The Educational Background Behind Gaming - Part 1

It's NOT about the Games.  It's about the Gaming.

Creative Commons: UltraCommunications.com

I like to introduce my university students to Gaming in the Classroom. It is not aboutplaying games but rather about the opportunities and engagement that students experience when they are learning through a gaming framework.  

I would like to share with you the introductory sequence that I use in introducing this.  I would also like to share how I challenge my students to play a specific game for a while and then reflect on the process.  

ALERT:  Next week I will share the responses, reflections and insights that my students develop from this experience.

Did you know that in 2011:

• 65% of US households play video games?
• Almost 1/2 of the video gamers are adults < 49 years old?
• The average gamer is 32?
• 2 out of 5 gamers are women?

Gaming is not a fad. Video gaming is a way of life. Gaming is an activity that provides sufficient positive feedback to cause players to exclude all else. It is challenging enough to entice gamers to continually attempt to beat their last score.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if school was like gaming? Where students would be so motivated by their learning activities that they would get up early and stay up late to engage themselves in the learning process.

Our understanding of learning has taken a HUGE leap forward in recent years.  It is time that we were Rethinking Learning with the 21st Century Learner.  This video explores how we need to rethink our students' learning experiences to best fit their interests and learning preferences.  This video includes interviews with John Seely Brown (discusses how today's learners are gamers to the core),  Nichole Pinkard, Diana Rhoten, Mimi Ito (Lead Researcher for the Digital Youth Project); Katie Salen (Executive Director of The New School for Design); and Henry Jenkins (Media Guru). 



Is it about playing the game or getting involved in something that is rewarding and challenging.  Maybe it has something to do with "getting into the flow of things . . . "

Flow - The Psychology of the Optimal Experience

Dr. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (Chick-sent-me-hi) has studied states of "optimal experience" for over two decades. He is exploring the conditions and attitudes that engage people's concentration and attention to the point of total absorption. He calls this state of consciousness Flow.  In this state of attention, learners are at their most receptive level.

Dr. Csikszentmihalyi discusses his theory of Flow in this 5-minute video. 
It is the primary introduction to the Flow concept. He further explains its application to education in this short interview on Edutopia.org:  Motivating People to Learn.

9 Characteristics of Flow have been identified. Learn these characteristics so that you can later relate them to the apparent aspects of gaming and learning.
Pay careful attention to this concept of Flow because while it may seem like "good common sense," it is an underlying principle of learning.
Gaming's Elements Make for Good Learning
Gaming is a directional process where the player is guided towards a selected goal through positive and negative reinforcement. Isn't that similar to a good learning situation? How does that relate to the 9 characteristics of Flow?

Read this posting which discusses a list of 8 characteristics of Gaming. Relate these to those of Flow. What similarities do you see? What distinctions?  You will also find a video of a leading gaming researcher, Dr. James Paul Gee.  Watch this video and correlate it with the connections we have been discussing.

Gaming in Your REAL Life

Gaming is the basis of living and learning.  When you do something correctly, you are rewarded.  When you faultier, you fail.  It's about how you interact with the world. Before you can explore how you would do this in the classroom, you need to know something about how it works in your life.  Seth Priebatsch and Jesse Schell share some interesting ideas about how Gaming appears as a layer in your real life.  Read this posting and watch these two videos to get a new perspective on how you are gaming on a daily basis. 

If you are interested in really applying gaming to your real life, Explore Chore Wars.  It is a quest game where you can claim experience points for housework.

Consider your present concepts about gaming. Have they changed in the past 24 hours? If so, what have you realized?  How does this affect your perspective as a trainer, teacher, educator?

Using Gaming Practices to Improve Learning
In this 10-minute video, Paul Anderson explains how he reinvented his course to make it a gaming learning experience. Pay attention to the insights that he shares about the elements of active student-centered learning environments.

 
 

Time for Real Gaming

In my university class, Using Digital and Social Media, I challenge my students to apply what they have just learned.  These resources have identified how the gaming and learning are two sides of the same coin so I want them to play a game and then reflect on what connections they are seeing.

Another benefit for this homework is that my students get to tell their roommates/friends/ siblings/parents/children that they get to play Kingdom Rush for 3 hours for homework.

Tune in Next Week

I will share with you the gaming reflections that my students generate as well as some educational perspectives that I add to the mix.

