Comprehension 360 — Gamification
Elucidating The Sesquipedalian Paradigms of Education
The Definition
Gamification is not a very hard concept for most people to understand. Essentially it involves making a game of otherwise boring things in order to engage people. Those boring things include stuff like everyday shopping, standard learning, and even fitness.
Origin
Wikipedia tells us that Nick Pelling first coined the term in 2002. They also note that no one cared until 2010. More interesting perhaps is their mention of Charles Coonradt, who was clearly exploring this concept long before anyone. I have not read his books, but they are available fairly cheaply via the link below.
What is it really all about?
Two terms should come to mind when thinking about gamification — Engagement and Feedback. These two concepts together can create an almost addictive experience as anyone who knows a gamer can attest. Gamification, so far, has been more effective at the latter, though some great examples of the former do exist.
The inclusion of game concepts into otherwise mundane tasks creates an engaging feedback loop. These concepts include both competition and score keeping. Whether you benchmark your performance to other ‘players’ or to a set time (race) or point total, this added element provides an ongoing challenge which helps to capture both interest and attention.
From the arena of video games, the idea of creating an immersive or engaging experience may fool the participant into forgetting they are engaged in activities like exercise or learning. This aspect of gamification is one that many new EdTech and FitTech companies are pursuing. Immersive content and game play have the ability to make gamification truly transformational.
Still Early
In the end, gamification is still a novel and immature concept. While offerings like Duolingo have seen early success, not all of it is due to gamification. The jury on its efficacy remains undecided. For every success story, another attempt ends in failure. Game trends tend to change much quicker than the underlying content and behavior that we are trying to incent. Further complicating things is the ever-changing technology and modality of media and game play.
For more information consider reading:
Comprehension 360 is a series created by Corsair’s Institute to increase the reader’s understanding of key concepts in education and learning. For more articles like these — please subscribe to our magazine which shares its name Comprehension 360.
