Scholarly Background
Gamification is a term that originated over a decade ago and was coined by Nick Pelling. It is interesting concept as it is currently gaining traction in two fairly distinct verticals; marketing and education. Gamification is the process of implementing game-based thinking or mechanics into everyday activities in order to engage users. Important to note, is that the focus of gamification is entirely in non-game contexts and services.
Some popular mechanics, which exist in our course example, include Badges, Levelling Up and Leader Boards. These are tools that allow a student to track progression and roleplay certain elements. The Leader Boards provide a fairly low-stress way to increase competitiveness and a willingness to participate.
We believe that the most noticeable change comes from educators and how their design process can change. As you’ll see from our example, implementing gamification leads to a course designed with incremental and achievable challenges, while in-place systems provide feedback and recognition of goals being met. The design of the course also lends itself well to the concept of constructivism as students are able to build onto their knowledge slowly, through the exploration of real-world activities.
The TED talk below provides a bit of a deeper insight into the world of gamification. Jane McGonigal provides some context to the idea of applying game mechanics and provides a few examples of existing games.
