Gamification 101: Training Camp Part II

Image credit:  http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2012/08/11/cowboy-camp-update-may-have-to-start-center-who-never-snapped/​

When I think back to my process for gamifying my Physics class last year, it felt a little like the journey a coach goes through while preparing for that first game of the season. The planning and execution phases can easily be divided into training camp, designing the playbook, pre-game pep-talk, the season opener, and finally reviewing tape.  In this post I will discuss my approach to training camp. 

I am a die hard Cowboys fan in case you couldn't tell from the picture at the beginning of this post.  While searching for an appropriate image for training camp, I happened upon this headline from CBSlocal.com.

Co​wboys May Use Center Who Never Snapped

This resonated with me as I was by no means a gamer when I decided to explore this option in my class.  I had played my share of Angry Birds, but that was about it unless you counted my brief pre-teen encounters with Space Invaders, Pac Man and the occasional game of Frogger.  Once I discovered boys, I tried to forget that Atari and parachute pants were ever part of my vernacular. 

I wouldn't even consider myself a casual gamer.  Last year, while the idea of gamification was percolating in my brain, I taught across the hall from a true gamer who was completely immersed in gamifying homework practices in his class. I called him Crazy Train as the ride he was on was borderline obsessive and insane (or so I thought at the time).  I frequently caught myself checking to make sure the coast was clear before leaving my room in an effort to avoid interactions with him because every conversation was ultimately dominated by his overwhelming excitement over things like avatars, subeconomies, level-ups, warp zones, and other gamer terms that sounded a lot like Chinese to me.

Fortunately, for me, I soon discovered that you do not need to be a gamer to gamify your content.  That is what training camp is all about.  For the non-gamers out there that are looking for a way to make your classes more engaging and fun, this is a good place to start.  As a bonus, gamification will also help the learning stick. 

Step 1:  ​Play Games...Actively

To get started you simply need to play some games.  Pick something easy and manageable at first, like Angry Birds.  ​Approach your game play with the same strategies that you advise your students to use when "actively" reading an article or chapter in a book.  Be an active, reflective participant in your game play. 

While playing, ask yourself the following questions and take note of your responses:

• What emotions did you feel throughout the game play and how did you respond? ​
• What made you want to continue playing?  
• ​Was there only one way move to the next level, or did you have choice in your journey?  
• ​What happened when you made mistakes and how did you feel?  
• ​Did you feel like you were in control?  
• ​What kind of feedback did you get, and how often?  
• ​How did the feedback affect your play?  
• What elements of the game helped you to maintain your focus? ​
• What was your reaction to failure?  How was this different to other experiences you have had with failure?  ​
• What role did game mechanics play in your experience?  ​What role did the fictional story line play in your experience?  ​(If you are not familiar with these terms, read through the references to these in my previous post.) 
• What learning was required of you to be successful in the game?  ​

Now compare your experience to the experience that your students have while participating in one of your lessons.  How are they similar?  How are they different?  ​

​Step 2: Do a Little Research

There are three books that I have found helpful in designing my game.  

1. The Gamification of Learning and Instruction: Game-based Methods and   Strategies for Training and Education
2. Designing Games:  A Guide to Engineering Experiences 
3. ​Gamification by Design: Implementing Game Mechanics in Web and Mobile Apps

​There is also great value in reading blogs about gamification.  Once you discover a blogger that has a passion for gamification, check out the bloggers that are linked to his/her blog.  This is a hot topic at the moment, so a simple search should send you in the right direction.  A few that I would highly recommend at the moment are: 

• Michael Matera's awesome series on gamification​
  
• ​Alice Keeler's blog called Gamericulum with tons of great practical tips on gamification
  
• Jason Roy's blog Crispy Math (He has a ton of easily adaptable single lesson games on his site) ​
• Karl Kapp's blog (author of one of the recommended books) ​
• ​Gabe Zichermann's blog (also an author of one of the recommended books)
  
