Having grown up in a digital world that’s replete with video games, augmented realities, virtual realities and social media platforms, millennials and newer generations of tech-natives are not only very familiar with game mechanics, they are hungry for gamification in their learning.
Gamification offers educators a wonderful opportunity to find new ways of motivating and engaging with their students.
Below is an infographic that lays out the five stages of course gamification.
Description
The infographic is titled Gamification in 5 Stages and outlines a step-by-step guide to gamifying courses.
- Stage one: know your learners. To make sure your gamified course meets your learners’ needs, first analyze their player types.
- Stage two: select game mechanics. Certain mechanics, like badges and leaderboards, align better with certain player types. Some mechanics appeal to more than one player type.
- Stage three: design a game plan. Consider how your mechanics will work and how often learners will encounter them. Badges are best used to engage learners who are extrinsically motivated.
- Stage four: create gamified content. Be creative and put your mechanics to work. Non-player character avatars (NPCs) are a great way to advance your narrative.
- Stage five: play the game. It takes time and even a little trial and error to create a great gamified experience, but these five simple steps are fundamental guidelines towards which all gamification effort should be built.
Written by
Jon Paul is a content marketing manager at D2L. He’s into writing, creativity, content, advertising, marketing, tech, comics, video games, film, TV, time and space travel.
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