Positivity!

Awesome thing today. One of my students who is in grade 7 and always had trouble remembering to speak in French and not litter his French with English words, caught himself speaking English and switched immediately to French, re-saying what he had started saying in English. What was great about this was that I didn't remind him to switch back, his classmates didn't remind him, and he didn't switch because I was standing too near - he didn't glance in my direction to see if I could hear him or not, the way he often does. I was very proud of him! I know students are often made nervous when they are praised in front of the class, but that many of them they crave it all the same. This is where the awesomeness of gamification comes in! See, I'm the gamemaster, so I can do what I want. I can change the rules whenever I feel like it, as long as it suits the game and doesn't come off as unfair or break a player's connection to the game. So I awarded his team one Francais point. This got his teammates excited for him, and pleased for him, instead of resenting him as a goody goody. High fives were exchanged all around, and a new precedent was set - if you correct yourself when you catch yourself speaking English, you might just gain a point for your team!

My sources of Gamification

Sorry for the delay! I've been working on this draft for awhile now. I keep having things pop up in the middle, and there were a lot of links to add in. Hopefully it will all be worth it! As promised, these are the sources I have used to develop my concept of gamification.

Extra Credits: These guys were my main inspiration. Hosted on the Penny Arade website (one of the go-to places for video gaming information, especially on new games and little known games, and the founders of PAX, one of the biggest gaming conventions in North America, as well as the founders of the Child's Play charity), they explore many issues surrounding video games. They examine the good and the bad of games, but are entirely inspired by the potential of games and the gaming community, and the way this potential is being explored. They have two videos on gamification: Gamification, and Gamifying Education. They have a lot of amazing ideas and explain them really well, and very simply. Their video on Tangential Learning is also more than worth a peek.

Gamification.co: This blog is absolutely amazing! It focuses on gamification as a concept, but there are a LOT of excellent posts about gamification in education specifically. This is what fed my understanding of gamification and really helped me plan the different ideas I am currently using. In particular, check out his series on The Gamified Classroom (Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6.) and Gamification vs. Game Based Learning in Education. I haven't been keeping up, (shame on me!) but I'm really looking forward to checking out his TEDx talks.

Quest to Learn: This is a school that has been build on the underlying principles of gamification. Their website is being redesigned, so it is somewhat difficult to navigate right now, but the Overview and the Curriculum & Assessment pages helped me a lot. In particular, the way they organised the curriculum sparked a lot of ideas for me in setting up my schedule and pursuing my goals of having stronger integration in my classroom. From Quest to Learn, I have learned not to be afraid of letting my students tinker with the design of the classroom game - it is their tool, so they will be able to use it better if they have a part in building it. It also is a great learning opportunity for them.

Khan Academy: Khan Academy hosts videos and skills based interactions usable by anyone (in English.) They use the principles of gamification to create a progression model that really inspires students. Their badges are really something to brag about (as they describe them on the site) as they are not given out easily - they really have to be earned. Looking through the experiences on Khan Academy, I have really been inspired regarding the details of my classroom game and gathered a lot of ideas on how to motivate and encourage my students to continue pushing forward.

3 Reasons NOT to Gamify Education: This inclusion may come as a surprise, but it is an incredibly good, insightful blog post on the pitfalls of gamification. It reminds me that gamification is not a catch-all solution. It comes laced with serious pitfalls, like the reliance on external motivation that I have talked about before. This blog post helps me keep perspective and stops me from getting too swept up in the hype surrounding gamification. It helps me stay focused on what the benefits are and lets me see through the wrappings they come in.

Gamification of Education infographic: I love infographics. I am a visual person, and seeing information organised in a visual pattern helps me decode it more easily. This particular infographic presents some of the key elements of games I am trying to bring to my classroom through Silvercraft, and the reasons why they are important.

New year; new start!

Today was the first day of school with the whole class. I had a fun time dropping hints about the game for the grade 6 students... talked about it in small chunks with the 7s and 8s; had them explain it a little; told them about who would have received points if we had started. Stuff like that! By the time I got into the details near the end of the day, they were very interested. The 7s and 8s seem really on board to play it again. This is the first time I've ever announced that we are repeating an activity and had no complaints! I know there will be a student or two that don't especially care about the game, but none are disappointed that it's back. That alone is pretty cool.
  
I'm trying something new this year. In previous years, I've divided the class into groups based solely on where they are sitting at the start of the year. I've used those groups on rare occasions when we have played games in class. This year, I had them form their own groups, called them guilds, and gave them a table "base" to start off the year with. I did this at the end of the day, after ice breaker activities and after the new grade 6 students were less intimidated. The groups are mostly balances between the three grades, bit having only 5 grade 8s made it hard. I had to choose between having the groups fully balanced or splitting up friends. I chose to allow the friends to stay together because I know my grade 8 girls have difficulty in making new friends, but I don't think that would be my usual approach. With the guilds, they will be able to exchange for prizes as a guild and earn points for speaking French as a guild. This will make it a lot easier to get the good group prizes, as there were always one or two students who would spoil the chances for the entire class. The students who are most often caught speaking English have group themselves together in their guild, so I think it will be a stronger motivator for them to see the other guilds succeeding as a team and want to encourage each other to do the same. They are competitive and gamers, so hopefully this will encourage them more.

