How to Gamify: 15 ways to introduce gaming concepts into eLearning

December 29, 2012 • Game Based eLearning • 1 Comment

By now, you’ve hope­fully heard a fair amount about gami­fic­a­tion, the applic­a­tion of gam­ing mech­an­ics to non-gaming scen­arios. We believe it’s the best way to get learners engaged with train­ing con­tent – here’s why. But how does one go about ‘gami­fy­ing’ their eLearn­ing? Here are 15 ways:

  1. Break the eLearn­ing into spe­cific sec­tions. Put a quiz at the end of every sec­tion and award the stu­dent a vir­tual badge, if they pass the sec­tion quiz.
  2. Sep­ar­ate the con­tent into dif­fer­ent, graded levels. Thus, as the stu­dent pro­gresses (achieves badges) the levels are unlocked and they get to exper­i­ence new content.
  3. Track scores in each sec­tion. This will allow the stu­dent to focus on increas­ing their aver­age score throughout.
  4. Allow rewards like badges, cer­ti­fic­ates or ‘achieve­ments’, to be pos­ted on social media sites, or on internal com­pany intranets.
  5. Make levels date or time sens­it­ive, so stu­dents need to check in each day, week or month to receive new challenges.
  6. Cre­ate group assign­ments so that stu­dents col­lab­or­ate together to accom­plish projects.
  7. Intro­duce the concept of a ‘quest’ or ‘epic mean­ing’, where stu­dents sub­mit a piece of work which rein­forces learn­ing or cul­tural norms.
  8. Incentiv­ise users to share and com­ment on oth­ers work. This embeds learn­ing and encour­ages know­ledge sharing.
  9. Sur­prise users with extra bonus rewards when they reveal or pass a new challenge.
  10. Cre­ate arti­fi­cial pres­sure by using ‘count­downs’ on quizzes. This makes users tackle chal­lenges under time constraints.
  11. Take away badges, or rewards, if chal­lenges are not met successfully.
  12. Make role-playing, or branch­ing scen­arios within the eLearn­ing infin­ite, or repeat­able, so that if the chal­lenge is not met suc­cess­fully, the stu­dent has to find a solution
  13. Intro­duce char­ac­ters that help and hinder the stu­dent on their learn­ing journey
  14. Make the stu­dent cre­ate or select a char­ac­ter to ‘play’ through­out the eLearning.
  15. Post leader boards show­ing stu­dent per­form­ance across depart­ments, geo­graph­ies and spe­cial­isms, to encour­age com­pet­i­tion and collaboration.

Tagged as: Academy Platform LMS, Channel Portals, Channel Training Solutions, Distance Learning, elearning, engaging learners, Functions, Gamification, Instructional Design, Online Learning, social media integration

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