7 [NOT] Key Learning Points on Gamification | Axonify

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ID-100263233This came across my feed today. I can’t leave this unanswered, because I’m really getting tired of this sort of unfounded sales drivel.

7 Key Learning Points on Gamification | Axonify.

Now, I do not know these people or this company, and I have no personal beef. I’m using this article as a way to highlight some of what’s really wrong with the corporate gamification ‘scene’, and why, if they continue pushing this stuff, they will be responsible for yet another failed fad.

I actually think gamification done right ISN’T a fad. Some of it is indeed new, but a lot of it is simply good teaching, and gamification is a handy umbrella term for a collection of ideas that didn’t have anything to unify them till now.

 

Let’s go through them in order:

Learning Point #1: Game Popularity is a Formula

Yeah. Right. The idea that you can guarantee success by following a formula is the kind of magical thinking that gave us software engineering. You know the kind that believes that hiring dozens of mediocre programmers and making them follow a formal “process” will result in well designed, bug-free software.

Making a good game is HARD. There is no simple formula.

The author claims that their company has figured out the formula as a result of testing and releasing 100’s of games. The formula, they say, is to make the game multi-level, challenging and fun. I suppose 30+ years of research into games and game design isn’t worth mentioning. This is NOT new, and they sure as heck didn’t invent it.

Learning Point #2: Game Play Variety is Critical

Of course. We’ve known for decades that this kind of variety is critical in learning. Also not new, nor did they uncover any special secret here.

Learning Point #3: Leaderboards Drive Competition & Community

Maybe in marketing, but NOT, I repeat NOT true in learning generally. In fact more and more we are realizing that competition is counter productive when it comes to learning. It also tends to destroy community.

Learning Point #4: Physical Rewards are Key to Participation

Also not true. What IS key to participation is that the rewards be meaningful. Now I suppose if you can only think in terms of material stuff, then, sure, physical rewards are better than virtual ones. By the word physical is not the opposite of virtual. Real Life is (sort of – I’m not convinced that all words have opposites, but this comes closer).

Learning Point #5: Learners Prefer the Term “Coach” Over “Avatar”

Whatever.

Learning Point #6: Employees Like to See Their Progress

Everyone likes to get feedback and see that they are progressing. This isn’t news.

Learning Point #7: Social

What? The first 6 “points” were actually statements of some sort, and now we get a single word as if we’re supposed to know exactly what it is about “social” that’s key. A lot of people actually DON’T like to socialize in the way that most salespeople think. I suspect most salespeople are extroverts and can’t even begin to imagine that there might be people who don’t think exactly like they do. The article says that 15% of their users engage socially every day. That actually doesn’t sound like a lot to me.

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Where I’ve Been Online (May 24, 2014)

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  • Programming Sucks

    “very friend I have with a job that involves picking up something heavier than a laptop more than twice a week eventually finds a way to slip something like this into conversation: “Bro,1 you don’t work hard. I just worked a 4700-hour week digging a tunnel under Mordor with a screwdriver.”

    They have a point. Mordor sucks, and it’s certainly more physically taxing to dig a tunnel than poke at a keyboard unless you’re an ant. But, for the sake of the argument, can we agree that stress and insanity are bad things? Awesome. Welcome to programming.”

    tags:programming sucks humour coding

  • aGupieWare: Online Learning: A Bachelor’s Level Computer Science Program Curriculum (Updated)

    “A few months back we took an in-depth look at MIT’s free online Introduction to Computer Science course, and laid out a self-study time table to complete the class within four months, along with a companion post providing learning benchmarks to chart your progress. In the present article, I’ll step back and take a much more broad look at com-sci course offerings available for free on the internet, in order to answer a deceptively straightforward question: is it possible to complete the equivalent of a college bachelor’s degree in computer science through college and university courses that are freely available online? And if so, how does one do so?”

    tags:computer education programming online learning curriculum

  • Debunking Fake Albert Einstein Quotes | Skeptica Esoterica

    “The reason for the proliferation of so many fake quotes attributed to Einstein is that he has become synonymous with genius and wisdom. Surely, if Einstein had said these things, then they must be wise indeed!

    This post will examine popular quotes on the internet that have been falsely or mistakenly attributed to Albert Einstein.

