Generating Data by Gamifying Education

The main focus of this chapter is to present how data generated by gamifying education affects the grading process and student engagement. One of the challenges facing modern society is the overall lack of engagement. This is particularly the case in education when frequent tasks and assignments are not approached with a high level of commitment. A relatively new technique has been developed and is showing great potential in a wide array of fields including education. Gamification is the process of applying game mechanics and a way of thinking to real-world tasks with a goal to improve engagement. Gamifying education generates new types of data that can be used in the process of assessing a student's performance as well as effectively improving engagement. The key to implementing gamification is to understand what types of data can be generated. As the amount of data varies depending on which specific components are applied, the task of its interpretation and contextualisation is vital for a successful outcome.

Education, “Pointsification,” Empowerment?

Gamification as a tool or procedure to add entertaining and motivating elements to usually non-entertaining environments such as schools or workplaces is becoming more and more popular. E-learning platforms like Moodle provide tools and sets of functions to add elements of gamification. An important factor especially in education is technology: individual achievements and progress can be recorded, measured, tracked and visualized and therefore identified and rewarded through bonus points, awards or rankings. This is where gamification can add some challenge and excitement to the learning. But can entertainment and education be combined by technical means at all? What are the possibilities and limits? What implications have to be expected regarding the relationship between teachers, students and a technological – gamified – environment?

Leveling up the Classroom

Gamification continues to grow in popularity, and has significant application to education and student motivation. Because gamification is a large, encompassing concept it may be best to assess its effects by breaking down its composite features and assessing the positive and negative effects of these features. This chapter takes features including immediate feedback, use of narrative, tailored challenges, and displays of progress, and discusses popular current theories in communication and psychology to discuss the potential benefits and drawbacks of each feature, placing a focus on student motivation, comparison, and self-perception. This moves to discuss practical ways to best employ gamification features, and discusses the impact of digital technology on gamification in the classroom and should be useful for researchers interested in the topic and for teachers considering how to best gamify their classrooms.

Games and Their Embodied Learning Principles in the Classroom

This chapter explores how educators can use games and their embodied learning principles as a source for student learning, motivation, and engagement. It begins by highlighting important educational issues, such as lack of motivation and how technology has affected students and communication (Prensky, 2005). It then illustrates how digital games can address these issues and support learning and foster meaningful engagement by exploring Gee's (2007) learning principles and Prensky's (2005) activities and learning techniques. Each learning principle and activity is addressed with a summary of the concept, an example of how video games exemplify the concept, and practical methods for integrating the idea into classroom instruction through games and activities. The chapter concludes with an overview of main concepts and highlights future directions for research connecting learning theories to digital games.

Learning from Social Collaboration

This chapter focuses on the challenge of evaluating game-based learning. It argues that linking game-based learning with the characteristics of a specific game or game-produced engagement is challenging. It further proposes a framework in which the game-based learning process is approached by considering (business) simulation games as Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) environments and presents an approach on how learning can be approached and evaluated from this perspective. In addition, it highlights how simulation game mechanics appears to be a potential way to promote learners' socio-emotional processes and give rise to social interaction and to structure collaboration among the learners in the game context. The proposed framework of this chapter takes into account both cognitive and socio-emotional perspectives of learning. The results of the chapter will present a contemporary view on the roles of sociability, collaboration and engagement in game-based learning.

Adoptability of E-Textbooks Featuring Educational Online Games

Currently, the South Korean government is in the process of transforming school textbooks from a paper-based platform to a computer-based digital platform. Along with this effort, interactive online educational games (edu-games) have been examined as a potential component of the digital textbooks. Based on the theory of diffusion of innovations, this study examined how 4th, 5th, and 6th grade students perceive an interactive online edu-game and whether or not their communication attributes predict their willingness to diffuse the game. A hierarchical regression analysis revealed that four perceptions of the innovation – relevant advantage, complexity, compatibility, and observability – were statistically significant predictors of students' willingness to diffuse an online edu-game as indicated by the theory of diffusion of innovations, while only trialability was not. Based on these results, this study provides some implications for the diffusion of interactive online educational games as a potential component of the digital textbook.

Design and Development of a Simulation for Testing the Effects of Instructional Gaming Characteristics on Learning of Basic Statistical Skills

Considerable resources have been invested in examining the game design principles that best foster learning. One way to understand what constitutes a well-designed instructional game is to examine the relationship between gaming characteristics and actual learning. This report discusses the lessons learned from the design and development process of instructional simulations that are enhanced by competition and storyline gaming characteristics and developed as instructional interventions for a study on the effects of gaming characteristics on learning effectiveness and engagement. The goal of the instructional simulations was to engage college students in learning the statistics concepts of standard deviation and the empirical rule. A pilot study followed by a small-scale experimental study were conducted to improve the value and effectiveness of these designed simulations. Based on these findings, specific practical implications are offered for designing actual learning environments that are enhanced by competition and storyline gaming elements.

Developing Teacher Knowledge About Gamification as an Instructional Strategy

There is a need for teachers and higher education faculty to develop knowledge about instructional strategies that engage digital learners and accommodate digital learning preferences in order to deliver instruction that digital learners perceive as relevant. This chapter discusses how gamification can be used in higher education as an instructional strategy to meet the needs of the digital learner. Findings from a design-based research study of how gamification was used in a Teacher Education technology methods course, to engage pre-service teachers in activities that develop Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) (knowledge about teaching with technology) (Mishra & Koehler, 2006), are discussed. The findings provide guidance for teachers and technology educators on how to design courses incorporating gamification as an instructional strategy appropriate for meeting the needs of digital learners. Issues concerning design and implementation as it influenced student engagement and learning are highlighted, and recommendations are made for course development.

Teaching Case of Gamification and Visual Technologies for Education

This paper describes the use of gamification and visual technologies in a classroom for higher education, specifically for university students. The goal is to achieve a major increase in student motivation and engagement through the use of various technologies and learning methodologies based on game mechanics called gamification. Gamification is used to engage students in the learning process. This study adds learning methodologies like Learning by Doing to students' collaborative work, and mixes teacher support with new, accessible technology, such as virtual reality and visualization 3D on the web thanks to webGL. This creates a new management tool, called GLABS, to assist in the gamification of the classroom. Understanding the role of gamification and the technology in education means understanding under what circumstances game elements can drive a student's learning behavior so that he or she may achieve better results in the learning process.

Can Pre-Service Teachers Create Digital Game-Based Activities Without Coding Knowledge?

This chapter examined five cases of pre-service teachers' abilities and attitudes towards creating and using digital games in their future teaching. Participants included five pre-service teachers at a Midwest public university. The participants underwent the same research procedure including: pre-project open-ended interview, training session, and post-project open-ended interview. The researchers analyzed participants' responses to the interviews and the quality of the games they created, using the Educational Electronic Games Rubric. Results showed that students not only enjoyed learning about digital games, but also were able to create quality games without coding knowledge or advanced technology skills. Five participants indicated that they plan on creating and integrating digital games into their future teaching.