I’ m a geek
Gamification
By: Gonzalo Valderrama Guardia
Gamification is a barely new concept that is changing the way people do activities these days. It can be defined as the application of game elements and mechanics and digital game design techniques to non-game problems or contexts. It is a current trend among software developers who want to make their programs more engaging and businesses who want to increase the productivity among their workers.
Basic techniques of gamification motivate certain desired behaviors by taking advantage of the human tendency to engage in gaming, as it distracts people from what they are actually doing. These techniques are known to most Internet users, as they are already present in very famous sites such as Facebook and Foursquare. They are simpler than anyone could think: winning points, obtaining badges, leveling up, climbing up“ leader boards”, using virtual currency, showing progress bars, fulfilling quest, having avatars, etc. Adding these features to websites and programs, where there may be tasks considered otherwise rather dull or stressing, makes them not only endurable, but also enjoyable.
One important example of the brilliant use of gamification is the educational website khanacademy. org. Salman Khan, the site creator, incorporated game-like characteristics to make it more attractive for a younger learner audience. Students can win points and badges by doing exercises and watching videos and progress bars tell them how good their performance is at a given task.
If this does not blow your mind, then you have no emotion
A lot of people, specially US teachers and people who feel identified with Humanities more than with hard Sciences, have struggled at least once with mathematical problems. As we were still in school, educational institutions and teachers were unable to do much for the students who needed longer time to understand a given task and were forced to continue
with the next one, leaving a bunch of their students frustrated for not understanding and at disadvantage among their peers who managed to reach the objectives in time.
In 2004, Salman Khan made a huge discovery. He started posting math tutorials in YouTube for his nephews, as he was tutoring them from a long distance. Shortly after, other users of the popular video site started posting him comments and thanking him, because his videos helped their children understand mathematics. At that point he realized that he had found a great teaching tool still not fully exploited.
By 2012, there were more than 3,400 videos that can be found in khanacademy. org along with math exercises generators displayed in a gamelike fashion to make them more engaging. Teachers can tell their students to do all the exercising they need at home at their own pace and use the time at school for experimentation, humanizing the classroom.
This system is already being applied in different schools in USA, and, hopefully, we can expect to find it in a school near us soon. As Bill Gates said, this is the future of education.
You got to the end of this article, so you are now a hundred points richer. One can only wonder what else can be made into a game by just adding points to it. Is everything considered boring going to be“ gamified” some day?
http:// www. khanacademy. org http:// vimeo. com / 46304267
http:// www. ted. com / talks / lang / en / salman _ khan _ let _ s _ use _ vi deo _ to _ reinvent _ education. html
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