    I will update this page as more fake Einstein quotes circulate the internet. Please post a comment for any questions or corrections.”

    tags:fake einstein quotes

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Where I’ve Been Online (May 10, 2014)

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  • Productivity and Play in Digital Media and Learning | DMLcentral

    “The authors of the study state that the usage policies for publicly accessible computers tend to favor “productive” uses — such as looking for work or conducting research — over (supposedly) non-productive ones, like playing games or accessing social networks. However, in their research, they found that it was not easy to separate these two activities, either in the minds of users or in the effect of these activities on the type of learning that users were able to accomplish. The authors found that the majority of the people they studied first learned how to use computers and other communication technologies from family members, and those first experiences most often consisted of playing games and accessing social networks. This personal, social introduction to computers was contrasted with formal computer instruction, which respondents found to be unhelpful and overly simplistic.”

    tags:productivity play digital media media learning

  • 3 Ways Coding and Gaming Can Enhance Learning | Edutopia

    “Coding isn’t just for computer science any more. Educators are finding that teaching students to write code and design games enhances learning and creates engagement. These examples illustrate how coding and games are being used across the curriculum and at all levels, as well as why great teaching is at the very heart of this innovation. “

    tags:coding gaming learning edutopia

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How Are Teachers and Students Using Khan Academy? | MindShift

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How Are Teachers and Students Using Khan Academy? | MindShift.

It looks like most teachers will just keep on doing what they have always done. Not a big surprise, but I have to wonder if things would be different if we did more than simply drop the tool in their laps and walk away. What if we actually showed them ways to use it? I’m not talking about radical change here – I mean what if we showed them little, easy to incorporate tricks.

I think that more often than not, change is about baby steps… If we push people too far out of their comfort zones, they will push back.

Schools’ resources often dictated how teachers were able to use Khan Academy videos and problem sets. Schools with one-to-one laptop programs had more freedom to break out of traditional instruction styles and ask students to take responsibility for learning specific concepts by a given date. Schools that shared laptops were more often restricted to rotating students through practice problems while maintaining direct instruction. Individual school’s missions, and teacher openness to change, also dictated how Khan Academy tools were used.

Despite the potential of freeing teachers to incorporate inventive projects to class time, the SRI report reveals that teachers didn’t drastically alter their teaching style when using these online tools. What the videos and quizzes have done is help with tracking data, assigning practice exercises, and supplementing instruction into existing classroom structures. Most teachers did not allow students to explore independently with the Khan platform, and instead assigned specific work. Researchers found a positive correlation with increased test scores, but little else to show that Khan Academy tools helped transform classrooms.

 

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Where I’ve Been Online (May 3, 2013)

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  • Consumer and Education: 4 Robots That Engage Students in STEM | Robotics Trends

    “Robots can capture a child’s imagination like no other tool by creating a fun, physical learning process. With robots, kids learn programming via interactive play by moving a robot in various sequences and using intuitive, visual programming on a computer screen.

    The children also learn STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) by watching and interacting with robots that demonstrate the practical results of the day’s lesson. “Kids recognize when they are learning something themselves—robots give them that,” says Larry Johnson, CEO of the New Media Consortium, a research organization that specializes in educational technology. Robots are proving to be valuable educational tools from the lower grades all the way up to graduate school. “Building and programming these devices is part of becoming a creative science and engineering kind of person,” he adds.”

    tags:education robots stem games

  • In The Games Of Madness: 4-Layers, A Narrative Design Approach

    “This blog post will be about a new way to approach narrative design in games – the 4 Layers Approach. It is based on a GDC talk I gave in March this year. The approach is primarily meant to suggest a workflow that focuses on the story and makes sure the narrative and gameplay are connected. The end goal is to create games that provide a better interactive narrative.
    “

    tags:games narrative design

  • “The Door Problem” | Liz England

    ”
    Theory & Practice April 21, 2014 68 Comments
    “The Door Problem”

    “So what does a game designer do? Are you an artist? Do you design characters and write the story? Or no, wait, you’re a programmer?”