Are Your Educational Games Actually Worksheets with Points? Here are 6 ways to Find Better Learning Games

I was just reading Cool Cat Teacher when I saw this posting.  It is an interesting topic but it was more interesting when I realized that I spent the last couple of days with the author, Kae Novak, here at ISTE.  She really knows gaming and I am learning a great deal as I work with the ISTE Gamers.  I will be movinging forward with introducing gaming into my fall classes and I am learning A LOT.

Pedagogical Tips on Gaming Successfully in the Classroom.

1. Understand what makes a good game.
2. Become a Game Master.
3. Find good games.
4. Learning best practices.
5. Connect with other teachers using games.
6. Consider how games can teach more.

You should go the the full posting at Cool Cat Teacher to read the rest of the discussion.

4 Fundamental Problems With Everything You Hear About the Future of Education

Jordan Shapiro

I am going to the TIC conference in Dubuque this coming week and the ISTE conference in Philly next week. I have been attending Educational Technology conferences for over 2 decades and have always loved going there.  I learn a lot from the sessions and I get to connect with friends that I have developed over the years.

This morning I read an article in Forbes by Jordan Shapiro.  This article, 4 Fundamental Problems with Everything You Hear About the Future of Education, included some insightful comments that I would like to share with you here. Below, I have listed the 4 myths that Shapiro enumerated along with some of my own narrative. I strongly suggest that you read the whole article connected to the link above to get the full flavor of the message.

1. Kids are bored and technology will provide better ways to engage students. - I agree with Shapiro when he says that it is about the teacher, not the technology. Unfortunately, the biggest barrier I have with the future teachers that I teach is that many of them have the belief that we need to integrate technology for technology's sake.  Not the case. Technology can provide opportunities for learning that would not be otherwise available but it can still be used badly. We can use video conferencing to connect 6th grade classrooms in different countries but if their activities are limited to teacher-led worksheet filling-out, there is little value. 
2. More data-based adaptive technologies will lead to child-centered curricula. - Intelligent tutorials are useful devices in building skills, but they aren't the answer to building child-centered curricula. If you have a skillset that your students need to learn, it has been shown that students can learn faster using adaptive technologies.  BUT the key is how these skills will be applied. This can't be done using data-based adaptive technologies.  Problem-based learning can provide the valuable learning experience that students can have when applying those skills.
3. Video games will finally contextualize academic content - Video games can present problems in a context but does that necessarily align with the real world?  When learners play "against the machine", they learn in the the context that the programmers provided.  When learners play against each other in a game like Civilization, they are provided a context within which they are working with other people. The game provides the playing field and the contestants provide the human emotions and decision-making processes from which they will learn. Experiencing the actual decision-making process that a person will undergo when negotiating a treaty or deciding about attacking a fortress can provide insight that couldn't be learned from a book.  When students have these experiences together, they can come to class and discuss their feelings and learn more about what historical figures might have done.
4. Learning should be more fun. - Shapiro points out that learning is NOT fun. Learning is an experience where you are stretched.  It is a situation where you are drawn from your comfort zone and expected to succeed. Can this happen in games? - Yes.  Is this necessarily fun? - No. It is challenging. Being challenged and having a safety net so that you can try new things without the chance for a huge loss can provide a sense of accomplishment but it doesn't need to be fun. 

While you can see that Shapiro and I don't see eye-to-eye on everything, you should read his article.  It has a lot of good points in it.

I just downloaded the .pdf of his book, The Mindshift Guide to Digital Games and Learning.  I haven't read it yet, but look forward to experiencing his advice.

What do you think about these points?  Please provide a third-leg to our discussion.

Z

Alfie Kohn Doesn't Like Open Badges and Gamification - Do You?

Are you using Badges in your classes? 

Alfie Kohn definitely isn't using badges in his classes. He doesn't like them. 
The video above is his discussion of caution about using badges and gamification. 

As you may know, Alfi is an advocate for change in schools.  He has written a number of books about making learning more relevant to students.   In this video, however, he is talking about how using badges and gamification in classrooms are merely manifestations of the behavioralist strategy towards learning. 

Kohn begins the video talking about how badges limit education to mere skill acquisition. He points out that the Kahn Academy  uses badges and that is a limiting factor because it doesn't deal with application of the skills. He says that this is the basis for another modern educational model, the Flipped Classroom. He also questions who is going to validate the criteria that will be used to identify success in knowing and mastering specific skills. 

