Tech to Support Gamification
There are many programs available to assist in the gamification of the classroom. Although software does not need to be specifically created for gamified learning, there are some options which have been made to do just that.
Class Craft is a LMS which allows students are alloted to teams to work collaboratively. Students get to choose their own avatar and earn badges by completing tasks. The teacher can reward or take away health points. There is also a "random event" wheel which can be customized by the teacher and a "choose random player" function. Students are not submerged into a game world, instead this software is a way to track points and student behaviours. The software costs approximately $1 USD per student.
Class Badges is a free website which enables educators to award badges and points to students. The badge icon and purpose can be completely customized by the teacher. Awards can be designed to align with learning goals and are suitable for all ages.
This software was used to reward badges in the example course found on this website.
Class Dojo is another free website which assists teachers in tracking student behaviours. Students can customize their own monster avatar and can access the account from home - educators can even share the account with parents. The teacher adds or subtracts points based on customizable criteria. This site seems to work best with a younger audience as older student tend to percieve the charcters as childish in appearance. Android and Apple apps are also available for the software.
Want to gamify your classroom on a smaller scale?
Kahoot is a free online software which allows teachers to easily create quizzes (or find a premade quizzes in the collaborative library) and add competitive motivation to learning. Students answer the question which are projected on any device which can access the internet. Points are rewarded for each question based on whether the student answer was correct and how quickly the response is submitted. The answer results are displayed as a bar chart and a leaderboard is shown after each question. The results can be exported as an spreadsheet for assessment purposes.