    Game design is one of those nebulous terms to people outside the game industry that’s about as clear as the “astrophysicist” job title is to me. It’s also my job, so I find myself explaining what game design means to a lot of people from different backgrounds, some of whom don’t know anything about games.”

    tags:education games

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Where I’ve Been Online (Apr. 26, 2014)

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  • Education Through Play: How Games Can Help Children Learn

    ”
    inShare14

    Can games serve as a vehicle for education? What can, for example, the anti-pig fury of Angry Birds’avian avengers teach players about the laws of physics? What we know about learning and human development suggests that games and other forms of imaginative play can serve as a valuable educational tool and powerful complement to traditional stand-and-deliver instruction.
    CONTRIBUTOR
    Stephen Slota
    University of Connecticut

    Prominent learning theorists, including Lev Vygotsky, Jean Piaget, and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, have emphasized the importance of play in the development of abstract imaginative thinking and the realization of goals children cannot yet achieve in real life. For instance, a three-year-old unable to ride a horse can sit on a broken tree branch and imagine riding. Like other animals, we use games to mimic activities and roles for which we need to prepare, such as playing “house” to emulate adult social interactions or cooking with an Easy Bake Oven to get the gist of meal preparation.(a)”

    tags:education games play

  • Selection Criteria for Commercial Off-the-Shelf (COTS) Video Games for Language Learning | IALLT

    “Issue:
    2
    Felix Arnulf Kronenberg
    Rhodes College
    Abstract

    This article addresses criteria for choosing commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) games and their implementation in the classroom and other L2 learning environments. The proposal and discussion of a set of such criteria, which include the categories of motivation and flow, clearly defined and spaced goals, game skills and game mechanics, content, story and narrative, multimodality, agency, course integration and scaffolding, and financial, technical, and administrative considerations are the focus of this article. This discussion is followed by the analyses of three examples of COTS games (Buzz, Heavy Rain, and SingStar) which may be suitable in a L2 learning context.”

    tags:selection criteria commercial games learning

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Six things that will demoralise staff | smh.com.au

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Six things that will demoralise staff | smh.com.au.

Boy, this sure hits home. These are all reasons I left the University of Calgary. It’s also why I am happy to teach courses at Mount Royal University – they do very little of this, which makes for an entirely different working environment.

If you want your staff to take a go-slow approach, follow these steps.

Ever wonder why your staff are such a complaining, cynical, lethargic bunch. Chances are it’s more to do with you than them. Here are the top six things business leaders do that sap motivation.

1.     Break trust

[Leaders] break trust by mistreating individuals, thinking that the rest of the team won’t notice. Wrong.

Of course, when this is applied unevenly – with some people being privileged and others being mistreated – it’s even worse. This can be as subtle as imposing requirements on someone that are not required of others.

2.     Perpetually increase demands

“You just burn people out. People are left with no sense of progress, direction or feeling that what they do each day has value.”

This one’s pretty obvious. When it comes to academics – it’s ludicrous to keep off-loading more and more administrative tasks to the faculty so you can cut admin staff.

Also, expecting excellence in teaching without paying for it is ridiculous. Sessional staff are almost NEVER paid for course development (anywhere). One way of compensating for this common failing is to actually appreciate faculty who do course development anyways (I mean sincerely, don’t just mouth the words). Another way is to make the effort to have them teach the same course several times so they can get more mileage out of their efforts. I got neither at the UofC, and both at MRU.

3.     Destroy any attempts at innovation

Business leaders will often encourage staff to offer new ideas but not dedicate the time or space to take these ideas seriously when they are put forward.

Another way to do this is to make it so onerous to actually act on the ideas that people give up. The last time I taught for the UofC, I had so many obstacles thrown at me, the only way I could proceed was to do it on my own time and my own dime. I was trusted at MRU.

4.     Micromanage

“Spending too much time looking over the shoulder of your staff is a great way to sap their investment in a task and ownership of their role. Micromanaging sends a clear message that ‘I don’t trust you’ and nothing is more demotivating than that,” she says.

It’s funny how people SAY they trust you, and then act like they totally don’t.

5.     Be unavailable

Thanks to the wonders of modern technology, it is possible to micromanage AND be unavailable at the same time. At the UofC I was expected to provide no end of detail in what I was doing, but when I asked for something, it was like pulling teeth. I have often complained about the bureaucracy at MRU, but generally speaking, people are approachable and forthcoming with information.

