What are Educational Game and Educational Gamification?
I can say that popular trends in education are “game“, “gamification” and “storytelling”. Especially in internet searches, we can see that these words are searched together with education. (Google searches like ‘educational game’, ‘educational gamification’ — ‘gamification in education’, ‘storytelling in education’ etc.) People want to learn these concepts to bring a new breath to their education/training/class/presentation. They are looking for new solutions to implement their training. There are many workshops where these concepts are handled and workshop diversity is increasing.
In this blog, I will not be able to address all of these concepts. Therefore, I will try to address the concept of “game” that I love to work on. Educational game and educational gamification. I’m going to write about what means educational game and educational gamification? I will try to answer the question of where we can use these trends. I want to mention other concepts in my later blogs. If you are interested in storifying and storytelling, I suggest you read Zeynep Bostan’s blog “Story Narration from Past to Present”. (For now her blog is Turkish, but asap she will write in English too.)
Is the game a need?
Game is a natural need, like breath, eat, sleep, drink etc. Especially we need games to learn life, discovering and developing ourself. We play games from the moment from we were born. When appropriate games are just for fun and also tiny miny simulations of life. One of the first game played by babies, “Peekaboo” is helping them to notice their surroundings. With this game the baby is beginning to notice her/his presence and the person opposite her/him. That way, s/he starts to learn that her/his surroundings aren’t just what s/he sees. For example, when you play hide and seek when you were young, there were moments when you or someone you knew, thought that the ‘IT’ would not see her/him because s/he didn’t see the ‘IT’ while s/he was hiding. Some children hiding behind the curtains, not think about her/his feet could seen by IT. (children hiding behind the seat not think about her/his body could seen by IT.)
Child is hiding behind the curtain:
Through this game s/he starts to notice how s/he looks in her/his hiding place. S/He starts to understand different angles and different points of views.
In brief, thanks to games we learning to make friends, to socialize, to recognize other people while recognizing our presence, to respect each other, to handle winning or losing, to produce solutions, to make sacrifices, to have fun, to control emotions and to learn many human skills.
We are learning through games. Especially after childhood, we are turning to unnatural ways to learn. At the desk, at school, with tests and exams … We find ourselves pushed into unnatural ways by education systems. Yet we forget to learn from the natural ways like socializing, sharing and experiencing. The games are the ideal way to learn in terms of both being able to address all learning styles and to enable us to transfer what we learned to our daily lives.
What is game?
Before we talk about educational games, we need to define the game. Of course, let’s consult the dictionary. Turkish Language Society (TDK) says “1. Talent and intelligence developer, having certain rules, fun to spend a good time. 2. The method of interpreting the role of the artist in theater or cinema. 3. The whole of the movements performed with music. These definitions may not be enough to describe the games from our perspective. Because, in the first definition, we have two definitions that we want to separate. For this reason we need to look at the meaning of the game in English. In Turkish language game and play are the same word. We use a single word “Oyun” for these two, and therefore we can often have difficulties with definitions. Play, without rules and purpose, just to spend time, to do fun actions. Game, we can say that activities that have a specific purpose, which have been set up in order to achieve the goal in accordance with the rules determined before or in the moment. Often the given balloon sample can help us to understand this difference.
Play; take a balloon and play it to the air / throw on the floor / wall.
Game; in 1 minute without dropping the ball to floor, bounce at least 25 times.
From now on, I think we agree with the definition of game.
What is Educational Game?
We can lead in the concept of educational game. Actually, it’s easy for us to define Educational Game, because it speaks for itself. Educational games are games explicitly designed with educational purposes, or which have incidental or secondary educational value. Some sources refer to the educational game as follows; a teaching technique that reinforces the knowledge learned and repeats in a more comfortable environment. This definition is mostly used by MoNE (MEB).
In fact, educational games are not only used to reinforce a previously learned knowledge. Educational games are run by trainers to learn new information and new skills, to learn the ability of transferring the learned information to daily life, to improve personal development etc.
For example, one of the most used educational game is Taboo. Many teachers adapt the dynamics and mechanics of the Taboo to their own lessons. Students are learning and reinforcing their lessons while playing taboo in lesson.