EXTRA: Current research

There is a really wide, unfocused pool of research on gamification. No one seems to use the term the same way twice. I define gamification as the incorporation of game elements (typically video game or table top role playing game) elements into every day life. For me, this does NOT mean playing games often or using games in my practice. To me, games are a good tool for teaching in general and aren't tied in to gamification. In other words, if you use games to teach, that's fantastic, but it's not gamification. True gamification, or game immersion, happens when the participants/players start to see everything they do as having a value that is tangible and is helping them to improve. In gamification, this tangible value is entirely artificial, but representative of real value. For example, if a student receives 50 xp (experience points) on their paragraph, they see themselves as having gained experience points that will help them get to the next level of the game. In reality, they learned and practiced writing skills that will help them craft their thoughts and ideas and improve their communication skills. The real value is never hidden, but the xp gives them something tangible that they can appreciate now, rather than in some uncertain future.

But I digress. My point in making this post was to talk about how difficult it is to find good research to support the concept of gamification on the classroom. I know I've linked Extra Credits before; they were my inspiration and biggest ideas source. But there are a few others who have influence my view of gamification.

Since I'm posting this from my phone, I'm going to go ahead and publish this post now, and I'll cone back and link my other gamification sources later on a real computer. Ta!

The next plan.

So, with the new year starting up soon, I've been reviewing my plans for Silvercraft. I will continue to use Edmodo to keep track of points, but I want to see if there is a better way to incorporate all the elements of Edmodo. For instance, awarding points as the "mark" for each assignment, then only when all the assignments are marked will I add the points to the running total. I think that would help me stay organised. I really need to check out ClassDojo and see if their scheme is the same.

[Oh! I forgot to mention... I bought an iPad! I don't know yet if there is anything in particular that will affect Silvercraft, but I hope so.]

One idea I had at the end of the year last year is to make check-in slips for students. They can have two official check-ins before the due date (have a check-in cut off date?) when they can get feedback and points.  They can also redo meetings on their own time as long as it's not before the cut-off date/next due date. I like this idea, but I don't know if it is making things too complicated or not. I'll need to think on it a bit more.

Roll out! What happens when we start?



My trial account with Edmodo points

So, the game is now officially named Silvercraft! The French name is Artgent. I will probably keep the name even when Minecraft's popularity wears down. I like how it is a pun on my name and art/craft. Creativity and creation is important in my class and I love how the name reflects that.

I decided to keep track of points on Edmodo for the trial run of the game. I chose Edmodo partly because my class and I are already familiar with it, but also because it is fairly simple to do. I wish ClassDojo was more flexible with the amount of points it gives for each action the student takes because that would be perfect - just a simple click on the computer or smartphone and it will add it to the student's running total. Their website says they are planning to implement this feature, but until then, I will use Edmodo. The way I have it set up on Edmodo is with a new group specifically for the game and an assignment due on the last day of the school year. Each student needs to "submit the assignment" with just their name, or anything at all in the assignment section. I can then change their grade from my computer or Android app. This works really well to adjust individual student points on-the-go, but it's a slight hassle when I want to award points to multiple students.

So after a few days of running the game, there are a few things I've noticed. The first is that the students each react completely differently to the game. (Not surprisingly.) Some got really into it and started changing their prize tokens in right away; some have been hoarding their tokens for the right moment; some seem pretty disinterested, while others are constantly checking their points. I am really happy I put in the bonus rule about getting points for doing nice things for others. It has encouraged the students to do small polite things for others (like holding the door open) and rewarded those who are always doing little kindnesses - bit more than that, it encourages them to notice when someone does something nice for them, and gives them something more they can do to thank the person by reporting the kindness.

I have also been thinking about my feedback methods in view of the game. I tend to give feedback very informally over the course of a project, with my students only getting formally marked at the end. I spoke in an earlier post about the rubric system I currently have in place and also about how I want the gamification of my classroom to give smaller amounts of feedback more often. These two seem to be somewhat inconsistent... unless I give out rubrics over the course of a project. I am thinking I could schedule "check ins" periodically and give points and rubrics then. This fits with the model I already have - when students are working on long-term project, we set up mini-due dates and have one-on-one or group-on-one meetings to happen on those due dates.

Finally, I think I need to promote the game more - mention it aloud when someone receives points; make it known when someone redeems a token for a reward; toss out more reward eggs... that kind of thing. I think I need to keep it at the front of everyone's mind until it gets settled there.

EDIT: June 11
I have started giving intermediate rubric points during our check-in meetings for our inquiry projects. I'm not comfortable about the scores in view of how I feel about grades (in that they are not helpful, give a false view of the work, and distract from what the student needs to do by giving it a sense of finality instead of continuity... but that is a huge topic all on its own) but I am willing to see this through and see how it goes. My concern about grades is that by using a rubric score as a multiplier, the meaning behind that score is completely lost. I need a way to make it more clear; to tie it into the game without losing the meaning behind the mark. Maybe change the way I break it down on the score card? I'll have to do some more tweaking on the next project... next year.

EXTRA: Current thoughts

I'm getting everything set up for the launch of the game on Friday this week. Not sure how it's going to work yet. I still want a smartphone app type of thing to keep track of the students' points, but I haven't found anything yet. Grr. I'm anxious to see how the students react to the game itself, and I'm not sure if I've done everything I want to have done. I want their points cards to be laminated, and the reward tokens too, and I want a way to mark the tokens so I will know that I gave it to them and it wasn't taken from my bin - but not permanently, because I will want to re-use them. I think I might be asking for too much, but that is why this is a trial run, right?

I hope it works out... I'm off to write some report cards!