technology

“All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players”

How do you play the game of life? You may say, “Life is not a game,” and many may agree with you, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be examined as if it were. At least that’s what game theorists have been doing since the first half the 20^th century. Game theory has examined social interactions from the standpoint of decision-making: how will agents make decisions in given situations according to potential costs, benefits, and available knowledge. Consider the following examples:

• Economies can be examined as massive games involving huge numbers of players, all competing or cooperating for wealth.
• The perks, benefits, and titles that employers confer are akin to reward systems that exist across a wide range of games.
• The modern grading system establishes a hierarchy that students may climb for the sake of pride, self-improvement, and competition. This could be viewed as a preliminary game that introduces young players to social, economic, and bureaucratic position.
• The social norms presented by courtship rituals are often viewed as game rules that participants must satisfy in order to achieve success (partnership).

Economies are the largest games there are.

Even if you don’t look at life as a series of games, that doesn’t mean you can’t apply the model of gaming in a constructive fashion. In the context of education, what if a teacher’s lessons could engage students as much as any video game? With gamification, they can. Gamification is a newly recognized trend in education that harnesses the motivational features of games in the service of productive activities. In the case of education, gamification takes advantage of people’s competitive, self-expressive, and altruistic drives by using them as motivation for learning.

By turning your lessons into games, you keep your students engaged. While this may not seem new, gamification is beginning to formalize the tactics and strategies of gaming that educators have been creatively applying in their lessons for years.  There are scores of articles written about how to turn some of your lessons into games. However, they all seem to share some common attributes:

• Determine the overall learning outcomes for the game
• Formulate an overarching theme or idea to drive the game
• Sketch out the phases of the game
• Focus on gameplay (It needs to be fun)
• Generate specific learning activities that will support the learning outcomes
• Assign teams if applicable

Though these are great guidelines for producing your own games, you may wish to purchase one of the widely-available apps that are specifically designed to help gamify your lessons.

Gamification is on the verge of becoming a massive trend as educators continue to look for innovative ways to enthrall their students. This is likely just the beginning, so the sooner you get started, the better!

If you’re looking for more ideas on how to engage your digital native students, check out our signature course: Technology Driven Classrooms (TDC). TDC is an eight-week long professional development course that provides educators with essential teaching techniques, ideas, and suggestions for educating and inspiring today’s students.

Also, be sure to check back next week for another post on engaging digital natives!

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