Almost all of the games can be turned into an educational game by adding an educational goal. As a matter of fact in many games, there is more than just one educational goal. it is easier to teach soft skills in games than in traditional methods. Sometimes we can teach multiple skills when playing a single game. In fact, with the new games to be played, these skills can be transferred to work and daily life. For example, think of a game where people can compete and collaborate. That game could use to teach people to collaborate. Monopoly comes to my mind. In Monopoly there is both competition and collaboration. We could change the purpose of the game (or some rules) slightly and turn it into collaboration development game. In this way, people try to cooperate while playing the game. In doing so, we can also encourage people to use different methods of collaboration. They could see methods’ pros and cons when they are playing. In addition to our collaboration purpose, you may find that we have opened up space to develop many skills, such as developing problem solving skills, developing strategy skills, empathizing, and solution-oriented approaches.
When we add educational goals to some games, the first goal may not be educational gain. However, this does not mean that the game is not used for educational purposes or it is not an educational game. Educational games can have multiple purposes. They don’t all need to be linked to an educational achievement. Sometimes educational gains are used as second or third purposes for increase the level of entertainment. Having fun can be the first goal. Thus, participants can learn by playing and having fun.
When designing an educational game, it is important to note: to analyze the people who will play the game, to determine their needs, especially to keep the level of competition at a optimum level, thus encouraging people cooperate safely. When the competition is very high, some of the players can give up or return to a passive player. At this point, it is necessary to analyze player types well for all of the participants.
What is Educational Gamification?
In order to explain the concept of educational gamification, we must first look at meaning of “gamification”. Basically, gamification is the addition or/and integration of game elements into a non-game environment. Gamification is generally used to increase motivation, to gain employee loyalty and to encourage a desired behavior change. Although the use of the word “gamification” started to spread throughout the world in 2010, the implementation of the systems we call gamification is much older. The name of gamification sounds like a new concept for many of us. In fact, when we look at old systems, we can see that this concept has been in our lives for a very long time. Newly named as a Gamification and get quickly trendy.
One of the most given examples is the Swarm app (Ancient Foursquare). Foursquare, when it first appeared on the market, App was designed with an effective gamification to encourage users to report their locations, places and check-ins. Through this app we are more familiar with the badge, points and leadership table (PBL) which are the most popular game elements . as well as small rewards, the users were active in the system and new features were activated as they made the notification. In addition to PBL, users have actively received small rewards such as a cafe ”mayor“ or discount in their favorite café. When users check in daily, the application allows them to use new features in app.
Another example of effective gamification is the game marketplace called Steam. Steam offers a great gamification experience to gamers by using many game elements effectively in Steam, which allows you to buy and store games.
Let’s come to the main subject: Educational Gamification. We can define this notion by adding educational gains to the definition of gamification as in the concept of educational game. Basically, Educational Gamification is the addition / integration of game elements into a non-gaming educational environment. In this way, it is aimed that the participants will learn with fun, to increase their motivation in the process, to reinforce what they have learned and to provide permanent learning with different features added.
ClassDojo comes to my mind as I think about examples of educational gamification. The platform allows users to consolidate their learning, collaborate and make their own development with their own learning speed. Another example is Khan Academy, is one of the most mentioned platform for educational gamification examples.
A school called Quest to Learn in New York City incorporates gamification into all its processes. The school aims to increase the motivation of the students and use everything that will contribute to their learning. This application can help you in terms of inspiration.
I am excited to see more examples of gamification in education.
I hope I was able to explain the popular trends in education, “educational game” and “educational gamification.”
Yazının Türkçesi için: Eğitsel Oyun Nedir? Eğitsel Oyunlaştırma Nedir?
Utilized resources:
1- Origin of Gamification
https://en.0wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamification
2- “Analysis of Gamification in Education”
Andrew Stott and Carman Neustaedter, School of Interactive Arts and Technology, Simon Fraser University
3- “The Guilded Classroom: Using Gamification to Engage and Motivate Undergraduates”
Julia Gressick and Joel B. Langston
4- “What is Gamification” — Yukai Chou
https://yukaichou.com/gamification-examples/what-is-gamification/