Later on, Kohn criticizes using gamification in the classroom because we are taking gaming aspects from video games and applying it to the real world.  He also discusses the need to build intrinsic motivation in learners rather than extrinsic motivation where every success is rewarded by points or other external awards. He points out that psychological research actually states that extrinsic rewards will damage the acquisition of internal motivation. (His emphasis on this is understandable based upon his Punished by Rewards book that he wrote in 1993.)

While Mr. Kohn brings to front many good points about things that need to be considered when using badges and gamification in learning, I think that he is missing the boat.  He is presenting this in an either/or format.

• He presents badging as an uncontrolled system for relegating the learning experience to mastery of skills with no application.
• He limits his scope on gamification to the use of rewards for learning.

The important thing to remember in either of these situations is that they are NOT the only strategies that need to be used in today's learning environments. Today's students need to have authentic learning situations where what they learn extends beyond master of skills. They need to be organized in a way that will provide a relevant testbed for using the skills that need to be mastered. This can be organized in a fashion where students can earn badges as they master their skills but concurrently, they are applying their skills to create things that are relevant to themselves.

This morning I came across a CNN interview with Salman Kahn where he talks about how his video instruction can be used to provide content for flipped classrooms.  This provides more context for understanding the limits of Kohn's perception of education's opportunities.

Kohn's understanding of gamification is limited by a 20th century perception of learning. Learning is an ongoing process of trying to accomplish something and then receiving feedback on your success. This feedback might be a grade on a test, points in a game, feedback from a colleague or teacher or just having the real world tell you if it worked or not. 

It IS best to have a learning situation where students have an internal need to do well on a project, but learning is a gradated process that has multiple levels of success.  Success on these successive levels needs to include feedback for the learner to gauge his/her level of accomplishment and adjust future activities accordingly.

What is your opinion about Alfie's opinions?  

Are you using badging and gamification in your classrooms?

Is it the only way your students are learning or are you integrating it into your curriculum?

How do you do this?

Z

Your Brain on Video Games

How can gaming affect your brain and biological acuteness?  It is an on-going argument about the effects of gaming.  Dr. Bavelier share a laboratory analysis of how gaming can improve your sight, awareness and other biological skills.

Gaming to Learn by Learning to Game

Gaming isn't about merely playing games. It's about learning through creative problem solving, social interaction, diplomacy, collaboration, and critical thinking.

On Friday, December 9 at 1:00 PM GMT (7:00 AM Central Standard Time) the K-12 Online Conference will release a 20-minute presentation that I created on Gaming. (If you haven't seen it yet, you might want to read my previous post that explains how the K-12 Online Conference works.)

You can get to the video at Gaming to Learn by Learning to Game.

 This slideshow can be found at SlideShare.com at Gaming to Learn


Here are the resources I used in the presentation:

The Fun Theory is an international project sponsored by Volkswagen to explore how play can be used to change behavior and induce learning in a positive manner.

Jane McGonigal - A game designer who is researching how gaming can make a difference in the world.  She has a number of presentations that she has collected on her personal page.

World Without Oil is an alternate reality game that was held in 2007.  The Video is quite informative about how they did it and what the results turned out to be.

Partnership for 21st Century Skills and Iowa Core Curriculum are two resources for identifying and promoting 21st Century skill development for our schools.

The 3D GameLab of Boise State University is the brainchild of Lisa Dawley and Chris Haskell.  This is a system that they are developing which will provide educators with an interactive system for creating learning in a gaming environment.

K-12 Online Conference - Purposeful Play

Have you heard of the K12 Online Conference?  It is a wonderful idea!

Once a year, educators submit 20-minute videos along a specific educational topic and then they release these videos throughout a 3-week virtual conference.

The website describes it as a "FREE online conference open to ANYONE organized by educators for educators around the world interested in integrating emerging technologies into classroom practice.  The goal of the conference  is to help educators make sense of and meet the needs of a continually changing learning landscape."

This year's conference topic is Purposeful Play.  It has 4 strands including:
Sandbox Play, Level Up, Story Time and Team Captains.

Each of the presentations is "released" on a blog at a specified time based upon the 2011 Presentation Schedule. They do this so that the presentations aren't released in one huge on-slaught but rather in sequence over the 3-week period (Nov 21 - Dec 13). You participate by downloading or streaming the presentations and then viewing the presentations. After (or while) you watch the presentation, you can post feedback and comments on the blog.

