After watching Gabe Zichermann’s speech, and reading the articles by Begona Gros and Lee & Hammer, what do you feel that you are already doing to create a gaming environment for your students? How have these industry professionals supported what you are doing, and what do you think, after learning from them, you need to further explore and/or implement, to make gaming more successful in your classroom?
After watching Zichermann’s speech and reading the articles, there are a few things that I feel I am already doing to create a gaming environment. First, I believe that using the application Prodigy with my students brought a type of content gamification into the classroom. Using Kahoot for activating prior knowledge brought structural gamification slightly into the classroom. Last semester, my cooperating teacher and I assigned digital points to students to reinforce good behavior. The students were able to see their standing in comparison to their peers.
I believe the industry professionals would support the gaming I am incorporating but would encourage more to take place at a complex level. Lee and Hammer would support the use of Prodigy because it helps students socially due to being placed in a new fantasy context. It allows students to try “new identities and roles” and explore new sides of themselves. (Hammer & Lee, 2011, p. 4). I believe that Zichermann would support Kahoot because it would trigger the winner effect due to the challenge, achievement, pleasure loop. After learning from these professionals, I realized I need to do more exploration and implementation to make gaming successful. First, I need to use the four fundamental aspects described by Gros to better understand the context of learning happening in games. Gros states the role of the teacher is to “provide elements of analysis and reflection that allow work to be done on the content of the game” (Gros, 2007, p. 34). To meet this function, I need to start implementing the four pedagogical types of actions described in his article. Lastly, I need to explore the seven different genres of games and other game-based resources available in greater detail to examine which ones truly evoke a game-like environment while still reinforcing the content.
Zichermann, G. (2014, February 25). The future of creativity and innovation is gamification: Gabe Zichermann at TEDxVilnius. Retrieved August 18, 2019, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZvRw71Slew&t=6s