In response to all of the top 10 blog posts that have dominated my twitter feed and blog reader in the recent past, I have decided to focus on one thing at a time. This blog is devoted to my one new tool, my one new discovery, my one new insight, my one new professional dilemma, my one new "Aha!" moment.
Tagged with: gamification
What started two months ago as a manipulative plot to get my seniors to prepare for IB exams has turned into an epic quest: to annihilate Lida the Mango (#1 in the world in biology) in a battle of wits while accidentally preparing for exams of course. The QuizUp biology topic update has finally gone live and my students couldn't be more excited... or sleep deprived.
Click through on the image to find out more about QuizUp
For a while now I have been using Quizlet to help my IB Biology students learn vocabulary for my course. Finals are just around the corner, so I posted the following messages to our class Facebook group:
My first reaction was to dismiss this idea as I suspected that it was going to serve the same function on a different platform, which means twice as much work for the same result. However, I went ahead and signed up for QuizUp to see what the fuss was all about.
A week later, I find myself ranked #2 in India hot on Rams tail, though admittedly he has a bit of a lead on me. A couple of days into my obsession with this game I mentioned it to a colleague of mine. At midnight a couple of days later he sent me this message:
We have decided to start a QA group at our school: QuizUp Anonymous or 12 steps to getting more sleep at night. But enough about us... it IS all about the students after all.
To play the game, you choose a category (there are tons of options) and then you either challenge a friend to play with you (in real time or asynchronously) or you can challenge a random person in the world in real time. Each game has 7 questions and you have 10 seconds to answer the question. You get experience points for guessing a correct answer, your speed in answering the questions, completing games and victories. For each category, points add up to numerical levels and levels add up to achievements in the form of player titles (I am an Evolutionary Einstein formerly a Genetics Genius) as well as badges such as this one:
There are even a few badges for the not-so-fortunate among us:
A student of mine discovered this after challenging me one too many times. He should have known better than to go after an Evolutionary Einstein!
Anyway, you can check out your stats as well as the stats of your "friends". Here is a breakdown of the games played by the student that introduced me to this game.
Can you tell that he is studying for his SAT in December? I love that his top three topics include Biology and Physics. Unfortunately, after playing "a few" games under the topic of Biology, I realized that the biology questions for the most part didn't address the IB Biology curriculum. In passing my student had mentioned that we could create content for QuizUp, so I wrote to them and asked if I could create content for a new Science category with my students that would be focused on the IB Biology content that they would be tested on in May. I figure if you can't beat 'em, you might as well join them. How great would it be to leverage a tool like this for student learning?
They loved the idea, and have charged me with creating a spreadsheet with a minimum of 300 questions to launch the new topic. Once this new topic is released, students all over the world will be able to access this question bank and play other students while accidentally preparing for their exams in May.
I would like to open this up to other IB Biology teachers. The format required for the questions is as follows:
If you are an IB Biology teacher, and you are interested in helping me to create content for this game, send me a message and I will be happy to add you to the Google Spreadsheet that I have started with my students. The faster we get this done, the sooner it will be available for our students to use. You can reach me at my Twitter handle @roryaileen, or by email at newcombr@asbindia.org. I am also looking for a catchy title (with IB somewhere in it to avoid the addition of non-related content) as well as achievement level title suggestions. I am thinking of going with an evolutionary theme. Instead of beginner, they start as primordial slime, and progress to higher organisms until they reach the top level, Super Human Intellectual Terrestrials.
I will keep you updated on the release, but for now, my arch nemesis from Spain has just challenged me to a rematch, so I must go.
Angry Birds screenshot
In my previous post, Training Camp I discussed ways to prepare yourself to gamify instruction in your classes particularly for those of you who are not gamers. Continuing with my football metaphor, I want to share with you how I designed my playbook for my Physics game. Though it may seem daunting, you will find that designing your game is incredibly similar to how you would design a unit in one of your classes, as the mechanics that you might use in a game align well with the pedagogical practices that we use everyday in our classroom. Having said that, with gamification, I found that students experience heightened anticipation, emotional engagement, and ultimately greater success due to the interweaving of game mechanics and fictional elements coupled with a disconnect from the pressure associated with grades.
