Over the last week I have been looking into various elements of gamification. There is a huge wealth of knowledge on the subject and it is becoming more and more prominent in every day life. In everything from social media to the work place, gamification is being used to entice, motivate and reward people in all walks of life.
I have been watching a series of videos from the Dreamforce 2013 conference on gamification. This series has shown me so far several different examples of gamification such as the Playstation4 advertising on interactive bus stops which sends a QR code to your phone when you are in proximity to the bus stop, then using the bus stops built in camera, the QR code is scanned and signs you in. This then lets you play mini games while you wait for the bus and all the time pushing Playstation4 on you. This could easily be transferred to learning by swapping out the information on the PS4 for the learning topic. This would get the player interested in that subject while completing other tasks.
From the research and readings from the past few weeks, along with the discussions and feedback from my tutor I am looking at selecting a single element from the Upper KS2 curriculum in the area of science and gamifying it. Keeping this small slice of the curriculum will allow me to drill down deep into gamification and the ways in which this can best be used.
I also want to add some of the things I have been doing but have yet to gain enough from to warrant their own post. Firstly I have been leasing with Jon London and Karen Hansen from the Cambridge Science Centre. They have been talking to me about how they keep young individuals interested and motivated towards their set learning outcomes. Karen has also offered to meet with me to discus a framework she developed for planning out lessons called Narrative Mapping which she used to teach to other teachers.
Next week I am leading a group of ten students round for our STEM October School. This includes aspects from many STEM subjects and for the most part, focuses on keeping learning fun and engaging for the students. I will be spending my time outside of leading, taking notes on the different ways the lessons are delivered and the way in which these different methods are reflected in the students responses. The week concludes with a day long session run by myself in which students will be creating and programming an object avoidance robot based on an Arduino Uni. I will attempt to gamify this session as much as possible using what I have learned and then post a "post-mortem" to this blog detailing the pros and cons of the session and include feedback from the students.
References
Dreamforce Video - YouTube. 2015. Dreamforce Video - YouTube. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/user/dreamforce. [Accessed 25 October 2015].
Dreamforce 2013 Interactive Bus Stops - Location Based Marketing - YouTube. 2015. Dreamforce 2013 Interactive Bus Stops - Location Based Marketing - YouTube. [ONLINE] Available at:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TCw9IFC_YA. [Accessed 25 October 2015].
National curriculum - GOV.UK. 2015. National curriculum - GOV.UK. [ONLINE] Available at:https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/national-curriculum. [Accessed 25 October 2015].
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