The blog looks at gamification, g-Learning and games based learning theory and practice. It provides insight (via games-ED and pixelfountain) on games based learning use in education and g-Learning (including learning simulations) use in adult learning / training such as application in curriculum delivery, training, awareness raising, organisational development, communications and engagement.
This week, we thought we'd share an infographic with you. One of our fans from webdesigndegreecenter.org alerted us to it. Hopefully it will be inspirational for some of our readers (and particularly young women, like myself). If you would like to learn more about easy ways to get into
programming, click here or click here for more about designing a learning simulation.
I wanted to share with you a fantastic infographic that further ‘debunks’ some gamer myths, followed by some other interesting facts and figures. Hopefully these will help to convince people (especially parents) that games aren’t all bad and can actually do a lot of good. And some of the facts suggest that most parents actually do appreciate this. Hopefully the education system isn’t far behind…?
This article contains many interesting gamer facts, but some stick out in particular:
68% of parents believe that game play provides mental stimulation or education
57% believe games encourage their family to spend to time together
54% believe that game play helps their children connect with their friends
61% of surveyed CEOs and CFOs are playing games during their working hours
46.6% of surveyed German employees playing games during working hours: daily, 10.0%; several times a week, 15.5%; once a week, 7.0%; once per month, 3.6%; less than once per month, 10.6%
Average age of gamers in years: 37 (has also been playing for average of 12 years)
% of female gamers: 42 (In fact, women over the age of 18 represent a significantly greater portion of the game-playing population (37 percent) than boys age 17 or younger (13 percent).)
% of gamers older than Fifty (2011): 29 (an increase from 9% in 1999)
Percent of gamers who play games with other gamers in person: 65
91% of the time parents are present at the time games are purchased or rented.
There is a reasonable amount of research into motivation at work being undertaken these days and it is interesting to see where gamification fits into the picture. A recent study from Odgers Berntson and Cass Business School suggests that organisations are unprepared for the new generation of leaders. Richard Boggis-Rolfe, Chairman of Odgers Berndtson argued "The retirement of the current generation of corporate leaders will lead to cultural changes that most organisations are unprepared for. In order to thrive in the post-baby boomer landscape, companies need to put serious thought and effort into smoothing the intergenerational transition for leaders from generations X and Y."
But Who are Generations X and Y?
Jane Sunley, CEO of Purple Cubed (a consultancy firm specialised in workplace engagement) explains, “The baby boomers are the generational cohort born between 1945 and around 1961, generation X were born between around 1962 and 1981 and generation Y from around 1981 to 2001… Don’t get too hung up on the dates though, because everybody says that they’re different. The important thing is to appreciate that every generation has been influenced by the environment of their upbringing: education, parents and – in the case of generation Y – the biggest influence has been technology.”
What are the Key Differences Between the Generations?
According to Sunley, there are five key differences between the upbringing, character and motivations of each generation that affect their working styles:
Reason they work – Baby boomers ‘live to work’, generation X ‘work to live’ and generation Y work to fund their lifestyle.
Decision-making – Baby boomers prefer to make their own decisions, generation X will take direction but then like to be left to get on with it and generation Y require constant direction and collaboration.
Feedback and response to work – Baby boomers know when they have done a good job, generation X like regular feedback and generation Y need constant feedback.
Sharing opinions – Baby boomers like to keep their opinions to themselves, generation X share their opinions and generation Y assume others want their opinions.
Attitude to change – Baby boomers are resistant to change, generation X relish change and generation Y are flexible.
Could This Cause Problems?
According to the Cass Business School study, “Only 41% of respondents believed that their organisations are ready for changing workplace demographics of age, gender and diversity.” Many respondents to the study also commented that “the retirement of baby boomers from leadership positions would result in a mass exodus of talent over the next 20 years, which will intensify the global war for talent among existing executives”.
Obviously organisations will have to adapt their leadership strategies, corporate culture and so on to adjust to the new generations of leaders and workforce as well as the 21st century as a whole. Sunley argues that understanding the differences between the generations could give organisations the edge when managing the shift in their workforce. Appreciating the five key differences could help directors form a more effective leadership strategy.
