GamificationCo Summit
This list is from 2012, but you can SAVE $50 on tickets to GSummit SF 2013 with code GAWARD2013 -- just visit gsummit.com. Nominate and/or vote on your favorite use of gamification in education. Once nominated, other users can vote on their favorites. We'll be announcing the awards at the Gamification Summit this June 19-21 in San Francisco. Email kevin@gamification.co to receive a GSummit ticket discount code as a thank you for nominating and/or voting.
As one of the world’s largest social networks for MBA applicants, Beat the GMAT was looking for a way to increase awareness and participation for its recently launched MBA Watch online community – a social network for business-school applicants to find people and resources to increase their chances of being accepted into top-tier MBA programs.
Since MBA Watch launched, 10-20% of admitted students at top business schools like Harvard, Stanford, Wharton and Kellogg have been actively participating in MBA Watch. Also, weekly pageviews of MBA Watch increased from 8K pageviews per week shortly after launch to over 90K pageviews and 2,000 comments per week – more traffic than most any other business-school related site.
With Badgeville, Beat the GMAT created a social media campaign via game mechanics for MBA Watch. With Badgeville’s Social Fabric game notifications implementation, Beat the GMAT increased pages-per-visit by 195%, and time on site by 370%.
uBoost is an award-winning, online rewards and recognition platform utilized by K-20 schools and education companies to increase the frequency of desired behaviors like attendance and homework to achieve dramatic gains in course completion and student retention.
When successful outcomes are laid out as realistic, achievable tasks that are recognized consistently and frequently, positive feedback loops are created that support students’ feelings of self-confidence and competency. uBoost fuels these behaviors by automating feedback in the form of badges, leaderboards, email alerts, experience points, and currency redeemable for rewards the client selects (including charitable donations, merchandise and gift cards.
uBoost partners with schools and education companies to deliver customized programs that enhance student motivation, improve classroom behavior, and encourage parent engagement.
Virtual schools like K12 Inc, White Hat, and Connections Academy use uBoost to reach their course completion and student retention goals.
Test prep and tutoring companies such as Kaplan drive student engagement, loyalty, and referrals with programs designed, hosted and managed by uBoost.
Curriculum providers like Education2020 and Scientific Learning offer their subscribers have integrated uBoost’s gaming mechanics to sustain engagement and increase completion rates.
Is it possible to use gamification to motivate students above and beyond grades?
These students in Temple University's Social Media Innovation course certainly think so:
"I thought this was a great idea on Professor Johnson’s end, mainly because it was a friendly competitive challenge, and really engaged everyone to take part in it."
“The Quest was an amazing experience. Being able to score myself really helped me stay competitive with my site and made me do things now as opposed to later because I feared losing my rank.”
We recently completed the third semester with the Social Media Innovation Quest as a gamification element in Temple University’s Fox School of Business MIS3538: Social Media Innovation course.
The Quest was developed in order to encourage self-paced learning through a series of required and self-selected activities that got progressively more difficult. Through a combination of the WordPress Achievements plug-in and Google Forms, students:
As the student feedback attests, well designed gamification can work in a college class room.
LiveOps piloted the use of game mechanics in their space when they integrated game mechanics like badges and leaderboards directly into their "MyWorks" internal community. These game mechanics encourage call center agents to complete additional training & certification and increase call conversion. Gamification helps connect the virtual, dispersed agents with their managers, while allowing them to "manage their reputation" by showcasing points and badges earned on their own virtual space.
Want to improve your math grade? Alleyoop provides teens with step-by-step math help and expert one-on-one tutoring.
Trunk show-style jewelry company Stella & Dot was looking for a new way to train and incent their in-home sales reps. They created S&D University which offers training for all levels of stylists. The "stylist lounge" is a password-protected portal/personal web assistant featuring training, marketing tools, reporting and education. Working with Bunchball, Stella & Dot implemented badges, trivia and notifications to help motivate stylists through their University education program.
With a library of over 3,000 videos covering everything from arithmetic to physics, finance, and history and hundreds of skills to practice, Khan academy is on a mission to help you learn what you want, when you want, at your own pace. Its use of Game Mechanics to drive a 'self learning' behaviour in the classroom is one of the best uses of gamification i have seen.
Mytestbuddy is a very simple idea – while using social gaming technology and Web 2.0 infrastructure, Lodhari technologies have created a fun learning environment for students.
The mytestbuddy’s Collaborative Learning Platform is web- based, engaging and effective methodology of studying , wherein a student provides inputs to which his peers and professors responds and thus engaging in an healthy learning interactive place.
