Gamification
We've used reality as an inspiration to create the wonderful world of video games and games. We also figured out that games keep people invested, sometimes even so much they don't care about reality anymore. We have trouble getting people to work on boring jobs, to stay sharp in school. There must be a solution to that. Gamification is the idea to use elements from video games that make those interesting and apply these elements to real life. As you can imagine there are tons of elements and I'm gonna mention a few.
Example Elements
So here are two examples of the history, how they are used in video games and how you could use them back in real life with a given example.
Experience / Leveling
Many RPGs implement the ability to gain experience and level up gaining more abilities over time. This game element came from real life to represent the learning of a character or player. If you do something over and over you get better at it in real life. This can be represented via experience and the upcoming level-ups. Repeating something gives you experience and once you've accumulated enough you get better by a step, a level. We can use this element to give the players a visual cue for how they're getting better at it. Usually, a bar is filled with the gain of experience. Once it is full it empties, increases the needed amount of experience and increases the level counter. It's also a good idea to combine this element with others. This is most often used in combination with learning skills, like learning a new language or maybe a new concept or technology.
Achievements
We reward people with awards, medals and other unique prices for outstanding or unusual performances. There are even people who dedicate themselves to collecting these. Ever met a person with 7 doctor titles and 1 professor title? Yep, most likely a collector or someone who prefers learning to work-life, maybe? I don't know. Anyways there's no doubt that people will be happy to achieve something but make sure not to just hand it over. Achievements need to be earned they need to be challenging, but don't make them all too challenging. They could be awarded for doing homework for a whole month or for showing up to work on time for a month.
More Elements
There are tons of game elements that can be used in gamification, you can look at different genres of video games to see, there are books on this, as well as scientific papers. I once looked through some for a project in school in which I discussed 10 elements even sorted by need satisfaction (which is another topic I need to discuss on this blog at some point). During my search, I also found websites that feature up to 50 or more. Once my skillshare class is done you will most likely find a link here to check it out if you're really invested in Gamification.
The Future
With this, I've given you a little introduction to Gamification. So what now? What's ahead? People believe that Gamification will play a huge role in the future, as it motivates people of all ages. Whether or not companies will feature more gamification in the future and the school system applies these is something we will see over time. Implementing all these elements into the school system would match the mind of the children though. Besides we all enjoy playing, don't we? So why not...
"Learn by Playing"
