Gamification in Indian Education

Will gamification in India lead to more Chess champions?

Sorry, had to get my chess picture quota of the day

My previous article on Gamification within Education dealt with the general concept; however a new story recently came out about gamification within the Indian education system.  To quote the piece:

Gamification, or using gaming techniques to explain concepts, is a happening trend among Indian students these days. It has been identified as among the Top-10 technology trends for 2012 by audit and consultancy firm Deloitte. Classtopper.com, for one, has over 10,000 users logging in just a month after its launch in India. 

 This just further goes to show that not only is gamification a major education issue, but it is also a business as well.  The article (which you can find here) talks about how gamification in India affects both the young and the old.  Therefore not only does it go across educational subjects, but it pretty much can be applied to everyone from ages 3 to 103 (Sorry great-grandma!).

Helping while you learn

This time instead of sharing another business application of gamification I would like to introduce you to freerice.com. This free, non-for profit site was founded in 2007 by the United Nations World Food Programme and through a very simple yet addictive game allows you to collect rice that will then be donated to hungry countries all around the globe.

The game consists of guessing questions, for every correct answer you donate 10 grains of rice. This might sound like a little, but in 4 years freerice.com has donated 6100 metric tons of rice and fed millions of people in places like Cambodia, Haiti, Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh. 

As you can see from our last couple of posts gamification goes well beyond a money making tool. It can also be used to create awareness of a social problem and help us get through difficult situations. 

Gamification in Hospitals

Going along with the theme of Gamification in fields with social consequences, here is a story about how Gamification is helping patients within a hospital overcome their difficulties.  Produced by Cundari, the application allows kids to express their pain and also do daily activities designed to overcome it.  Seeing as this is currently being developed for young kids with Cancer, it simply goes to show that gamification can have powerful applications beyond the juvenile traits some assign to games.

Take a look at the main article here http://bit.ly/KSl69V, and a massive hat-tip to our friends over at http://gamification.co/

It’s all part of a Game

Is this gaming concept something new? Or have companies been using this concept for a long time? Although many of us might think that this is an innovation, using gamification as a relationship tool has existed for a long time.

The first example that strikes the mind is the award’s points in your credit card. Yes, you might be thinking, “why didn’t I think of that?” Well, awarding points is just one type of game strategy that companies use better classify and maintain you as a customer. Airline companies also use gaming strategies, but in a different way, they want to turn a sporadic flyer into a frequent flyer. How do they do it? Well, if you fly 50 thousand miles, you get one ticket for free, or if you fly a certain amount of miles in one year, you’ll receive an upgrade in your status (see table).



Does this sound just a little bit like a game? Where someone needs to collect points in order to get a price. Now, going back to the credit card example, doesn’t this also apply? Don’t we have to keep buying in order to obtain more points?




And for what, to get prices, free airline tickets, access to private lounges, etc. This are just some examples of how gamification has worked in the past and is still at work now.

But the question you might be asking yourself now is, how have this evolved. I know that this has existed for a long time but what are the new trends in gamification.

I can assure you dear reader, that this blog will answer all of those questions in the future.

Enterprise Gamification

Do you guys remember the first post was a little bit about the blogging team? Well hello, I'm the HR one. So duh, guess what caught my eye when I was reading up on gamification. It’s use as human resource strategy!

Jeanne Meister co-founder of HR research firm Future Workplace and co-author of the book The 2020 Workplace says,"Games help you develop the types of skills you'll need to be successful in the future workplace: collaboration, negotiating, influencing, management of virtual teams,"

This emerging trend is called Enterprise Gamification and here are a few examples I read on business insider, illustrating the same:

“Recruiting: Companies are experimenting with games on Facebook to recruit new hires. For example, about a year ago Marriott launched the My Marriott Hotel game on Facebook, patterned after Farmville and Cityville. Gamers create their own restaurant and hotel where they buy equipment, hire and train employees. They earn points for happy customers and lose points for bad service. Those who are good at the game are encouraged to apply for some of the company's 50,000 job openings worldwide.”

I was a recruiter, so I say bravo Marriot, for being so creative and a leader!

“Training: Turning corporate training into games is a no brainer. Meister travels around giving seminars. She used to send participants reading material to prep for her classes. Recently, she converted that stuff into a game on her web site using a tool from Badgeville.com. The first two participants in each class to finish the game, win a gift card. Instead of participants blowing off the reading assignment, now they race to finish it.


Making dull jobs fun: The Royal Observatory Greenwich needed to analyze over 100,000 images of solar storms, but sifting through these to find the important ones was a dull chore for scientists, reports the Gamification blog. So they tapped into an army of citizen volunteers willing to help. But these volunteers needed training to know what to look for. So they created a game called My Solar Stormwatch. As volunteers gained knowledge to interpret the images, they unlocked new, harder levels of the game. Everyone won.

Games are fun, addictive, challenging and, done right, tap into our competitive sides that make us want to work harder.”

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/lookout-this-is-the-next-big-it-buzzword-and-its-awesome-2012-4#ixzz1stmxlLaj

Jane McGonigal talks about Gamification on TED

 I love TED talks! I learn more from them than from reading something so I want you to see this to really understand the power of what we call gamification. And yes also to enjoy the creativity of the talk as is prevalent in most TED talks. How our lives have changed because of technology is just amazing. Here is a sneak peak of the amazing that lies ahead.

Introducing to you Jane McGonigal, speaking passionately about the world of games and using it to make a better world. #socialentrepreneurship #revolutionary.

Gamification in Education Pt. 1

We all remember sitting in a classroom, staring at a screen for hours upon hours wishing that we could play a game. Even on those lucky days when our teachers said we had games, the end result was usually just a poor excuse for entertainment. Whether you are from the generation that had Hangman, Oregon Trail, or even Angry Birds, you probably realized that there were better ways to learn material while still having fun.



As a former teacher myself, I know that I struggled constantly to maintain my students’ attention. Despite the dulcet tone of my voice, I had the usual gaggle of sleepers and day-dreamers. Like most teachers, I tried to integrate some fun into my lectures. I made sure to include tongue-twisters and word games in my English classes, while my science students were able to perform experiments and egg drops (ridiculously amusing when you have to save the egg from a two-story drop). However, the classes that my students looked forward to the most were the ones when we pulled out the computer and played educational games there.

This new generation doesn’t just think different figuratively, they think differently in a neuroscientific way. Given the recent study on the mind of regular teenage gamers, it is safe to say that many youth respond better to educational tools that mimic the games that they play for fun. A Psychology Today report expanded on this further by stating that this research can be used by “teachers to increase their [students] brains' motivation to be attentive class participants, do homework with focus, and even reverse school negativity to reignite the joy of learning.” While this is all fine and dandy for the younger generations, is there anything that can be extrapolated to the population as a whole?



That is of course debatable, but I know for myself as a language learner (and I guess as an MBA student too), I struggle to motivate myself when I can only see the big picture. Thankfully, Busuu.com has taken this knowledge about gamification and created a language-learning tool that will suite most of us better than rote language learning. By incorporating a step-by-step language lesson, along with various games to keep us interested, Busuu successfully combines the world of gaming with languages. And you know it has to be a good website since it was built by a couple of IE Business School alums.



So while most of us had to go through learning conjugations and math formulas in a rote fashion, the kids today will likely be able to enjoy school learning a bit more than we did thanks to gamification.

Links
1) http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-15720178
2) http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/radical-teaching/201110/neuroscience-insights-video-game-drug-addiction
3) http://www.busuu.com/

Why does it Work? - Future of Gamification.

 ‘’why does Gamification work?’’

The concept of ‘’games’’ is adopted in this regard, since by human nature (for elders as much as it is for youngsters), games satisfy ones curiosity. 

www.slideshare.net

Many reasons as to why people may love such games, and yes, some get addicted to them. One can think of the stress relief and relaxation these games provide, as they trigger a different part of the brains. The new broad dimension of social networking and mental simulation are yet other reasons that are driving these numbers higher with every tick of the clock. 

     

Not to miss on the competitive spirit, the fun and the excitement this tool provides to the user… a set of reasons that a Tv, a radio or a billboard lack in the 21^st century!

Gamification is the future:

The following schematic shows the spot gamification occupies with respect to other emerging technologies in the year 2011, taken from: www.bunnerworks.com

According to www.mashable.com, in an article written by Sarah Kessler, the number of players per day that play social games has jumped over 30 million players worldwide. When comparing this number to 24 million views for the prime TV show ‘Dancing with the Stars’ one got to pause and think twice of the power this social gaming has!

According to the same article, some 56 million Americans spend their time playing social games !!!

Become a Google Doodler

Become a Google Doodler - Apply now!

Woman's Day 2012

Designers, creatives, and illustrators pay attention: Google is desperatly looking for a full-time «doodler».

What is a doodler? The doodlers are those designers that every day reinterpret the Google logo in different amazing ways using as main inspirational driver a specific event that happened in the past.

Ernest Shackleton's Birthday

This represents a great example of gamification since it is an engaging way to spread information among all Internet users in a non-gaming context, like the homepage of a web search engine.


In particular, google doodle daily provides information on some specific historical events or commemorations that we would never have known otherwise.
Some examples of google doodles are related to the date of birth of an important personality, date of an important discovery, commemoration of a day, etc.

The job offer has been recently published some days ago on the Google website on the section jobs.

Anniversary of the First Man in the Space

The only requisites are a strong “sense of humour” and a passion for all the historic, artistic and creative things.
Surely, the candidates need to be able to draw, but remember that it’s the first impression the most important one!

What is gamification?

Who are we?

We are a group of professionals from different backgrounds with a keen interest in the latest applications of gamification to business. We come from HR, Advertising, Education and Consulting,  so you can be sure that the info we will share will reflect this diversity.

What is gamification?

One definition of gamification is that it consists of applying game mechanics (e.g. points, badges, leader boards, challenges) to any activity to encourage or modify certain behavior. What this really means is that through gamification our everyday less than glamorous activities can become fun and exciting. 

Gamification allows companies to engage their consumers in a way that is rewarding and makes us feel part of a community. Some clear examples of gamification are:

• Nike+ where you can compare your running stats with others.
• Foursquare rewards you with badges for exploring your  neighborhood hangout spots.
• Epic Win gives you points for completing your everyday chores. 

Gamification has applications in several industries: health, art, entertainment, design, social good and many others that we will explore throughout the next couple of months, so please come back and feel free to comment.

Thanks,

iTeamIE

2010 Bunchball, Inc. "Gamification 101: An introduction to the use of Game dynamics to influence behavior" http://www.bunchball.com/sites/default/files/downloads/gamification101.pdf

Gamification Wiki. "What is gamification?" http://gamification.org/wiki/Gamification