At the end is a culminating live event to celebrate the Afterglow on 2:00 AM GMT on Tuesday, Dec 13.

I have submitted a presentation entitled Gaming to Learn by Learning to Game. It will be released at 1:00 PM GMT (7:00 AM Central Standard Time) on Friday, December 9.

The resources that I used in the presentation will be available in my next posting on this blog, Dr. Z Reflects.

How Gaming Makes a Difference in Your World (Ted Talks)

Gaming is much more than trying to shoot down Space Invaders or battling between alliances and hordes in Azeroth or teleport through Portals. Jane McGonigal believes that increased gaming can help solve the problems in the world. Stuart Brown explains the benefits and necessity of having fun to create a fully-developed person.  What do you think?  How does this apply to your concept of learning?

Gaming Can Make a Better World
Jane McGonigal
TED 1998


Dr. McGonigal has a vision for the future based upon the propagation of playing games. She has bases her future ideas on stories of the past. Conversely, her plans involve a future that provides opportunities that are now available due to today's technological opportunities.

Explore Dr. McGonigal's website and share in her visions for the future.  You will notice that her website is presented within a gaming context.

Play is More than Fun
Stuart Brown
Serious Gaming Conference, 2008

The importance of play is apparent throughout society. Dr. Brown demonstrates how it is a necessary aspect of personal development for both human and non-human species.
How does this relate to gaming? What needs to be changed in your learning environment to begin to provide this sort of fun learning experience?

A Manifesto for Play, for Bulgaria and Beyond
Steve Keil
TEDxBG Talks in Sofia, Bulgaria
 
Steve Keil shares his ideas on how the whole culture of Bulgaria can be improved through allowing and pursuing play. Consider the culture he is describing where fun and play were squashed through years of communistic oppression.

Do you agree with his ideas for making change? What is he doing that is making a different world in the world? How does this relate to the messages that Stuart Brown is proposing?
Check out his http://playmanifesto.org to review his ideas.

Look for additional resources and add them to the comments below.  What can you find that will benefit your colleagues use in their understanding of our futures' possibilities?

Related articles

• Gamer Heal Thyself With Jane McGonigal's SuperBetter (fastcompany.com)
• Jane McGonigal on Games for a Better World (wadatripp.wordpress.com)
• Is the Gamification of Education a Good Thing? (alicia-arnold.com)
• Real-World Possibility Spaces in MMORPGs (rhetoric114.wordpress.com)

How is Gaming Different for Boys and Girls? (TED Talks)

Games for Girls
Brenda Laurel

Brenda Laurel explores her research into designing games for girls.  She questions what games for girls need to contain and how they might be designed to benefit girls.

Do you agree with them?  How does this align with your experiences?  If you were a girl once, do these finding match your feelings?

This is a 1998 TED video. Does it still apply? Find updated information and include it in the comments section of this posting.

Gaming to Re-Engage Boys in Learning
Ali Carr-Chellman

Ali really digs into the effect of today's classrooms on boys' engagement in learning. She
shares stats that show boys have 3 time the difficulties of girls in succeeding in the typical classroom. She advocates using gaming in schools to make learning relevant to boys' learning styles. She says that gaming is not the problem but a symptom of boys trying to make life relevant.

Ali identifies 3 reasons that school cultures are out of synch with boys' cultures:

1. Zero Tolerance
2. Writing
3. Fewer Male Teachers

It is a video that makes you rethink how learning should engage boys.

Did You Know This . . . About Gaming? Amazing!!

Source: Online Education 2008

TED Talks About Gaming in Our Daily Lives

I was just reviewing the gaming videos on TED Talks and found some jewels. These are videos by leaders in the field that included some observations that opened my eyes.

The Game Layer on Real Life
Seth Priebatsch


Seth talks about building a Game Layer on the world. The game layer is already there. He points out that credit card schemes and airline reward programs are prime examples of a gaming format where citizens/players are rewarded for performing the desired behavior (i.e., spending money using credit cards.)  They are there, but not very well designed.

He says that the past decade has been spent building the Social Layer which is a framework for connections. This framework is done and it is called Facebook.   Now that we have the framework, it is necessary to build the Game Layer.  It is about using dynamics to influence how we behave.

He talks about 4 important gaming dynamics:

1. Appointment Dynamic - in order to succeed, the player must do something at a specific time.
2. Influence in Status - reward actions that will provide a specific level of status.
3. Progression Dynamics - success is displayed and measured through itemized tasks.
4. Communal Discovery - people working together to find a specific set of information.