• Gamification Paper.li Daily ​

You should also follow these people on Twitter if you are a Tweep:

@gzicherm  @roybot  @mrmatera  @DanBenoni  ​@alicekeeler

Finally, if you are really keen, Kevin Werbach from U. Penn offers a course on Coursera​ about Gamification.  He doesn't have one going at the moment, but you can add yourself to the watchlist and Coursera will inform about the next start date.  You can also contact him personally on Twitter @kwerb

​Step 3: Discuss Your Ideas with Colleagues

After doing a bit of research, I was ready to jump on the Crazy Train myself (metaphorically speaking).  It was truly great to have him as a resource throughout this process. If there are other teachers interested in gamification at your school or district, form a group to discuss strategies with each other. Two minds (or three or four) are always better than one.  If you are flying solo, revert back to my Twitter suggestion.  There are so many people out there who would love to discuss this topic with you.  Just search using the hashtags #gamification or #gamify, find someone who is tweeting about relevant experiences and then engage them in a dialogue, or reach out to one of the handles posted above.  You can also send questions to me at ‏@roryaileen.

​As we head into summer vacation, this is the perfect time to start exploring gamification while you are not immersed in the day to day grind of being a teacher. Gamifying your content takes time.  Start small and give it a go!  In my next post I will discuss designing your playbook.  Until then, happy training! 

Gamification 101: Why Gamify? Part I

Meet my niece and nephew, Brody and Riley.  They were three and two when these pictures were taken.  That is my iPad.  They are now five and four.  I live in India, so sadly, I only get to see them once or twice a year.  We usually meet up at my parents house while I am home for the summer.  ​I count the days and then hours until I hear the sound of the car in the driveway and catch a glimpse of the excitement on their faces when they first see me on the back patio.  My nephew can hardly contain himself as he desperately tries to break free of the seat belt, scrambling for the car door.  He runs towards my open arms, shouting, "Aunt Rory! Can I play with your iPad?!?!". 

Angry Birds 1:  Aunt Rory 0. 

I take what I can get.

Typically, I don't see my iPad for the duration of their visit.  The lengths that my nephew,  will go to to play games are astounding.  Who knew such small people were capable of such sinister manipulation and deception.  ​One afternoon, we spent about half an hour looking for Brody, only to find him hiding behind the couch in an Angry Birds trance with the sound turned off to avoid detection.  We have all been there, or know someone who has lost all will power and surrendered to the call of the game Sirens.  Just ask my students.  The other day this post from one student to another showed up on my feed.

You know it is bad when they don't respond to Facebook messages!  My response?  STOP PLAYING CRIMINAL CASE AND STUDY FOR YOUR IB EXAMS!  Hmmmm... Maybe if IB exams were more like a game.  Now there is a thought. 

​I decided to give it a try.  About an hour before my seniors went in to take their IB exam for Biology last week, several of them showed up in my classroom in a state of sheer panic.  It was time for the pep talk.  "It's just a game.  Go in there and grab as many points as you can while trying to beat your own high score or better yet, beat Mr. Roy. Exact your revenge for all of those times that he took advantage of your age and inexperience just to add another mark to his win column. Just think of it as a game."  I immediately saw the tension drain from their faces, and a couple of them had gone to their happy place replacing the panic with a confident smirk.  It was obvious that they were about to engage in an epic battle against Mr. Roy for the next three and a half hours and the odds were in their favor. 

24 hours after exams, the teachers are given the exam materials, including the multiple choice booklets that the students mark up before putting the answers on their answer sheet.  While searching for a clean copy to add to my files, I discovered this on the cover of one of the exams.

​Anonymous Student 1: Mr. Roy 0

So what makes games so appealing?  I have been reading a book called Designing Games by Tynan Sylvester.  Tynan does a great job at defining the emotional journey of a game by breaking it down into the elements that make us so vulnerable to those game Sirens.  The first piece of the puzzle is the mechanics of the game.  Mechanics are the elements of games that define how a game works and determine the complexity and level of player interaction.  Things such as risk and rewards, movement, resource management, victory conditions, timing, loss avoidance etc. are all examples of game mechanics.  Mechanics create an arousal state using threats and challenges.