6.     Don’t celebrate success

It is possible to do this in a way that makes one feel totally used. I was asked to share my successes with my Alma mater. The thought of doing that made my stomach hurt. My successes were largely achieved IN SPITE of them rather than because of them, yet they would happily take credit.

Curiously, I actually tried to become an adjunct at my Alma mater – twice. The first time was just after I’d graduated, and won a research award. That time my paperwork mysteriously disappeared – twice. The other time it took months of cajoling to even elicit a response from the Dean, and then they said they weren’t really interested. An adjunct appointment in Canada is a completely resource neutral appointment. It costs the University NOTHING, yet allows them to claim my achievements as part of their “output”. I can’t imagine why anyone would turn that down, but they did. THEN they had the gall to ask me to give them information they could put on their alumni pages to use for recruiting more students.

I am both happy and proud to be an adjunct at MRU.

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Where I’ve Been Online (Apr 5, 2014)

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  • Gamifying the classroom is a bad idea | Al Jazeera America

    “

    I was part of a generation of children who learned about dysentery through a video game. Every week, I sat in front of a bay of Apple II computers in the school library with my fourth grade class and played The Oregon Trail for an hour. First developed by an eighth grade teacher in Minneapolis, the now-legendary game depicted the difficulties of settling the American West in the 18th century. It introduced children across the country to topics like cholera, typhoid, squirrel hunting and river fording by including them in its basic mathematical system. But did anyone really learn anything from playing the game?”

    tags:gaming trouble in river city anti-gaming

  • Animals can tell right from wrong – Telegraph

    “Scientists studying animal behaviour believe they have growing evidence that species ranging from mice to primates are governed by moral codes of conduct in the same way as humans.

    Until recently, humans were thought to be the only species to experience complex emotions and have a sense of morality.

    But Prof Marc Bekoff, an ecologist at University of Colorado, Boulder, believes that morals are “hard-wired” into the brains of all mammals and provide the “social glue” that allow often aggressive and competitive animals to live together in groups.

    He has compiled evidence from around the world that shows how different species of animals appear to have an innate sense of fairness, display empathy and help other animals that are in distress.

    His conclusions will provide ammunition for animal welfare groups pushing to have animals treated more humanely, but some experts are sceptical about the extent to which animals can experience complex emotions and social responsibility. ”

    tags:morality animals ethology

  • Why VCs Usually Get Ed Tech Wrong | e-Literatee-Literate

    “Why VCs Usually Get Ed Tech Wrong
    Posted on March 22, 2014 by Michael Feldstein

    I don’t often get to write these words, but there is a new must-read blog post on educational technology by a venture capitalist. Rethink Education’s Matt Greenfield argues that there is no generalized bubble in ed tech investment; rather, the problem is that the venture community has a habit of systematically betting on the wrong horses.

    It’s worth noting that Matt is not your typical VC. For starters, he doesn’t live in the Valley echo chamber. Perhaps more importantly, he has a background as an academic. He has a PhD in English from Yale, taught at Bowdoin and CUNY, and taught graduate classes in literature to teachers from the New York City public schools. As such, he has an unusual perspective for an ed tech venture capitalist.”

    tags:ed tech venture capitalists education

  • Portfolium | Free Student Portfolio

    “Our mission is to help students gain the recognition they have earned and expose them to the opportunities they deserve.

    Portfolium is an interactive portfolio network and showcase. We help students, recent graduates, young and experienced professionals visually showcase their projects, skills and experiences well beyond the limits of a traditional resume. As recent college graduates who have made the transition from college to career, we know first-hand the challenges in creating a traditional resume without any professional work history.

    Portfolium allows users to highlight experiences and skills from all facets of their life, providing a more comprehensive, holistic view of their passions, abilities and overall potential.”

    tags:free student portfolio

  • Toward a common definition of “flipped learning” – Casting Out Nines – The Chronicle of Higher Education

    “Flipped Learning is a pedagogical approach in which direct instruction moves from the group learning space to the individual learning space, and the resulting group space is transformed into a dynamic, interactive learning environment where the educator guides students as they apply concepts and engage creatively in the subject matter.”

    tags:definition learning higher education flipped

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