Hello  langualoggers!

Today I will be talking about Gamification. You may have heard of it or you may not but it is not something very new although I met it about 3-4 weeks ago and not surprisingly in Instructional Technologies and Materials Design course (IT&MD) Anyway, in this post I'l be tapping on what gamification refers to, why its use is important in educational context and whether it is helpful or harmful in learning and teaching process.

Firstly, as the name itself kind of suggests, it is basically the application of game-design elements and game principles in non-game contexts. It can also be defined as a set of activities and processes to solve problems by using or applying the characteristics of game elements in order to increase the motivation of the participants in a specific context.

Why Use Gamification in Education?

Gaming has become a culture both in virtual or real world environments. It is not something we should avoid despite the common belief which states that games are time-wasting activities and provide nothing useful for one's development. Totally wrong. Even I can say that my brother has learned two thirds of his English via games and this is only a single dimension that I' ve observed. Many skills can be added such as analytical, strategical skills besides language skills. So, if learning is facilitated by gaming faster than learning in a traditional classroom setting which sounds quite boring, why are we still insisting on the latter?

Is Gamification Harmful?

I'd like to answer this question by referring to BBC's documentary that we watched in the last week's lesson https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x38qzq8 "Are Video Games Really That Bad"

Briefly, the researchers and pyschologists have tried to find out if there is a meaningful correlation between one's level of aggresiveness, video game addiction and playing video games. As a result of the study, they haven't found a significant correlation between these. In fact, it has found out that video-game playing increases players' cognitive abilities such as memory skills, multitasking skills and even avoiding dementia and alzheimer. It of course applies to not only children but any age group.

How Games Can Be Used in Education?

Games' role in raising curiosity and increasing motivation is indisputable.Gaming allows for going beyond the 'stimulus-response-reinforcement' linear approach that we have in the traditional classrooms which encourage habit formation. Unlike this, integrating games into lessons seems encouraging groupwork&pairwork, tasks with a  meaningful purpose, and cooperation over competition. Because we are talking on a classroom basis, I'll be referring to mostly children's education. Why children love games might be simply because of their need for autonomy (being able to make choices about their learning), need for relationship and a need for sense of accomplishment. As teachers (or future teachers) we need to design our classes to fulfill these needs to realize the best learning experience of our students. Gamifying lessons, creating communicative tasks with authentic purposes, giving students a chance to take control of their learning process and  providing space for collaborative work might be the good ways of doing it.

Here you can find a course which is about Gamification, you can enroll for free and have access to course materials and lessons: https://www.coursera.org/learn/gamification