Mechanics are then layered with fictional elements or the story of the game.  This gives the game emotional meaning, which as we know is important for learning (see below). 

When you combine the mechanics and the fictional layer, you create events that provoke emotions and ultimately lead to ​an integrated experience. 

So what does this have to do with education?  Rule #4 from the book Brain Rules by John Medina, is "We don't pay attention to boring things".  Medina goes on to explain, "We pay attention to things like emotions, threats and sex. Regardless of who you are, the brain pays a great deal of attention to these questions: Can I eat it? Will it eat me? Can I mate with it? Will it mate with me? Have I seen it before?"  A perfect example of this is Apple"s 1984 commercial introducing the Macintosh computer.  ​He also talks about the positive effects of stress and emotional memory (check out slide #2).  Games are great at creating emotional experiences with the right combination of mechanics and story elements.

Games also have an element of repetition or grinding built in that enhances the brains ability to retain learning for a longer period of time.    ​

When you compare the elements of games with current brain research on learning enhancement, gamifying learning is theoretically a win-win, a "no brainer" if you will.  The trick is to find a way to make the learning objectives an integral part of the game play so that the only way that a winning condition can be achieved is through the mastery of these objectives. 

Examples of Gamification

The first example is an activity from my 10th grade Physics class called "Save Earth".  See if you can identify the game mechanics in this activity.  Here is a video clip of the students working on saving the world from destruction.  By combining the game mechanics with the fictional elements I was able to successfully design an emotional experience for the students to enhance their learning of Newton's Laws. 

Jason Roy is the review game master.  You can find many examples of gamification on his blog, crispymath.com​.  Two great games of his that are easy to adapt to different disciplines, are Crocodile Dentist and Danger Cards.  They definitely do the job of creating fun, emotionally charged experiences while accomplishing the learning objectives.

If you are just getting started and want to start with something less complicated, check out jeopardylabs.com for a ready-made online jeopardy template, or give technology taboo a try.  ​

If you have gamified content in your class, please share your experiences and suggestions.  I would love to hear about them! 

In my next post, I will discuss a strategy for getting started on designing longer-term classroom games.  

PBL: My WOW Moment of the Day!

Today was a particularly hectic, maddening day for me.  Senior grades were due at 9 am this morning, I taught three back to back classes with a meeting during second break, and my seniors had their Paper 1 and Paper 2 IB Biology exams at 1:00.  It was one of those days.  I am so anxious and distracted while my students are taking exams.  I just want to take it for them.  I would do really well on them and it would sure make the two years leading up to exams so much easier on me as a teacher. AHHHHH!!!

The seniors started wandering in at the beginning of my lunch period (causing me to miss our teacher appreciation lunch) in a last minute desperate attempt to close the loop on two years of learning after what I am sure was a sleepless night despite the fact that I ordered them all to bed at midnight.  "Lunch" ended at 12:10, and my grade 10 students filed in to continue their work on their independent projects that they have been working on for the past couple of weeks.  I had to make a choice, and I chose my seniors who were heading off to their high stakes exams in about half an hour.  So I told my 10th graders to continue their work in their groups and then proceeded to shut the sliding glass doors so that I could focus and calm my frantic seniors while walking them through as many troublesome topics and testing tips as we could manage in that short amount of time.  In fact, I was so focused on them, that I didn't notice the work that was going on outside of my classroom. 