How Should Leadership Styles be Adapted?
The Cass study suggested that, “Foremost among the new leadership skills will be emotional intelligence, people skills and flexibility, which will be needed to attract and motivate a more diverse and mobile workforce… This more collaborative form of leadership will be key to helping executives navigate the 21st Century workforce.”
Professor Cliff Oswick, Cass Deputy Dean, believes, "The increasing diversity of the global workforce will need to be taken into account by corporate leaders. Cultural awareness will be at a premium and leaders will have to cultivate emotional intelligence and be better attuned to gender differences."
What About Gamification?
I have been reading about this topic over the past week or so and it struck me that gamification looks like another way that organisations are coping with some of these new generational styles as well as the 21st century world of work as a whole. The likes of Google are creating new ‘gamified’ offices that cater to the often young, innovative, creative types that they wish to attract and motivate. They often include things such as gyms, gourmet cafeterias, dogs, hair stylists, scooters, massage parlours, slides, shops and so on to support the lifestyle and motivational needs of generation Y (amongst other things).
The fact that generation Y like to work together and collaborate is often encouraged by gamified solutions as well as new office spaces. Rewards for collaboration can be encouraged by team leader boards, badges etc. as well as collaborative games being used to train, assess, build teams and so on. ‘Gamified’, 21st century offices also support generation Y’s need for collaboration. For example, offices are often made with areas specifically for people to bump into each other or act as the proverbial water cooler and encourage people to spark off one another and innovate. Many offices now create open plan areas with smaller pods or seating areas within them to make collaboration natural, easy and fun. For example, white board walls, pianos, ping pong tables and so on are often included in new offices to promote team bonding and collaboration.
Perhaps most strikingly, gamification is a way that generation Y can receive immediate feedback. Members of generation Y are likely to have been brought up around video games and to have amassed a lot of hours playing them. Games offer immediate feedback which could be why generation Y come to expect it from every aspect of life. Gamification can allow immediate feedback to occur and give employees a virtual ‘pat on the back’ for completing actions. This would be time consuming for their managers or peers to do and may not come naturally to them (especially if they are baby-boomers).
Communications (internal and external) and Marketing - see articles here and here.
Rewards, incentives and recognition – e.g. Badgeville.
The cultivation of a specific corporate culture – see article.
Motivation is extremely important at work, both for the employees and the organisations. The infographic below sums up very well how generations X and Y might be motivated differently to the baby boomers and how gamification can be utilised to engage and motivate the workers of today and tomorrow.
The past few weeks I have been discussing the merits and practicalities of teaching children to program (Part 1: Why is Teaching Children to Program so Important?). This is a topic close to our hearts and is obviously related to games based learning. However, it is coming at it from a very different angle. So this week I thought I’d offer you a round up of 25 more traditional games based learning articles (and an infographic).
Why Game Based Learning = Good Classroom Practice - Why the rules that govern well designed learning games apply equally well to good classroom practice, including four principles incorporated into most powerful learning games.
7 Reasons for Games Based Learning - Reasons why games should be incorporated into children’s learning experience, including narrative, emotional engagement and freedom to fail.
Learn to Play and Play to Learn: The Secret to Games That Teach - Some of the merits of games based learning, including the more motivating nature of a Game Over screen than an F on a test, as well as the importance of good design in educational games.
Games Teach! - A retort to an article, ‘Games Don’t Teach’. Contains some good pieces of research that show the merits of games, including “Wolfe (1997) found a game-based approach produced significant knowledge level increases. (7 studies)”
Teaching Like a Game Designer - A checklist for teachers to design learning games (not just computer games), including defining the goal and rules and how the player receives feedback.
Playful Learning: Computer Games in Education - A presentation from Microsoft Education that explains the merits of games based learning, making games, overcoming challenges and so on.
Games For Good - Tired of simply defending games and explaining why they aren’t bad, the author tries to explain how games can actively lead to good. Includes a run down of what some popular games such as Civilisation and Assassin’s Creed taught them (e.g. history, geography, navigation, Italian…).
