1 of 35

A Journey into Gamification

Alfonso (Al) González

Middle School Science Teacher

#RSCON4

2 of 35

What level gamer are you?

Level 1 – A Noob, I don’t play games much.
Level 2 – A Beginner, I play games sometimes.
Level 3 – A Soloer, I play games on my own.
Level 4 – A Collaborator, I play online games with others.
Level 5 – A Gamer, I play a lot (solo & with others).

3 of 35

Have you gamified your classes?

No.
Yes, I’ve gamified at least a project.
Yes, I’ve gamified at least one class.
Yes, I gamify all my classes.

4 of 35

Why Gamify?

This slide and some others in this presentation taken with permission from Lisa Dawley and Chris Haskell, specifically from their prezis on: 3D GameLab Template and Blowing Up the Gradebook

5 of 35

Good News!

You do NOT have to purchase anything to gamify your classroom!
You do NOT have to plays video games to gamify your classroom.
You do NOT have to get commercial off the shelf (CoTS) games to gamify your classroom.
You do NOT have to teach anything different to gamify your classroom.

6 of 35

7 of 35

8 of 35

So which of the following are you the LEAST willing to give up?

Homework
Worksheets
Due Dates
My Pacing
None of the Above

9 of 35

http://goo.gl/z5U4xk

10 of 35

Growth Mindset

Compare Mark’s ideas to the ideas behing Gamification.
Then compare those ideas to the framework for Growth Mindset:
Growth Mindset Task Framework

Openness
Different ways of seeing
Multiple entry points
Multiple paths / strategies
Clear learning goals and opportunities for feedback.

Hmmmm…

11 of 35

12 of 35

13 of 35

14 of 35

http://goo.gl/7DXs06

15 of 35

Planning

Restructure what you already teach and turn it into a game!

Here’s my 6th grade plan. http://goo.gl/bY2Isq

Here’s my 8th grade plan. http://goo.gl/6oLJll

Each one has a Google Spreadsheet that you can make a copy and use yourself.

(I also have Popplets for the more visual.)

16 of 35

Screenshot of spreadsheet for planning lessons. I got this from a 3D GameLab course I took this summer. It’s available for anyone to copy and use it for their own course no matter what that course is. It’s a great tool to help you restructure your lessons to enable a game-like approach. One minor change to a course becomes a huge change for students, and that is experience points or XP. In a traditional class students earn points for doing assignments but with a twist. Make a mistake or fail and you “lose” points or get a less than perfect score. That’s a losing situation. Who would play a game like that? Make it like a game. Students start with zero XP or experience. As they complete quests they earn XP. If they fail at a quest they keep trying until they master it to get the XP. There’s no penalty for failure or mistakes!

17 of 35

18 of 35

19 of 35

20 of 35

http://3dgamelab.com/

21 of 35

22 of 35

23 of 35

24 of 35

25 of 35

26 of 35

27 of 35

28 of 35

29 of 35

30 of 35

31 of 35

Serious Gamification

Check out the Games MOOC http://gamesmooc.shivtr.com/
A massively online open course for game-based learning!
Kae Novak

32 of 35

GBL Blogs to Read & Learn From:

33 of 35

My Journey

http://educatoral.com/wordpress/gamification/

To access this presentation with links:

http://goo.gl/dmiBsR

34 of 35

Questions?

35 of 35

How was this?

Too fast!
Just right.
Okay.
Too slow.