Andrea,
I believe that gamification in education has been around in some form or another for decades. As an elementary student in the mid to late '70s, I remember teachers putting up charts with each of our names in the classroom, and adding different colored stars by our name for each achievement we reached our activity we completed. As students, we perceived this as a contest, constantly competing to be the student who had the most stars at the end of the week. At specific completion of "levels", the teacher would reward students with prizes, like stickers, candy, special pencils, etc. If we as an entire class reached a predetermined target, we all got a more special prize. This motivated us and created an environment of healthy competition. I think the difference now is that the instructional strategy of gamification is more clearly defined and tends to be touted as innovative in terms of the way that technology platforms are being implemented in the classroom. Did anyone else have experiences similar to this?
Denise - I agree that gamification in education is not new. I had a similar experience to that which you mentioned but it was more negative. In fifth grade, I recall the teacher awarding some kind of ticket or token for students completing work. These tokens could then be used to "buy" prizes and rewards from her. I was highly motivated and excited about this until I found out that another classmate was using social influence to gather tokens from other classmates and collected far more than should have been possible. This took the fun out of it for me as it felt unfair. I think modern day gamification, especially that which occurs in a digital setting, is able to avoid this kind of "working the system" and is a more positive experience for most users.
I wonder if it is hard to work the politics out of any system, even digital ones.
As Dr. Rodney referenced last week, gamification is rooted in the positive/negative reinforcement and behavior modification aspects found in B.F. Skinner’s behaviorism. It makes sense since I keep thinking of the digital badging reward system as a high-tech sticker program.
I completely agree with all. I had a sticker system back in elementary and once you received so many stickers, you could pick something from the treasure chest. My own children earned Pizza Hut pizzas when they read enough books. The digital component has made it more visible in my opinion. But, like it has been pointed out, competition doesn't motivate all students and there are aspects of cooperative gaming that could be applied instead of just the competitive aspect.