Sunday 22 February 2015

Adventures in Gamification - Revisited

In 2014, I started a course on OpenLearning by Tom Benjamin called "Gamification in Education". During the course, I blogged each weekly module for Learning.Accredible.com, culminating in an interview with Dr. Benjamin. 

I've decided to curate all of the links in one location, so anyone who is interested in Gamification can easily join my journey as they decide to embark on their own.

Adventures in Gamification: Week One – An Introduction to Gamification

Thank you for joining me on my Adventures in Gamification.  I’ve just started taking Games in Education: Gamification via OpenLearning and I am very excited to do so!  I first came across the concept in a course on designing Blended Learning courses and it stuck to me.  Like Crazy Glue.  Why settle for a boring “Sage on Stage” when you can have F-U-N in class?

Adventures in Gamification: Week 2 – Strategic Use of Games 

Thank you for joining me on my Adventures in Gamification.  I have just finished Week 2 of Games in Education: Gamification via OpenLearning and I am very excited to do so!  I first came across the concept in a course on designing Blended Learning courses and it stuck to me.  Like Crazy Glue. In true gaming fashion, sometimes an idea may threaten to drive me crazy…but then I have to figure it out and well, that’s half the fun!

Adventures in Gamification: Week 3 – Application to Education 

Welcome back to Adventures in Gamification!  Previously in this series, we reviewed the Introduction of Gamification, tried to define what a game happened to be and talked about a few quotes from Tom Sawyer.  We also reviewed the Strategic Use of Games, discussing how to use gamification to reach adult learners, the magic of gamification, and the importance of maximizing the students participation and involvement and minimizing that of the instructor.   The first two weeks were exciting – let’s go on a journey through Week Three.

Adventures in Gamification: Week Four – Scenarios as Levellers 

Welcome back to Week Four! So far we’ve covered the introduction and trying to define what a game truly is, the strategic use of games and applying games in education. Phew! We are now into week four of six and are investigating the use of scenarios as levellers. What is a scenario?

Adventures in Gamification: Week 5 – The Hero’s Journey 

We are into week five of Gamification (Games in Education) from OpenLearning!  So far we’ve covered what are games and gamification, strategic uses of games, application in education and scenarios as levellers. This week we will learn about the Hero’s Journey before we cover our final week of the course – The Active Ingredient in Games and Multimedia. The Hero’s Journey

Adventures in Gamification: Week Six – The Active Ingredient in Games and Multimedia

This week marks the last week of Games in Education – Gamification on OpenLearning.  I hope you’ve had as much fun on your Adventure in Gamification as I’ve had – starting from the Introduction, strategic uses of games,  how to apply games in education, using scenarios as levellers, to the Hero’s Journey.  We’ve covered a lot of topics, played a few games and had a bit of fun along the way! If you’ve followed along but not yet signed up for the course, you can start it at anytime.  Add it to your To Learn list or start it today!!  The Active Ingredient in Games and Multimedia

Adventures in Gamification: Wrapping it up! 

Well, we’ve worked through the six modules that make up Gamification in Education.  We’ve learned a lot and had fun – but now comes the big question…how do we SHOW and TELL anyone what we’ve learned? By creating an e-portfolio to display your incredible learning!  During a previous course, I learned and blogged about e-portfolios as I searched to find one that best fit me – which is how I found Accredible…learn more about that here! Gathering Your Game Pieces (This is Always the Trickiest Part)…

Interview with Tom Benjamin 

To finish our series Adventures in Gamification, we have a special surprise for you! Dr. Tom Benjamin, who teaches the Gamification in Education course on OpenLearning, has kindly agreed to participate in an interview with Accredible to discuss Gamification, MOOCs and his future plans. This was especially exciting as a student of his course as he answered a few questions that I thought I had sorted out…read on to learn more about applying game theory to learning – and how he applied it to the course.

The Complete Interview: Dr. Tom Benjamin 


To finish our series Adventures in Gamification, we had a special surprise for you – Dr. Tom Benjamin, who teaches the Gamification in Education course on OpenLearning,  had kindly agreed to participate in an interview with Accredible to discuss Gamification, MOOCs and his future plans.  By the time we were finished, we had so much great material that it was hard to pick and choose what to share! As a student of his course, I was fascinated by his answers.  I couldn’t put down the notes as they were sent back and forth!  As a writer, I had so much good information, I hardly knew where to begin!  After I finished the initial article, I felt compelled to share the entire interview with you.  Without further ado, here it is.

Hope you enjoy the journey!