As a teacher, this was one of those moments that you never forget.  While hugging my seniors goodbye hoping that some of my knowledge and confidence would rub off onto them, I looked out to find my entire 10th grade class reviewing the cell membrane as one cohesive group.  Three of the students took the initiative to grab some whiteboard markers and lead the rest of them through a review of the topics that they are required to know for their independent projects.  Amazed and shell-shocked, I went outside and joined them, but not as their teacher. At this moment, I was an admirer, impressed by the fact that each and every one of them had made good decisions about their learning independent of my supervision.  They could have just as easily been playing games, chatting on Facebook, setting fire to each other and countless other things that I would rather not think about.  It was so fulfilling to join a discussion with a group of students that were prepared and determined to explore these concepts at a deeper level.  At the end of the day, if all they walk away from this project with are the skills of collaboration and taking personal responsibility for their learning, I would consider this a huge success.  Fortunately, most of them will also understand the mechanisms of cell membrane regulation and be able to apply them to specific functions of the human body such as lactose intolerance, Parkinson's disease, how endorphins work, starvation, why asthmatics need inhalers, weight loss and many other interesting topics.  I truly look forward to learning from their presentations at the end of the project.

After school today, one of the students posted the pics from class to our Facebook group via Dropbox!  ​

Looks pretty productive to me!  ​

At 3:30, the first wave of my SL students returned to my class to report back on their exams.  The first words out of there mouths were, "You are like magic! The two topics that you predicted and reviewed with us at lunch were essays on the test! Thank God we went over gene transfer!  We nailed it!"   ​

I would call this a WIN-WIN! I have to say that I am most proud of my 10th graders.  I am so thankful that I work with students who are committed to their learning and motivated ​enough to engage without having to have someone looking over their shoulders monitoring their every move.  I am also thankful that they didn't start any fires.  I think a little celebration is in order. 

Ode to Little Man

I should be grading tests right now, but there is a story that needs to be told.  To my 11th grade IB Biology class, get over it.  You will get your tests back on Friday.  I am actually doing a favor for some of you. You can thank me later with chocolate, hugs, and handmade cards.  It is teacher appreciation week after all. 

Last weekend, the tweets started pouring into my feed about this coveted week for teachers, typically acknowledged only by other teachers desperately needing recognition for all of their hard work and the occasional nod from admin.  Each year at this time, I am reminded of one special educator.  For the life of me I  can never remember his name, as my friend and I referred to him affectionately with a hint of competitive spite as "Little Man".   ​

The year was 1997.  I had just graduated from  Texas A&M University with a degree in Biology.  I had decided to give teaching a try, because I had fallen in love with tutoring athletes during my stint in College Station.  Same thing right?  Being a self-assured, driven, adventurous ​23 year old know-it-all, I scoffed at the idea of staying on to get my certification.  Who needs that?  Well, that and maybe I had run out of money and needed to start earning some cash to pay back my exorbitant student loan bill.  Luckily, my dad went to university with a man who was an assistant superintendent in a small town in East Texas.  They were desperate for science teachers, so they decided to grant me an emergency certification provided I managed to obtain my certification in the next three years. 

I still remember my first conversation with my principal during the PD days before school started in August. She showed me my classroom and asked me if there was anything that I would need.  My response?  A podium!  How else was I going to deliver my lectures to my 7th grade classes?  The next question I asked was where can I make overhead copies of the notes that I plan on having the students copy during my lectures?  I know, I know... Shameful!  Having said that, shame on the principal for allowing me to have that podium!  As you can imagine, those 7th graders ATE ME FOR LUNCH that year.  I knew that I was meant to be a teacher when I agreed to come back for a second year. 

The following summer, my friend and I found a certification program about an hour and a half away that only required 21 hours of coursework. SCORE!  So for the next year and a half, we found ourselves attending certification classes at Lamar University in Beaumont, TX.  I soon discovered that several of the professors obtained their teaching degrees from Disneyland.  Methods classes that described classes with 15 well adjusted students eager to learn with the surplus of materials that you had at your fingertips.  None of these students showed up to school with a gun, and none of their parents were in prison for murder.  I immediately tuned them out and prepared to suffer the remaining hours of my sentence in silence.  After all, I learned more from my one year of hell on the job than they could ever teach me.  That was until I met Little Man.   

