Karl Kapp describes gamification as a motivator for students to learn. He starts by describing a physical game board and its elements which all come together to create a fun environment. Then he takes the elements he described and puts them into technological terms such as game pieces become "avatars". The idea is, as long as the game has competition and cooperation, students will be excited to learn. Interestingly, he mentions that the word "gamification" was coined in 2002 by Nick Pelling but did not catch on until 2010. Even as I write this, spell check does not recognize the word "gamification". He also explains that learning games and simulations are not considered gamification. Instead, he describes gamification as a continuum ranging from points being added to an activity, to playing a game of real life HALO.
Before I saw this video, I was still skeptical about the benefits of gamification in the classroom, even if I have been immersed in gamification all semester. However, he made me hopeful that I can incorporate gamification into my literature classes to hopefully get students engaged in read a text. Getting a student to read their texts is going to be the hardest part of being a literature teacher because without reading the texts, there is no point in teaching a lesson for the text. I would use the leader board example that Kapp talks about. I will create short quizzes after each reading and create a leader board in which at the end of each week, the student with the most points would win a prize. His video has really inspired me to create ideas for gamification in my classroom and I can not wait to implement them.
website used: https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=21&v=BqyvUvxOx0M
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