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...