Little Man reminded me of Lou Diamond Phillips from Stand and Deliver wrapped in a mean little package no more than five feet in height.  He had a long braid down his back with an evil little twinkle in his eye, and he had my number from the first moment I walked into his class.  As with my other courses that I had faked my way through, I deliberately ignored the first reading assignment for class.  At the beginning of class, Little Man singled me out of a crowd of about 70 other students and asked me to stand up.  He then proceeded to grill me on the theory from the reading.  It was not pretty.  Several students approached me after class to thank me for keeping them out of the line of fire.  My friend Suzanne vowed never to sit next to me again, as asked me to pretend that I didn't know her.  That night I went home and memorized the reading for the next class.  As expected, Little Man called on me again. I stood up confidently and proceeded to school him on the reading from the night before with more than a little "in your face" sass. Did I mention that I was 23. He gave me a little smirk and then thanked me for my "long-winded speech".  Ouch!  I knew right then that this was going to be a great learning experience for me.  For some reason, I couldn't get enough of him.  His classes were so engaging.  My mind never wandered, and I couldn't figure out why.  Then about halfway through the course, he revealed his secret.  Stories.  He talked about the attention span of adults and revealed our tells.  He knew that in order to get us to sit through a 90 minute lesson, he was going to have to reengage us every ten minutes or so.  The second he noticed a critical mass of students sitting back with their eyes disengaged, he would break into a story.  Some of his stories would make us laugh out loud, some made us cry, but all of them were personal reveals about the man that we had come to love.  As if he had the magic touch, our bodies would shift back towards him to find out what happened next.  It was then that he would transition back in to the lesson at hand. 

During that year, I discovered that Little Man was also a biologist.  In fact, he was sent down to Venezuela with the purpose of making contact with a local tribe ​that had never allowed foreigners to travel in their territory.  He was the first man to take a photo of Angel Falls which was subsequently published in National Geographic...or so he said.  Who knows if any of this was true.  I never found that photo. You know I searched for it. The next semester, I took a reading strategies elective course...because Little Man was the teacher.  I had no intention of ever teaching elementary school students, but that didn't matter.  I was in it for the stories.

Two years later, I received a phone call from Bambi Betts in Venezuela offering me a job.  It was a no brainer.  It was meant to be.  I have been teaching overseas now for 13 years.  When you ask former students of mine what they remember most about me, most of them will respond, "Her stories".  Granted, my 11th grade IB class will go into a "who's on first" skit of mixed metaphors involving a Japanese bicycle maker, my father and books about books about making bicycles.  Don't believe them.  They are just bitter that I haven't graded their tests yet.  The one thing I know to be true is that I owe all of this to Little Man. ​ He taught me the one skill that is the key to my success as an educator.  I will never forget this gift and I will never forget Little Man.

This past weekend while I was thinking about him, I embarked on a desperate internet search to find any trace of him.  Problem was I couldn't remember his actual name, and surprisingly Little Man didn't return any relevant hits.  Hours and hours later, it came to me.  Ed McCaskill?? So I searched some more.  Still nothing.  No trace.  Until tonight when I received an e-mail from the Lamar University Alumni office confirming my suspicion (yes, I contacted them; I admit it).  They offered to send him an e-mail on my behalf.  I doubt that I will send him a link to this post as he doesn't know that in my mind he is a 5 ft tall Native American force to be reckoned with that I call Little Man, but you can be sure that he will be hearing from me in honor of teacher appreciation week. 

​Thank you, Little Man, for being an exceptional, inspirational educator.  I know that countless others have been touched by your lessons on biology, the craft of teaching, and most importantly, life.

Update:

I did end up sending Dr. McCaskill my blog, and he did have something to say about my nickname for him. 

However, I might add that which you might not be aware of is that at one point in my life I was six feet three and one half inches tall.  This was before the accident.  I fell from a piper cub air craft at about ten thousand feet and landed on my feet, quite an impact.​

Perhaps he was in the habit of telling tall tales after all.