Gamification in edcuation - a real life example

I am living in Spain since September and trying to give my best to learn Spanish, no matter if outside the university or within the classes.

Being just 4 people in class, we all have to participate but at the end it doesn’t matter what your answer is, they are no points for right answers. But in my last session things changed… Being 2 Germans and 2 Italians we split in two groups and everything we did turned out to be a Competition.

We played 3 games…

The first two have been related to “por/para” and each group had to create questions for the others. Every correct answer was worth a point and resulted in thinking more about answers and questions, simply to beat the others.

This kind of incentive resulted in a Leaderboard in which unfortunately the Italians have been leading.

But in the final game we still had the chance to turn it around. Every time one of the team members had to go to the board, received a sentence including the usage of “por/para” as well as past tenses, had to draw it while the other was trying to figure out the words, forms and order.

Due to being in a competition, trying to win the challenge with receiving the last missing points everybody was focused on the point and tried to be as fast and precise as possible.

Linking this real life experience to business we can see at http://www.duolingo.com how to use gamification in the education business. Loosing hearts for giving incorrect answers, practice against the clock and move up the “duolingo leaderboard” while learning Spanish at the same time…

By the way the German team won the game at the end but all of us gamified their Spanish J

Enterprise Gamification Design (4)

STEP 4: APPLY MECHANICS

Now that everything is clear, it is the time to develop games mechanics. So, let’s see which mechanics are the best for enterprise software.

Points

They are the center of all mechanics, all the users’ actions are recorded as points. They have their own meaning in different platforms, for example, the points in Nike+app are miles that you have run in a specific period of time.

Badges

When the users are performing really well on the platform, getting virtual achievements in the process is the motivation behind. That is the way to engage the users to spend more time in the website, giving them badges if they complete a task or complete n task in a row.

Leaderboards

Now that they are spending more time on the website, it’s time to let them compete against other users or friends. This is one of the most powerful gamification mechanics, making users invite their friends to the platform and play with them.

Challenges

Users want to work to achieve something great and something bigger than themselves. For instance, the University of Washington’s center for game science worked together with the Biochemistry department and the result is Foldit. It allows users to play and complete various protein structures that will help researches to find different cures for several viruses around the world.

You can see here this innovative application in action.

SO, WHAT IS GAMIFICATION?

In order to start a blog correctly we have decided to begin with a clear definition of this confusing term. 

Gamification uses game mechanics and dynamics to create game-like engagements in a non-game context. It’s the use of game design principles (e.g., gaming psychology or game play scripts) to engage individuals into areas such education, work, community participation or fitness. Gamification is not a game, as players don’t really know they are playing a game. It is created through a set of tools or incentives to achieve goals, rather than mare entertainment. (Michael Wu, 2012)

Although incentives are good game mechanics, as people have been using them for centuries, they do not constitute gamification by itself. Grades or salary promotions for example can be seen as a form of incentive system; However, they are not considered game attributes as they weren’t created with any game design principle. If they were, they would be terrible ones, as it is the reason why there are so many bored students at school and so many dispassionate employees. (Michael Wu, 2012)

Michael Wu, Ph.D., 09 July 2012, What Is Gamification, Really?