The concept of game-based learning is not new, yet always in need of new research to take gamified education even further. The following examples should spark your creativity on how to design your classes from this point forward. Minecraft for Educational Purposes The wildly popular Minecraft attracts the attention of students at home and school. …
Over the course of the last 15 years there has been a great amount of debate about how video games are shaping the minds and behavior of young people. Video game addiction has become a prevalent concern, and some researchers suggest impressionable adolescents may be driven to brutality by the violent fantasy world of video…
With both games and gamification becoming more popular in the educational space, it is more important than ever to understand the differences between them. While they may seem very similar, they have different costs, implementations and, most importantly, different results. This is because educational games do something that gamification systems do not: they immerse the…
It’s Mission Possible for 1:1 iPad Use at BHS Think games in education, and the first to come to mind are those for students. However, gamification is also being employed to advance educators in their profession. Consider Mission Possible, a gamified experience developed at Bettendorf High School in Iowa to promote the implementation of 1:1 iPad use…
Sing Your National Anthem For A Cold One On July 1, 1867, Canada became a self-governing dominion of Great Britain and a federation of four provinces: Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Ontario and Quebec. The anniversary of this date was originally called Dominion Day, but was officially changed in 1982 to Canada Day. This is the…
GLEAMING INFORMATION FROM VIDEO GAME SCORES Neurological disorders have been in the news lately in large part due to the stunning revelation of Robin Williams’ Parkinson’s diagnosis and the viral ice bucket challenge campaign to raise money and awareness for ALS. Meanwhile, the diagnosis rate of another neurological disorder, Alzheimer’s Disease, has been steadily climbing…
SUGAR-COAT THE PILL WITH GAMIFICATION These days, it seems like you unlock a reward or achievement on every social media site and platform you use. Even sites like Wikipedia and Q&A sites like Stack Overflow have gamification concepts integrated into their community. So can the health industry be gamified too? It would surely make life…
Carrot Rewards From Down Under Move over, Bugs Bunny! There is a new rabbit in the land down under. His name is Buck, and he is the star of EB World, which is the customer loyalty program of EB Games in Australia. According to the company, Buck is a “loudmouth, cheeky bunny”. As the hero of…
Learn English By Reading Your Tweets And The News While children start learning their first language with basic words, more research is showing that adults learn a new language faster when they start with relevant words and phases used in their everyday conversations. Game-based learning can help stimulate the mind to recall these new words and…
GAMIFY YOUR GROUNDED KIDS’ WAY OUT The weekend has come, and parents of young kids know what that means: no escape from the kids for two days! To help you manage we’re revisiting the concept of the gamification of parenting. The Huffington Post recently reported on a mom who designed her own gamification methods to ground her kids….
A QUESTION OF TRUST If someone introduced a new currency, would you trade your hard-earned cash for it? Who would determine the value of the new currency? How would it be regulated to maintain value? These are the questions being asked about bitcoin, which is a “cryptocurrency.” And, make no mistake, it’s gamified. Yet the…
Crowdsourced Dr House Fills a Niche in Creative Diagnostics A new gamification startup, CrowdMed (@CrowdMed), has broken into the gamified health field with a unique mobile application that is looking to change how rare diseases are diagnosed. CrowdMed targets two different audiences. First, the company targets patients who have bounced around from doctor to doctor looking for a diagnosis that fits…
EXERCISE THAT CORTEX! Gamification mobile apps enter the field of neuroplasticity with UltimEyes, an app now available for tablets and other mobile devices. An article in Popular Mechanics focuses on the new app and how it improves eyesight through neuroplasticity, the re-wiring of the brain by forming new neural pathways. The app was developed by a…
A SOCIAL GAME Who knew that a coke friendly bottle can make friends out of strangers? Coca Cola is the most famous and most widely consumed soft drink on the planet. Drinking coke is often a shared experience, at a party, or on a first date, especially between teenagers who are below the legal age…
Gamification is well-known to boost players’ engagement and interest. Players are rewarded through badges or leader boards. Health, education, and even charitable sectors are using gamification as a method to increase awareness of social issues as well as encourage donations to causes. Here are several examples of successful charity apps: 1. Charity Miles: Once you sign…
