Gamification in the Ed-Tech Industry

Gamification is a term you have surely heard about if you are up to date with the happenings of the Education industry. It has taken the world of Ed-Tech by storm in the recent years with rapidly evolving technology, as well as pushing toward a digital tomorrow contributing significantly towards its rise

What is Gamification

Karl Kapp, who is a professor of Instructional Technology and a renowned gamification guru, states gamification as using game-based mechanics, aesthetics, as well as game thinking to engage people, motivate action, ensure learning, and solve their problems. Gamification is the process of using game-based designs and elements to enhance the non-game contexts. It benefits from the traditional approach by increasing participation, engagement, competition and much more. Taking some of the elements that makes games fun and motivate people to keep playing can go a long way in keeping them engaged in a learning situation.

Mendeleev was known to have been an avid card player, so it was logical for him to use cards as a way to categorize the elements in a way he could understand. Mendeleev turned the classification process into a card game by listing each element and other information on a card and placing them face up on a table. By doing this, he was able to have a better grasp on the relationship of each element. Mendeleev published his findings, which led scientists to discover new elements to fill in the gaps of Mendeleev’s work as well as further developing the table. Growing up, Mendeleev was not the most successful student, but he became a historical scientific figure because of gamification. This proves as an exemplary example of the benefits of gamification and the impact it can have on all students despite their prior academic achievement.

Gamification include points, leader boards, direct competitions, stickers, badges or a variety of other elements, and these can be found in a variety of industries such as healthcare, retail and of course – education. We have all seen gamification in a variety of places in our lives: trying to win a coupon to get a free sandwich, receiving a badge because you completed a, or in fact increasing your profile completion bar to a 100 in your LinkedIn Profile. So, the question is, how will gamification impact the education sector

Gamification in Education

Games, may that be in any form, increase user motivation through engagement. Nowhere else has it been more important to gamify things than in the educational sector. In Ed-Tech, gamification involves introducing game-like elements into the learning environment of students to motivate and make the process more engaging. This is achieved by taking the elements that makes the games fun and motivates people to keep playing and using those elements in a learning situation.

Let’s take a look at the gamification solutions available on the AI-powered assessment platform iamneo.ai!

Badges and Super Badges

The use of points and badges provides tangible evidence of accomplishment. Iamneo has incorporated badges seamlessly into the workflow with every course and recruitment having an option to include badges to rank students as well as create a criterion for making them eligible for the next task or test

Entry/Exit Criteria

Want to design your course in such a way as to make your students complete a module first before going to the next? Want them to unlock the next session after scoring 80% of marks for the previous evaluation. The world is your oyster with the diverse set of gamification functions available in the platform to leverage the most of every course curriculum

Engaging Leader board

One of the most engaging ways to engage students is invoke a sense of competition and achievement in them. Having an engaging real time updating leader board is an excellent way to incorporate that to their educational courses

Progress Tracker in percentage (Learner)

A built-in progress tracker which dynamically shows how much progress you have made in the course, module or submodule incentivises the students to progress further and adds subtle gamification elements throughout the UI

Overall Comparative Performance Report

The professor/admin would be able to compare, rank and assess the performances of all the students who have attended the test or assessment while also being able to use a wide variety of filters to evaluate who are yet to take it, the date at which they have taken and a plethora of other data to go with it

Notification and reminders

Notification and reminders will be sent to the students so they have visual confirmation when they have completed a particular task thus having a seamless flow throughout the gamified UI

Benefits of Gamification and Game-Based Learning

Increased engagement: One of the most touted benefits of the gamification element is that it is able to increase student engagement multifold. Studies have indeed shown that adding game elements inside a non-game or learning concept will increase engagement. It will also lead to more retention as student are more concentrated on the matter at hand

Instant feedback: Receiving feedback through dashboards and leader boards as it is incorporated on the iamneo.ai platform provides immediate feedback and tends to motivate the students. They can view how they perform with respect to their peers, wherein they get motivated to retry the tests and achieve better scores. It will thus provide them motivation to move ahead in the forthcoming lessons.

Collaboration/Social Connection: Gamifying elements may help to further the bond of students, and can promote friendly competition. In this current scenario of online learning and distance education, the students need a way to socially interact and gamification provides a channel through which they can look to help each other and engage in friendly competition

Increase enthusiasm: For some students learning alone is enough to generate enthusiasm but for many others that is just not the case. Gamification thus, helps in generating this enthusiasm in students through the badges, super badges and other sense of achievements. It makes the learning process more intuitive and fun

Without Gamification

Even though these stats are extra promising, there is also the other side of the coin which tells you that gamifying a whole course or streamlining the learning experience is not easy, especially if you want to do it successfully. It has a lot of complexities, high cost involved, long development and creation times. Because of these factors, for many it’s not a viable solution unless you have a significant budget

That is where a solution like iamneo.ai comes in. With its wide array of practical product line-up, endless customization options and an unmatched customer service experience, every aspiring person who would like to gamify their online courses would feel at ease when setting up and using the platform to better their venture. Visit https://iamneo.ai/ to know more