The Big Five: Five Reasons Why Educational Games Work - Includes less talked about reasons such as the fact that they allow players/learners to continually practice complex concepts, that proper utilisation of avatars can reduce barriers like self confidence, that games can lead to affinity groups and so on.
Lame-based Learning - The author despairs about how people view games based learning. For example, how they see it as an adjunct to a serious curriculum.
APPitic - Not an article, but a site that lists educational apps by age, topic etc.
Game Design: The Key to Education? - How to make learning environments more engaging using principles of game play e.g. solving problems builds expertise, learning happens by doing and so on.
Our recent blog posts about gamification and education (‘Gamification in Education’ and ‘Gamifying the Classroom: 10 Inspiring Articles’) seem to have gone down very well. So I thought I’d compile a list of articles about gamification in general, from the classroom to the office and beyond. Just click the titles to go to the full articles and click the infographic below for a full-scale version.
Image from SOCIALCAST. Click for full-scale infographic.
A Teacher’s Guide to Using Badges in your Classroom - The simplification of gamification to badges is criticised. However, they can be powerful and have a strong history as this article explains. Good advice about how to implement gamification in the classroom.
Let the Games Begin! – A podcast about gamification being used to drive member engagement in loyalty programmes.
Why Gamification is Important as a Gamer- The author argues that everything should be gamified as it is fun, improves problem-solving, out of the box thinking and so on.
The Three F’s of Successful Gamification - How Feedback, Friends and Fun drive gamification. Also shares what Gabe Zichermann argues are common mistakes made by those applying gamification to their business such as a heavy focus on badges plus an indication of gamification trends.
I wanted to share this infographic with you this week, which gives a good overview of what gamification is all about. You may have read my article in March: ‘Gamifying the Classroom: 10 Inspiring Articles’. Well since then I have come across many more interesting pieces of reading about gamification and games based learning in education. As gamification is such a hot topic (in colleges and universities as well as for young children), I have formed a list of ten articles, below the infographic.
Video Games Hit Higher Level of U.S. Education – the merits of video games at varying levels of education, including an engineering professor who teaches using video games that expose students to computational math.
Apps for Computer Science – a good list of Apps (lots of which are free) for use in the ICT / Computer Science curriculum.
A Paradigm Shift in Education – a good overview of gamification in education and why it is so important. Also includes some very interesting ideas about gamification for teachers.
Last week I talked about the gamification of classrooms. However, gamification of work has been the focus of some attention recently. The Economist published an article earlier this month titled: ‘More than just a game: Video games are behind the latest fad in management’ (click here for an online version).
The article talks of the general gaming trends and how people will spend a lot of time, money and real effort playing games. At work, people are essentially bribed to do repetitive tasks, but have no trouble spending hours building up their characters in online role playing games, meticulously caring for their plants on virtual farms, chasing high scores and pursuing the tops of leader boards. Management gurus have harnessed this power and installed some of gaming’s basic elements such as badges, levels and leader boards into workplaces.
However, the article argues several things. Firstly, elements such as rewards (money), leader boards and employee of the month competitions have been around for a long time. They refer to arguments that say gamification is simply a cunning way of exploiting human psychology to make a profit (akin to gambling). Another argument against gamification is that people may soon become bored of the trivial, faddish interpretation of gamification and even see it as patronising. Others argue that employees may become cynical of methods of boosting productivity that cost their organisation nothing and that enjoying work in itself, without the need for a reward is the best motivation.
These arguments are completely valid. However, they are valid for the simple, shallow form of gamification that the article is addressing. In my previous post, I talked about how gamification can be understood in two broad ways: harnessing more games based learning and gamifying the classroom (or in this case, workplace) in a more general sense. The general sense I am referring to is using gaming principles such as badges and levels to monitor and encourage good behaviour and attainment (productivity).
I do think that badges and competitions have their place. They can be powerfully motivating. However, I also see that their success could be short lived and seen as patronising, manipulative and not universally engaging. Further than this, I think the main problem is the changes produced are short term and shallow. By this, I mean that they may encourage competition and productivity. But to work long term, the employees’ interest would have to be sustained. There are some people who are just not competitive and others who would wonder why they should work harder for a badge and not a bonus or a promotion.