When Games Invade Real Life
Jesse Schell

Jesse talks about "Beyond Facebook."

He takes us on a long journey which uncovers a number of changes in our world that have been caused by the new gaming culture. He even talks about how gaming can be used to modify our behavior. He even talks about earning points while we brush our teeth in the morning. This supports Priebatsch's idea of layering gaming over our real lives.  It's difficult to explain his presentation but it is a real eye-opener and you should watch it.

These videos really made me thing about what gaming means to our lives.  It isn't necessarily about jamming on Guitar Hero. It's about the ubiquitous reward system that is possible in today's digital world.

What do you think about this? Is gaming changing your life? Do you agree that we are on the threshold of the Gaming Age?

Z

Gaming's Elements Make for Good Learning

ArmyofDarkness.com

"What is gaming but an on-going assessment? "  These words by James Paul Gee in his Edutopia interview on Grading with Games caused me to take a moment's notice. He's right, you know. Gaming is a directional process where a player eyes an ultimate goal and then exhibits the behavior that will result in attaining that final goal. Along the way, the player's success is evaluated by the game and feedback is provided in the form of success (or lack there of.)


A gaming environment can provide a great number of opportunities to improve learning. A 3D GameLab write-up aggregates the list of these characteristics. These characteristics are specifically collected in reference to games but the value comes when we consider how this can be applied to learning situations:

1. Choice
Provide students with an opportunity to select their path through the game/learning situation. This may mean which quests to complete or which media are used to complete them.

2. Failure
Failing is learning. Try something new and see if it works. The key is to create a situation where failure doesn't have long-lasting penalties. Immediate feedback to the success of a new tactic will provide the formative guidance that the player/learner needs to master the skill.

3. Progress Bars
Players/learners need to have feedback on their progress. Tom Chatfield suggests that using something like a progress bar to share advancement with the player/learner can build engagement and motivation. An example of a system that does this most effectively is the Aleks Math System.

4. Multiple Long and Short Aims
Successful games contain both long and short-term goals. I just finished playing Army of Darkness. It is a game with 50 levels. The long-term goal is to ultimately win by "leveling out" (beating all 50 levels.) Each level is its own short term goal and provides on-going feedback about my success in using the warriors and weaponry at my disposal. This holds true with learning situations. The end goal needs to be in mind to provide relevance but the sequential formative goals provide the feedback that makes it interesting.

5. Rewarding ALL Successful Efforts
While the goal of a learning situation is to master the material/skills, getting there is full of failure. Gamers/learners need to receive some recognition for the work they have completed even if it hasn't lead to total success. This can be a difficult thing to design for the typical learning experience but it needs to be considered.

6. Prompt and Meaningful Feedback
All of these characteristics are connected with prompt and meaningful feedback. It should be immediate and provide some sort of direction as to how a failed attempt can be improved.

7. Elements of Uncertainty/Awards
This is an interesting quality. In experimental psychology, we call this intermittent reinforcement. There is no specific "number of times" that something must be correct to receive an award. This can be quite appealing to the human psyche. That is why casinos are filled with humans playing slot machines because there is no certainty when they will "pay off" but the reward is enough to make it interesting.

Games provide such intermittent rewards by having periodic benefits (i.e., helpful wizards or increasing the treasure chest by 5%) occur to help the player. Teachers provide this sort of untimed reward with gold stars or classroom currency that are distributed to good workers at the whim of the teacher.

8. Socialization
 Learning is a social event. It can be an opportunity for like learners to collaborate with peers and mold responses together. When you are working with collaborators, you are receiving the constant feedback and support that we have described as so important to successful gaming/learning.

What do you think is important?  I think that the most important item that can be taken from this list is feedback. Gaming is a self-correcting journey to an identified goal and it is all based upon immediate and helpful feedback so that the gamer can modify his/her behavior to best achieve success.

What is your idea on this? 

*This posting was prompted by an assignment from 3D GameLab.

Is Gaming "As Real As Your Life?"

                      Michael Perry via WikipediaOnce again, TED comes through with a video that made me think about the future. This isn't just any future, but it is the future brought to us by David Perry where he suggests that our perception and interaction with the world will be moderated or at least affected by simulation gaming. David Perry is a game designer who has created games like Enter Matrix, The Terminator, Aladdin, and Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles,

Perry does a stupendous job of taking us through the evolution of various types of games including game boarding, basketball (from stick figures to life-like player where you can see the sweat rolling off his brow), boxing, StarWars, and 1st-person shooter games. It's easy to see how things on the screen can be mistaken for reality.

