Get Your Game Face On

As our society continues to evolve and technology becomes increasingly more prevalent in education, educators must also adapt to different learning tools. COVID-19 has disrupted the way we educate students and pressured educators to find engaging online learning platforms. Teachers have attempted to engage their students through zoom calls, email trails, and online forums. Although, when given the choice of attending your online lecture from home or playing your favorite video game, the choice is obvious. Three hours on candy crush seems easy, but three hours studying for a chemistry exam? No thank you. Learning from home, students can decide how much time to put into their studies and for those who are not self-motivated, this could be detrimental. Now imagine playing your favorite video game while tending to your online studies, seems impossible right? Gamification can help fast-track you to the next level, build up your confidence, and take online schooling by storm.

What is Gamification?

Gamified learning can be used as a tool to motivate students from home and almost “trick” them into learning. Online education has opened the door to gamified learning and studies have shown a tremendous increase in both motivation and engagement. Gamification can also improve workflow and increase productivity levels with something as little as a “Congratulations!” at the end of your task. Gamification is defined as integrating video game elements into non-gaming systems to increase engagement and many productivity apps are already on board.

The Power of Gamified Learning

There are many great benefits to gamified learning. First of all, the competitive nature of games increases the motivation to move past different levels and beat out your peers. For example, would Mario continue the race if Bowser hadn’t taunted him with the finish line? I highly doubt it. Second, gamified learning builds a sense of recognition within the user where they are rewarded for their progress. A gold star, however a small gesture, motivates us all. Third, gamification can make a boring task feel like an adventure!

Quizlet is a gamified learning tool that builds up your confidence by rewarding and benchmarking your progress. Flipping through flashcards on Quizlet doesn’t seem like a fun activity, but somehow a few checkpoints saying, “You’re almost halfway!” or “You’re hitting your stride” instills users with a sense of accomplishment.

Education is just one of the many pockets that gamification can sink its teeth into. Workflow applications have seamlessly integrated gamification into their platforms. Asana is a productivity app that helps you manage your workflow while giving you micro encouragements along the way. As users complete tasks, there’s no telling what cute little icon will fly across the screen to cheer you on! We all know teamwork makes the dream work and Asana’s appreciations take small wins as an opportunity to level-up.

Todoist is another productivity app that can help students manage their time efficiently and has transformed boring tasks into exciting milestones. Users are encouraged to stay on top of their tasks to earn good karma points and avoid negative karma for missing a deadline. Contributing to a positive circle of karma will bring you to the next level, from ‘Beginner’ to ‘Enlighted.’ Build your teammates up, track your good karma and take it to the next level with Todoist.

Gamification is the future of productivity and will build a more engaging, comprehensive, and self-motivating online learning experience. Compete with your friends, earn rewards, and stay up to date on class material without having to sacrifice the thrill of a few more rounds of Mario Kart.