The most significant point that I have learned in my readings of gamification is, if you do it correctly, it can be a great
aid to student learning. My biggest
question is whether the differential in cost (time) is worth the differential
in learning. As an old person, born
before computers were ubiquitous, it seems to me that this is a question we
must answer. If it becomes less onerous
to gamify and it assists in learning then it is a “no brainer”. Learning would be more engaging and therefore
more impactful to the learner. Otherwise,
any time taken away from actual preparation of the materials or meeting with
students may not be worth it. Landers, Armstrong, and Collmus (2017) provide gamify elements and recommendations for adding
them separately as opposed to developing a serious game. It made the prospect of adding gamification
elements to my courses possible. I would
like to see more research which would give instructors guidance as to which of
these elements would provide more benefits for learning than costs. Since, it is so time consuming and there is
not enough research to know what works, it seems a notable risk to develop
these now for the regular classroom. In
the corporate environment, where these courses are being developed for
thousands of people by experts, it seems more feasible.
I think that the benefits of
gamification are obvious if done correctly, aligning the game with the learning
objectives. It has the advantages of
making learning fun and relevant to the learner. I think this is exactly what all good teachers
are attempt when planning lessons. The
disadvantages are equally obvious. It
takes time, technical talent, technology to create games that will meet all the
criteria for learning. My biggest
limitation is time. I come up with ideas
and many projects that would make the topics that I teach more relevant but
typically there is not enough time to execute.
I think that it would be easier in a larger school with many sections of
a course and several instructors and support staff. But, when you are teaching a course one semester
a year, it is tough to gamify content.
In addition, if you have a course that changes, perhaps due to updates
in the field, justifying programming a game is just not worthwhile. As, I was reading the article on gamifying
versus serious games, I thought wouldn’t be great to have software that would
gamify any type of content. The software
Kahoot is one example, although there could be many features added to it and
getting content into the software is still somewhat time consuming. My hope is that in the future there will be gamify
shells (somewhat like a slideshow software) that I will be able to add my
content, select options, and have it create a game. That would be awesome.