Gamification needs to be richer than this. There is a lot more to World of Warcraft than simply gaining achievements. Granted, you cannot turn work fully into a game, however, let’s just revisit the definition of gamification. It involves taking game principles and using them in non-games. In the workplace, this could involve making more use of games based learning. For example, training is a great way of bringing games into the workplace. Tailor made training games can involve complex challenges that lead to meaningful rewards: deep, long lasting learning. These can have a real impact on the organisation and do not simply involve training vocational skills. They can also be used to reduce silo thinking and increase collaboration, enhancing creativity, innovation and reducing wastage (and, in turn, money). Some games can also train employees to be more environmentally friendly, which is good for both the CSR department and the Finance department. For more information, see our previous blog articles: ‘Adult Games Based Learning and sim-uni’ and ‘Proof of the Pudding Part Three’.
Making every day working life resemble a game is also the way many offices seem to be going. Google have slides, giant bouncy balls, scooters, foam baths, lava lamps and dogs in their offices. They believe that this environment is perfect for generating creativity and innovation. Some workplaces have aerobics sessions in the morning to wake people up and small logic puzzles to get the brain going. These are already great way of getting short games and fun into the working day. How about having Wii Sport, Just Dance or Wii Zumba breaks? What about doing a level / mission of a game to get your brain going? How about a game of sudoku, a crossword puzzle or an exercise on Nintendo’s Brain Training? These could be done in groups or at a whole office level, which would integrate team building into everyday life, in a fun way.
Gamification is young; therefore it seems churlish to right it off as a fad. I have seen many figures that suggest gamification is on the rise and will be one of the most important trends in the business world in terms of employee (and customer) engagement. I feel that, to work, gamification needs to be given a little more credit and needs to be more rich than it is currently understood to be. Have a look at this TemboSocial infographic for some of the statistics. Gamification could be a powerful tool and I feel that it could be big, if properly utilised.
Video games can improve early literacy in 4 and 5 years olds, especially letter recognition and story comprehension.
More than 100 Fortune 500 companies, like IBM, Cisco, and Cold Stone Creamery, use some form of gaming for training purposes.
50 million real galaxies and celestial bodies were classified in the game Galaxy Zoo's first year.
Kids who played Tetris for 30 minutes a day for three months had a thicker cortex (believed to process coordination and visual information) than those who didn't play.
Click the image below for more interesting research findings and statistics.
As we have covered many times in our blog we are living in an age where new technologies are being developed and released all the time and these technologies have fantastic uses in the world of education and more general learning. A recent article discusses various learning technology trends of 2012. These include cloud technologies (software online rather than on a single computer) and flipped learning (spending ‘home time’ doing things such as reading and listening to educational podcasts and ‘lesson time’ discussing and doing group projects).
One of the trends that the article cites is gamification. It argues that games based learning is on the rise and it is effective as games “provide meaning through real engagement, immediate feedback and a sense of accomplishment that is well-integrated with sound pedagogy”. In fact, the article quotes a neurologist in saying “games provide an individualized achievable goal that initiates the dopamine-reward system, which provides a powerful pleasure response”. Scientific proof that games based learning is great :) Another mechanism that occurs was discussed in our previous blog post, ‘Neuroscience, Stress and Games Based Learning’.
The article also suggests that games based learning works so well because it is a safe environment in which to explore. I mentioned in a previous blog post (‘Unorthodox Uses of Games in Education’) an article entitled ‘9 ways virtual learning is better’ which is really worth a look and this makes the same point. In fact number one on their list is “With virtual experience, there is no risk. No danger. No loss of money or resources (other than the cost of designing and doing the activity). Minimal loss of time. Not so in the real world”.
This is a nice little graphic from envisioningtech.com to represent the future of educational technology. A large part of the visualisation is gamification, which they argue is so effective as it offers “instant feedback to acquired knowledge through achievements and reward systems”. Another benefit is that is allows ‘self-paced learning’. It looks like the future could be pretty bright for education technology, which could lead to some pretty bright kids. Let’s hope that some of these technologies can actually break through the red tape and stagnation of the education system.
