the Xbox 360, but I realized how REAL it could be after watching this: http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/gamification I have since stumbled across a number of videos, articles, books, and sources of inspiration that has guided me to the point of attempting to structure my classroom as a game. I have turned to this site as a place to start: http://gamification.org/wiki/Game_Mechanics I plan to take each of the components of game mechanics and attempt to create a classroom parallel that will utilize each mechanic. The goal will be to have each of these components work in synergy to create a truly unique and engaging classroom. It is my hope that with input from other like-minded professionals, students, and fellow gamers, my practice and my classroom can evolve into an engaging environment and a strong example of gamification in practice. Email: klemmen@sd42.ca Twitter: mrlemmen
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