What is School? Gamification

This week we are excited to talk Gamification and this week we welcome Justin Hardman to co-moderate with us. Justin is an enthusiastic technologist and educator based in South Korea. Currently Justin is enjoying working with schools to support better integration of technology into school programs through 21CLI – spread the word and bring your ideas.

This week we have a GIVEAWAY! Justin has offered up 1 FREE place to the 2016 21st Century Learning Conference in Hong Kong (18-20 Feb 2016) valued at US$500 – this will be randomly selected out of the top 25 #whatisschool tweeters this week. I am excited to be running a masterclass and presenting at this conference.

Games and gaming culture play an increasingly important role in the lives of people (young and old) all over the world. The gaming industry is soon to be bigger than hollywood and is already bigger than the music industry. The majority of young people are users of video games. According to Pew Research 69% of girls and 84% of boys plays video games on their phone. Outside the realm of video games themselves, gamification is a very hot topic. Gamification is defined as; “the use of game thinking and game mechanics in non-game contexts to engage users in solving problems”. Outside of education, game techniques are in use every day – ever used frequent flyer miles? Credit card points?

Photo credit: http://www.ictcreatief.nl/blog/files/gamification-onderwijs-education.jpg

Games and Gamification are listed in the 2014 NMC Technology Outlook for International Schools in Asia as having a time to adoption of one to two years, and two to three years in the 2014 NMC Horizon Report K-12 Edition.

Our chat times for around the world are:

• Thursday 4pm Pacific Time
• Thursday 6pm Central Time
• Thursday 7pm EDT
• Thursday 11pm GMT
• Friday 7am Singapore/WA (Perth) Time
• Friday 9am AEST
• Friday 11am NZT

Make sure you put this weeks chat in your diary and if you are not already signed up to our ‘Remind’ notifications – click here. We will send you a FREE email or a FREE SMS just before our chat begins 

What is all the gamification buzz about and how will it help my students learn?

Questions #whatisschool, April 23, 2015 7PM EDT

1) What does gamification mean for you? Give a 1 tweet summary for those new to the idea.

2) What are the key learning benefits to gamification?

3) What apps/resources are useful in employing gamification in K-12 education?

4) How do you know when gamification has been effective?

5) Can gaming replace intrinsic motivation? How? Why?

6) How could educator professional learning be gamified?

BONUS 7th Question this week only: What will have a bigger impact on learning: Games for learning or gamification of learning?