The screenshot above from Angry Birds does a great job of illustrating this. Angry Birds is divided into worlds. The first world of Angry Birds is called "Poached Eggs" which establishes the fictional elements of the game. Each world is divided into levels that increase in complexity and difficulty as you move through the world. The levels remain locked until you pass the level below. Locking levels is a game mechanic that creates anticipation. What will I find in Level 2?!? There are multiple ways to pass each level with varying degrees of success equated to points and stars. You also have the opportunity to redo each level if you are not satisfied with your feedback. For a more detailed description, check out the Angry Birds Wiki and explore one of the themes (levels). See if you can identify the game mechanics used to create the emotional experience that you have when playing Angry Birds.
Now compare the description above to a unit that you teach in your class. What would you need to do to heighten a student's anticipation? How could you reduce their anxiety and transfer their focus from grades to the learning? Does your content become more complex and difficult as you progress through the unit? How frequently do you provide feedback to your students? What opportunities do they have to act on your feedback?
Keeping these questions in mind, let's get started on designing the shell for your game.
As with any unit that you design, you must have your learning objectives in place before you create your assessments. It is crucial that these are clearly articulated so that you can integrate them into the game play. Students should not be able to be successful in your game without demonstrating mastery of these objectives. When choosing your learning objectives, you should focus on content that can easily be divided into smaller chunks and levels of difficulty or complexity.
One of the most appealing aspects of games is player control. This translates into empowering students to be in control of their learning. Your game should give students voice and choice over their game play, and allow for self-pacing. Select content and skills that will allow you to be as far away from the driver's seat as possible.
My advice for those of you who are new to gamification is to start with something small and manageable until you get the hang of it. Keep in mind that games are not perfect for every situation. Gamification works really well with Math and Physics units. For other disciplines, you need to think carefully and creatively about how you will go about structuring your game.
For my physics unit, I had the topics of work, power, energy, and momentum to cover. When I decided to gamify this unit, I focused my first “world” on work alone. This narrowed down the list of learning objectives considerably making it easier to differentiate and assign levels.
Once you have selected your content and skills, the next step is to choose your level structure. I have provided a few examples below, but you can also just as easily come up with your own. For educational games, the best approach to this is to do what Karl Kapp refers to as a mission-based structure. I had not read Kapp’s book when I designed my game, but this is exactly how I did it because pedagogically it makes sense. The two structures that he suggests are:
easy, intermediate, hard (using the same content)
demonstration, practice, and test mode (this is similar to the model that I used).
The three levels in the game that I developed were:
Level 1: The collaborative, self-directed learning level. I used online resources (Physics Classroom, and G-docs) to guide their learning. The learning was self-paced, and this blended learning approach allowed my stronger students to forge ahead to more challenging tasks, while freeing me up to help the weaker students one-on-one or in mini workshops.
Level 2: The challenge level (read test). I made it a requirement that students had to get a minimum of an 85% to receive their badge. However, they were allowed to retake it if they didn’t accomplish it the first time through.
Level 3: The project level. I designed this level to force them to use higher order thinking skills (problem solving, creativity, critical thinking etc.) to accomplish the task. Within the level, I built in different levels of difficulty to keep the stronger students in their “flow”. Flow is a very important concept in games.
Image credit: http://www.flowskills.com/the-8-elements-of-flow.html
Keep in mind that you can lock levels and keep your students in the dark. It increases their excitement and anticipation while at the same time allows you to call audibles and change it up in the middle of game play. Win-win!
CAUTION: Be cognizant of the amount of content you put in each level and the amount of time that you allow for it. If students are stuck in a level for too long, they will move into the zone of boredom and lose interest. Timing is key. One solution to this is to add sublevels (see example). Change things up after every sublevel, or have mini-activities in place for some hands-on experiences. I would recommend adding these at the end when you go back to revise your game.
Another game structure you should check out is Michael Matera's Realm of Nobles that he created for his 6th grade world History course. He does an awesome job at illustrating how you can gamify content in language-based disciplines.
I could literally go on and on about this topic, but I think that is enough to get you started. To summarize as you begin to create a structure for your game and divide up your content and skills, you should consider the following suggestions:
allow for self-paced learning
ensure that each level is challenging enough to maintain their curve of interest (flow) for all students (differentiation).
adhere to a short time limit per activity/level
build in an increasing level of difficulty from level to level
provide for a variety of learning approaches
In my next post I will discuss assessment/reward/feedback strategies. If you missed my previous posts on gamification, you can find them all at this link.
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.
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.
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:
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?
There are three books that I have found helpful in designing my game.
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:
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
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!