The most effective part of the talk was the excerpt he played from Michael Highland's film, As Real As Your Life. Highland explains that he was born in 1984 (the beginning of the Millennial Generation) and his constant involvement with video games has changed his life. The border between his real world and video world have blurred. His interaction in the virtual world is helping mold who he is in the real world. He has driven over 32,000 miles in virtual cars while he has only put 25,000 miles on his real car. 

How will this affect our learning? It has a dramatic effect in who we are and what we do. Does it make us a better or worse person? No. Learning through video games is no different than learning through real life except the learner/teacher has some control over the situations where the learner is learning. This can provide a much richer and more skilled learner because s/he can be experienced beyond his/her years. Look at how this is used with astronauts, pilots, police officers, soldiers and doctors. They have learned to react or proact in situations they have never before experienced in real life. At least when they experience it in the virtual world, there are few repercussions from mistakes that they may experience.

The gaming world can provide a rich experience for learners inside and outside of the classroom. The only problem is that it can be quite complex and more difficult to create such an environment. It is much easier to simply create a lecture with a few poorly-made PowerPoints.  The advantage is that once the gaming environment has been created, it can  reused without much more work on the part of the teacher. It should be continually reviewed and updated as necessary, but it is not like creating a whole new learning situation.

Related articles

• Virtual Worlds Are Scary for Parents, Liberating for Kids (pbs.org)
• Supporting Learning Styles in the Virtual World (gridjumper.net)
• Video games teach kids 'new literacy': Do you buy it? (theglobeandmail.com)
• Video Game Lessons (magwunderlich.wordpress.com)

*This posting was prompted by an assignment from 3D GameLab.

7 Ways Games Reward the Brain

On August 1, I began a 3-week class through Boise State University entitled 3D GameLab.
This online experience is designed to provide an opportunity where an educator/learner can become involved in a game-based learning situation first-hand. It's a personal journey through the gaming theory that is purveyed by Gee and Prensky.

It's VERY personal and I like it.

The explanation of how this works is rather complicated. It is complex enough to warrant it's own independent posting at another time. The main reason that I am writing this post is because it is part of the quest that I am presently trying to complete. How's THAT for motivation?

We were asked to watch the Ted Talk presentation, 7 Ways Games Reward the Brain by Tom Chatfield, and then reflect upon something that he said.  This talk is about how the complexities of gaming can be applied to motivate people in learning. Chatfield describes (both psychologically and biologically) how game-like challenges engage the human soul.



The interesting part of his analysis is how he describes the process that game designers use to capture your attention and engage your soul. It's not as much about the actual activity that you are completing (he suggested opening virtual boxes) as it is about the reward schedule that the player experiences in the process. Its about "the rate, the nature, the type, the intensity of the rewards in games that keep players engaged over long periods of time."

When I was trying to find another way to describe this, the term, relevance, popped into mind. But this wasn't the proper word. I just finished saying that the activity wasn't as important as the form of interaction that the learner has with the activity. That interaction is personal. The most successful interaction is one that has been personal-ized to meet the needs, wants and desires of the learner. It has been customized to respond often enough with rewards that are interesting enough to maintain grasp of the learner's soul.

As Chatfield explains, the onset of computing has provided a venue through which feedback can be individualized to make such activities infinitely interesting. This is nothing new. I remember first reading about it in 1982 in an article written by R. F. Bowman, A Pac-Man Theory of Motivation.

Watch the video and consider the 7 ways that games reward our brains:

1. Use Experience Bars to Measure Progress
2. Provide Multiple Long/Short-Term Aims
3. Reward Effort - Don't Punish Mistakes
4. Link Actions to Consequences
5. Include an Element of Uncertainty
6. Include Peer Collaboration
7. Engage Players by Doling Out the Rewards at the Personalized Intervals.

Which one do you feel is the most powerful strategy for your learning?

Related articles

• New ways of learning... (whatedsaid.wordpress.com)
• More from Open Tech: Games (juliac2.wordpress.com)
• Game-Based Learning is not about games, it's about mindsets (deangroom.wordpress.com)

*This posting was prompted by an assignment from 3D GameLab.