Gamification has some real potential, but it will be discredited before it even gets started if people insist on using it as little more than a new veneer plastered over antiquated methods.
Here’s an article that explains how to use Chore Wars to ‘gamify your classroom”. Except, the problem is that the game is simply being used as a wrapper around the same old industrialized learning.
Gamify your classroom with Chore Wars | Digital Play.
This comment causes me deep concern:
The idea is to encourage the students to do more exam practice tests by making it fun.
Really? Is THAT what you think this is good for? Getting kids to do more tests?
Admittedly a lot of ideas embodied in gamification are not actually new: like choice, detailed progress tracking, earning scores based on performance, moving up to the next level, etc. (I remember using SRA Reading Kits – I LOVED those things).
On the other hand, gamification does provide a handy lens through which to examine these ideas. It provides a framework that I’m finding very useful.
If your understanding of gamification is that it is simply something in which to wrap your same old instruction, try reading up on it some more.
It actually requires some serious re-thinking, if you want to make it meaningful and seamless.
Here are a couple of sources that might help:
