Driving to the Finish Line

This past week I finished up the content for the Gamification  Design Framework module and started doing more research to finish up the Game Elements and Player Types sections. After creating the frameworks section I realized that I really needed to approach game elements from the perspective of motivation, which I only briefly addressed when I first set it up. Almost every article that I read addressing game elements and motivation referred to Daniel Pink's book Drive. After watching his TED talk  I realized that in order to do this topic justice I should probably read the book. Since it is the last week of the semester and I have lots of grading to do I am not going to be able to read the book right now. Based on this I decided to declare myself done for the semester. I plan to finish up grading and set up my summer class this week, take a week or two off then start reading drive and revisiting the sources that I found and see if I can't pull together the Game Elements and Player Types sections. I have some great ideas for what to do with it now, I just need to pull it all together.

Reflection

I have learned so much this semester about gamification and building a course from the ground up. There is still a lot of work to do to get it into shape but we have come a long way. For every article that is referenced in the course there are probably 4 or 5 that I read for background and decided not to include. I have also played games and watched hours of videos. I am very excited to see how this all comes together and I think that when it does it is going to be great.

The Future

Although the semester and practicum are done, the course and the learning are not, so I will continue to work on this until it is complete. I will finish the Game Elements and Player Types modules and finish creating the assignments. Molly and I will need to put our heads together to figure out how to make the course feel like a cohesive unit, but that will have to happen when everything is there. We also want to gamify it, so we will be applying what we have learned. The hope is that the program will have enough students that this can be offered as an elective by Summer 2017, so there is a deadline, but it is a reasonable one.

Moving Forward Slowly

When I wrote the last post, I was counting down what needed to get done to finish out the semester. I created a list of what I was wanting to get done with the goal of checking items off of  the list. The list was as follows:

• Create crossword puzzle for terms
• Build elements list - address extrinsic and intrinsic motivators
• Figure out how to add my experience using game elements in my class to the uses section
• Develop the User Types section
• Finish adding the "looping" assignment to the rest of the sections where it belongs
• Create the assignments for the frameworks/tools section
• Find more examples of uses in elementary school to the Uses section
• Address loyalty cards in the Uses section
• Create the Tools section of the Gamification Design Framework and Tools module

 I wish I could say that I have crossed some of the items off of the list, but that hasn't happened yet. I have been reading, researching and brain storming. I think that the reason that I left many of these things to the end was because I wasn't sure about the best approach for presenting them. Also, it is easy to get caught up and carried away when researching some of the tools that are available. I think that at this point, I am just going to compile what I have for some of these sections, then walk away for a little while. Coming back with a fresh set of eyes will be a good thing. I have been thinking like a teacher as I find and organize the content, and I am quite happy (although a bit overwhelmed) with what I have found. I think that taking a few weeks off, then pretending that I am a student will help me to figure out how to order things, what is missing and what might be too much information. Trying to find a balance between the different uses for gamification and the different interests of the potential student is the goal. If we can pull it off, I think that this will be a great course. I want students of the course to be able to walk away with a lot of good ideas and some potential ways that they can apply what they have learned to what they do.

The End is in Sight

Ok, if I have to be honest, the end isn't actually in sight, but the end of the semester is, and my list of what I hope to get done for my share of the course development is a list that fits on one page. Last week was a productive week and I was able to finish most of the Gamification Design Framework section. Of course, my research on frameworks led me to new information that will need to be added to my elements and and uses section, but I always intended this to be an iterative process.

Meeting with Molly

Molly and I were finally able to meet on Monday and it was a great meeting. As with so many of our meetings, the course evolved yet again. Molly has found so much great information on simulations that the section has become quite large. I am sure that she will run into the same situation for the rest of her "Gaming Towne" module which includes frame games, serious games, class games and virtual worlds before she gets around to introducing gamification. Our original plan (or at least the most recent one) had use introducing content for the first half of the course, then having them do a gamification project for the second half. At the meeting we decided that that probably wasn't the best approach. There is so much great material that we decided that the course would be better if it looked at games and gamification and ended with a case study where the students get to apply what they have learned. By exposing them to so many different options, there is sure to be something that will appeal to everyone.

An Interesting Break

After the meeting I took a few days off to work on my portfolio for the OTID program. It was a lot of fun to go back and look at all of the assignments that I have completed for the degree. What was even more interesting was that I had forgotten how many times I explored games and gamification when I had a choice in the earlier courses. I actually found a lot of information that I can use in the course including the fun cartoons included here.

What's Left

As I mentioned earlier, I have compiled a list of what I have left to do to "finish" my practicum work. I plan to do my best to have everything on the list  complete by this time next week (although realistically it will probably be next weekend). Here is the list in no particular order:

• Create crossword puzzle for terms
• Build elements list - address extrinsic and intrinsic motivators
• Figure out how to add my experience using game elements in my class to the uses section
• Develop the User Types section
• Finish adding the "looping" assignment to the rest of the sections where it belongs
• Create the assignments for the frameworks/tools section
• Find more examples of uses in elementary school to the Uses section
• Address loyalty cards in the Uses section
• Create the Tools section of the Gamification Design Framework and Tools module

Ok, now that I have typed it up, it will most likely take me two weeks to get it all done. At that point I will have completed my first pass at the content that I was responsible for. Molly is still working on hers, so there won't be much left to do until all of the content is in there. One thing that I really want to do once I have  put everything in there is walk away from it for a while then come back and try to look at it from the perspective of a student. It is all too fresh right now, so that will be a summer project, as will figuring out how everything will come together. Something to look forward to.

Pulling It All Together

The Uses of Gamification module is "finished." It has come together quite nicely and I think that it is going to be very helpful for those interesting in gamification. I put "finished" in quotes because as I was researching I book marked a lot of pages that have examples of people using gamification. As I put the module together I went back through the pages that I found. I actually had a lot more pages than I realized, so I have been going through them a few at a time trying to decide whether to include them or not. I still have more that I want to go back and look at, so I am doing a little when I can. I stopped the focused effort because I do have plenty of examples, and I wanted to move forward. If I end up not adding any more, it shouldn't be a problem.

Gamification Design Framework and Tools

The gamification design framework and tools module is what I am currently working on. I am in the process of reading (or re-reading) the sources that I have found in my research. I already have quite a few that I know that I want to use. The challenge for this section is that it really is the culmination of everything that they have learned up to this point, but all of the content hasn't been developed yet, so I will include what I can and we can modify as needed. Today was a heavy reading day. Most of my reading has been about gamification design frameworks and approaches to gamification. This was alot of research based and more scholarly looks at the process. Tomorrow I intend to play around with gamification tools. I will be looking at classroom gamification tools, gamified, learning management systems, and tools for businesses to gamify. I will read about and watch videos for tools that cost money and play around with free tools. I am struggling a little with what kind of assignment I will use for this, but I hope that I will figure it out once I start playing. The following video shows a little bit about ClassCraft, which is one off the tools I will be exploring.

Classcraft from Classcraft on Vimeo.
I have already compiled a lot of resources on this topic. I have been adding them as I come across them when researching my other topics. A big part of what I will be doing this weekend is compiling and organizing.

Where Do I Go Next?

When I finish this section I will be done-ish with the parts of the course that I am responsible for. There are a few things that still need to be entered or created, but the main ideas and content is there. My writing style is significantly different from Molly's so I have been focusing my efforts on compiling information and getting a strong sense of what I think that the students should learn.  My modules are more practical, while Molly's are more theoretical. It is really important to me that students have a strong sense of how to gamify something (what they are gamifying will vary depending on their area). Getting from an understanding what gamification is to how to do it is a challenging, and there is a lot of very general, top level information  out there which isn't all that helpful.

I will be meeting with Molly on Monday and we will talk about what is next. We will need to figure out how to make what I have done work with what Molly is creating. From what I can tell, she has a big picture in her mind of what this will look like.  My next step will be trying to figure out what I need to do to align what I have done with what Molly is doing, or what I can do to help her. I know that she has been overwhelmed this semester. We will also need to figure out what finished is going to look like. Lots to think about...

Uses of Gamification

This week I have been focusing on the Uses of Gamification module for our course. While I have spent most of the past week researching specifically on this topic, it is really one that I have been learning about ever since I began learning about gamification. The most interesting thing to me is to see how it is being used and learning what worked, and what didn't. Learning about other people's experiences helps me to get ideas about how I might be able to use gamification in my classroom. Because of this, I have had a struggle this week with what to include and how to approach the topic. I have been going back through all of my previous research and doing new research as well. My development process has been iterative. I started with an outline of what I would like to include, then I fleshed out that outline with a little bit of content, then I went back through my sources and got online to try to figure out the specific details that I wanted. Two or three hours later I went back to my outline, filled in some gaps and moved to the next topic. After going through this process a couple of times, I finally felt like I had enough content to start putting it into Canvas, but then I was struggling with organization. There is so much information and it is hard to know what someone might find useful. Even as I have been entering it into Canvas I have thought of additional information that I wanted to include, and I am sure that will continue. Also as I researched this topic, I found information that would be useful in other areas. I added a great video to the Game Elements module. I have also gotten some good ideas for my Gamification Design Framework and Tools Module.

I am following Molly's organization method of making each section of the module an assignment, with the student required to make a short text submission after each. There is an introduction section, then 3 additional sections: Gamification in Business, Gamification in Education, and Gamification for Behavior Change. In each section I will describe how it is used, then give the students plenty of examples with the hopes of giving them ideas of how they might be able to use gamification in their situation. Here is a sneak peek at one of the videos that I am using for the Gamification in Education section: Classroom Game Design TED talk by Paul Anderson

I have really just started entering the content into Canvas, and am actually going to keep this blog short so that I can get back to it. Now that I have started I don't want to lose momentum

What's Next

Once the first pass of the Uses module is complete, I plan to begin working on the Design module. I already have some good ideas for that, but plan to do a lot more research this weekend. My hope is that that module will be constructed by this time next week. It is fun to see this coming together. I am learning so much in the process of creating this course. Hopefully I will have a chance to use it in the future.

Progress

I was finally able to sit down this week and start compiling what I have learned into some course content. While doing my research I came across a great article that was helpful with terminology, so I created a "mini-module" containing information that will be useful for everything else in the course - a good foundational understanding of the language. Molly and I had agreed that we wouldn't do a specific module on terminology, but instead incorporate it into each module as needed, so she was a little confused when I did this, but I'm not tied to it being it's own unit. I felt like the content would be useful - I think that we can figure out where it best fits when more content has been added. In addition to the article, there is an infographic that I created, and an introductory video. I intend to create a crossword puzzle of terms to go along with the rest of the module, but I am holding out to see how it will all fit together and if the crossword is needed. The final element is a discussion forum where the student picks a game that they are going to revisit several times during the course as a way for them to apply what they learned (I call it a looping assignment since that is a game technique of going back and revisiting something with a different angle).

Game Elements

After creating the mini-module, I turned my focus to the game elements module. I had collected a lot of information, but I was struggling with how to set it up since my writing and teaching styles are so different than Molly's. I finally decided that I needed to just do what I do and we can figure out how to make everything fit/blend once the content is all created. This module starts with an explanation of what game elements are and then have them read an article and check out a web site. There is a video that explains how to use some of the game elements, and an image from Kevin Werbach's book "For the Win." I end the content section with some optional reading that the students can do for more information depending on their interest. I have also created several assignments for this module. One assignment is a scavenger hunt for game elements. I intend to create a master list of game elements that the students will use for the hunt. Their job will be to play games and look for the elements in use. For each element they will include a picture/screenshot and an explanation of how it was used. The person with the most elements will win (although at this point I  have no idea what they will win). There is also an iteration of the looping assignment introduced in the terminology section. This will let them look more closely at their chosen game and inspect what elements are used and how. The module ends with a reflection on how they might be able to use the elements that they have learned about in their work. The thought is that this will start them thinking about the kind of thing that they will do for their final project. I haven't yet put together the master list. I have found lists of game elements in several different books/articles/web sites. When I compiled them all and eliminated the exact matches, I had 131 elements in my list. I know that there were quite a few that were the same element with a different name. I double that I will include that many on my list, but I will put the ones that will be most common and/or most useful. For each element I hope to include the element and a description of what it is and how it is used.

Other Topics

While I was researching for game elements, I came across information that would be useful for the other topics that I am creating the content for. I had set up pages in canvas earlier with places to put research, so I was able to add links there. This will make it easier when I start to build these modules. I plan to spend time this week developing content for either Uses or Design. Molly and I figured out on Monday that we had different ideas of what Uses of Gamification  entails. She was thinking more general, while I was leaning more toward the specific. I found a great example of a teacher who gamified his history class and blogged about the process. The blog is called Flipped History. The best part was that he talked about what worked, and what didn't and what he would change.

There is still plenty to do, but I eel like I am making good progress, and should continue to do so over the next few weeks. I am very excited about the direction that things are going.

Spring Break Plans

I have to confess that not much progress has been made on the gamification course this week. The primary reason for that is because last week I had to do midterm/miniterm grades and prepare my Canvas sites for second mini-term. Both of my two older kids are home from college for Spring break, so I decided to let myself be on break as well. I am caught up on grading, so I have been able to enjoy spending time with my kids when I am not teaching.

Molly and I did meet on Monday and talk a little bit about where we were and what we were planning, but not a lot of progress was made. That being said, Since I am taking my "break" this week, I plan to be full speed ahead next week when I am actually on spring break with LR. With no classes to teach, and minimal grading, I should have several large blocks of time to working on the course and expect to make good progress on compiling content and getting it into Canvas. This time next week I should have a lot more progress to report, and something to show in the course site. I am excited to be able to really dig in to this with uninterrupted time.

Still Keeping On

This week I finished reading the Ninja Monkey book, and started adding some content into the course site. I got a top level outline into 2 1/2 of the modules that I am responsible for, and then had to quit to work on mid-term and mini-term grades.

I liked the Ninja Monkey book. I finished reading it and learned a lot. The book seemed to lean more toward the enterprise than education, so I may suggest it as recommended reading, but I don't think that it will work as a text for the book. Fortunately, the author has a website that is very useful, and contains information about gamification in education as well as in enterprise, I will be using that as a resource for the course.
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This week, I plan to add more content to the course site. I will coordinate with Molly on Monday to make sure that we are on the same page. I have done plenty of reading, now it is time to build, build, build.

More of the Same

This week’s focus was on reading and organizing. I had gathered a lot of articles and links in several different places and was struggling to find what I needed. I ended up spending quite a bit of time revisiting all of my different links and matching the article, blog, or video to the topic that it goes with. I also noted a brief summary of each item so that I could find what I needed more easily. Another great discovery was that the author of one of the sites that I had bookmarked had published a book about gamification called Even Ninja Monkeys like to play. I have read about a third off the book so far and am finding it very useful.  

Our Weekly Meeting

Molly and I met on Monday and discussed a few different things. Onboarding was an area that we were looking at as something that we wanted to model and also something that is useful even in non-gamified situations. If done correctly, it could help get students off to a strong start in a class. We aren’t quite sure where it belongs in the course, but it will probably go in either the elements unit or the gamification design framework unit.

The Player Journey

Another thing that came up in our meeting was the player journey. This is actually a topic that we need to cover but had forgotten about. We spent quite a bit of time at our meeting discussing where it fit. I am not sure that we decided, we just figured that we would keep it in mind as we develop our content and see what happens. The areas that we were looking at are thinking like a game designer, game design or motivation.

 

What's Next

This week I intend to keep reading and start outlining my content in Canvas (I have things on paper, but haven’t transferred them yet). I expect my content to be an iterative process as I figure out what needs to be in Canvas, what I want the students to watch on video and what articles I want them to read. Some reading will probably be required and other articles will be available depending on their interests. We won’t be meeting this Monday, because Molly is traveling, but I am hoping that this will be the week that I start having something to show for all my work.

Finally Some Progress

Things are starting to move along in the course. I have been reading every spare minute that I have and am finding some great sources. The more I read, the more inspiration I get. I have come up with several ideas for assignments that we can use in the course. Some of them apply the game concept of looping, which means that we are revisiting the assignment when we tackle a new topic. I also put together my learning outcomes for each of the units that I am developing, which give me some direction as I am doing my research.

Monday’s Meeting

Molly and I had a great meeting on Monday. We came up with the idea of organizing the readings into a “library.” Within the library the articles can be grouped or tagged by subject. Some readings will be required, and others will be supplemental depending on the interests of the student, but it should be a great compilation of literature on the topic by the time we are done. We decided that we should do the same thing for videos. We can call it the “theater.” It will also have required and supplemental content.

Assignment Ideas

One of the things that we want the student to walk away with from our course is the ability to think like a game designer. Teachers are already designers, so it shouldn’t be too difficult a task for them. One of the ways that we will help them to do this is to look more closely at games. We are planning to have a web quest/scavenger hunt as part of the module on game elements. Once they are familiar with all of the mechanics, dynamics, and components, we will send them out to play games. While they are playing, they will need to look at the elements that are being used by the game. They will need to share a picture or screen shot of the game and explain the element and how it is being used/why they think that it works. They can earn points for each element that they find. They are required to find a minimum number, but we will make it a competition, so the person with the most “wins.” Don’t know what they win yet, but we will figure that out later.

The other exciting ideas was our looping assignment. At the beginning of the course, we will have them pick a game that they enjoy, and that has some complexity to it (i.e. not Candyland). They will describe the game, what they like about it and what they think makes it fun to play. When they complete the Game Elements module, they will go back and look at the same game from a game designer’s view point. They will look at the dynamics/mechanics/components used by the designer, then analyze how these work together to make the game a good experience. After the psychology unit, they can analyze the game from that view point, and also look at the elements of the game that they may be able to use in their work. Finally, after the Gamification Design Framework module, they will look at the game from the perspective of someone who is designing their own game or gamification project. They can look at what it does well, what it doesn’t do as well, and ways that can use what they have learned in their project. I really think that by digging deeply into one game, they can really get good insight into what they are learning in the modules.

Other Random Things

There were a few other things that we talked about in our meeting that are relevant. It is very important that the student comes away with a strong understanding of what gamification is and isn’t. It is NOT adding a game (like Jeopardy) to their lesson. This is something that we will need to ensure comes across in our lessons. Gamification is the use of game elements in a non-game situation, making it a very useful and flexible tool.

We also want to make sure that the students are reflecting on what they are looking and looking for ways that they can use what they have learned. I’m not sure that we came up with the best way to do that, but it is on the list of things to be included.

We spent some time talking about the project that they will do the second half of the semester. This will be somewhat of a challenge since we feel strongly that the project should be something that the student will be able to use in their work, and the diversity of the students will ensure that there will be a large variety of projects. We threw around a few ideas. I am sure that this will start to come together as we get more of a grasp on the content.

 Plans for This Week

Now that I have learning outcomes and the drafts of assignments, I can begin putting together my modules. I am hoping to start adding content to my modules in the course site. I am still struggling with the best way to deliver the content, since we know that ultimately it will all be part of the story/game, but I guess that I will just need to bite the bullet and get something in there. We can change it later as needed to fit the storyline. 

Please Disregard Last Week’s Blog – Or “One Step Forward, Two Steps Back”

Progress is an interesting thing. It is something like dancing the fox trot (I called it a cha-cha when I was explaining it to my son who is a dancer and he corrected me) – one step forward then two steps back. Last week when I started reading the book we were considering for our gamification course, I was very excited about it. The book (Gamify Your Classroom) seemed like it would be just what we needed as a framework for our course. While the book started out promising, the further into it I got the less I was able to align with what we were wanting to do. Molly came to the same conclusion in her own reading, so at our weekly meeting last Monday we decided that while the book has some great resources, we shouldn’t use it as a text for the class. Once that was decided, we were back to square one with content, and had to decide where to go from there.

Learning Objectives

One of the things that we decided to do was to formalize the learning objectives for each topic we were going to be covering. I think that we each had ideas of what should be included, but we never formally put them into writing and we felt that would give us a little more direction and structure. I have been working this week on creating learning objectives for the portion of the course that I am developing. This includes the language of games, game elements, uses for gamification, gamification design framework, and tools for gamification.  I have been taking notes on these subjects and have begun to formulate my objectives, but they are not quite ready to be written about in this blog. Hopefully that will be the focus of next week’s post.

General Brainstorming

We did have some fun at our meeting brainstorming things that we can do to make the course feel more like a game. We had the idea of having an NPC (non-playing character) introduce the topic that the student would be learning about in any given village by giving them quests. Upon completion of their quests they could get some kind of clue that would help them to advance to the next area.

Another thing that we talked about was that to be able to create a gamified course, it is important that you understand games and how they work. Reading about games is all well and good, but to really understand games you need to play them. I doubt too many people will complain that we will be assigning games as homework. I am in the process of developing a “game scavenger hunt,” where the students will demonstrate their understanding of game elements by finding them in games that they play. They will document these elements using screen capture or pictures and explain the element and how it was used. This should be a really fun assignment.

We also talked about wanting to create some games for the course, which might require the use of JavaScript. Unfortunately, JavaScript doesn’t work in Canvas so we will need to link to an outside site if we are going to do that.

Also, in keeping with the game theme of allowing the player to choose the path that they follow, there will be 3 tracks in our course. One will look at gamification in the K12 classroom, another will look at gamification in higher ed, and a third will look at gamification in business.

The final project in the course will be the boss battle and will happen as the final quest in the game. This will be the focus of the second half of the semester and will be dependent upon the goals of the student. It will give them a chance to use everything that they have learned.

This past Monday’s meeting was a wonderful brainstorming session and lots of ideas were thrown around. I have listed just a few of them. I am currently in the process of researching and further brainstorming, and will be spending a lot of my weekend doing just that. Things are starting to get exciting, and hopefully things will start to come together. I am optimistic that we are finally on a path that will lead us to what the course needs to be. Let the games begin….