Part I: The Unique Obstacles Teachers Face Today’s 21st century students are not like their parents’ generation. Never before have we, as a civilization, experienced such a large generation gap — and the reason behind it is video games. Within the span of only one generation the world’s dominant form of entertainment has shifted from…
Though many naysayers continue to shrug off the serious impact of gaming in our culture, there’s no longer any room for doubt in how it is effecting our economy. A recent article by Leena Rao for TechCrunch highlights a study by the University of Maryland of what is being referred to as the “Facebook App Economy” –…
The past year has demonstrated a growing demand for education around gamification, and we are excited to continue to meet this demand with the first ever Gamification Workshop in Asia. As the nascent field is still taking shape, there are few sources of valuable insight and in-depth analysis on how the practice of gamification is…
Chronic back pain is a issue that affects the vast majority of Americans, whether your job is physically intensive or working at a desk. In fact, if you’re reading this on your computer right now, you might want to check your posture and how it’s contributing to your discomfort. Slouching not only causes back pain…
A week ago, today, we kicked off our second Gamification Summit in New York. The results have been awesome, and for those of you who were unable to attend, we are releasing the slides from the conference and also be sure to check out the live blog for a recap off all of the events….
As the GSummit NYC came to a close in the main theater, the Gamification Workshop continued into the afternoon. Delegates, abuzz with all the many new ideas they had acquired, seemed to leave the Museum of Jewish Heritage with a renewed vigor and palpable excitement. For those of you who missed the liveblog, read on…
There’s been a bit of back and forth about my best-selling book, Gamification by Design in recent days. After reading the book itself, you can check out the opening review from PhD student Sebastian Deterding here, my measured response here, and his latest (not unexpected reply) here. Now that we’re all caught up, at the…
Last week marked the Gamification Summit in New York. Over two days, nearly 400 brand, startup, non-profit, academic and agency folks gathered in downtown Manhattan to hear extraordinary educators, professors, executives and designers share their expertise about this growing field. As an emblem of our growing industry – one that Gartner group projects will account…
CrowdTwist recently announced a Series A round of funding of $6M from lead investors SoftBank Capital and Fairhaven Capital. CrowdTwist is a social loyalty and rewards platform that draws heavily from the loyalty side of gamification with a focus towards rewards, monetization, and a strong analytics platform, and the new round is a signal in the future…
Moderator Dan Samuelson of Pearson leads panelists, NT Etuk of DimensionU, David Park of Beat the GMAT, Matt Shobe of BigDoor,Anthony Zolezzi of Greenopolis, and Mike Fulkerson of Rosetta Stone in a talk about the ways games can be used more effectively to promote education – and actually teach our children better than ever. Samuelson…
Ananth Pai, a teacher who is transforming the way our children learn, is here to talk about how he went from a globetrotting exec to elementary school teacher extraordinaire! He asks us all, with urgency in his voice to “Become a drug pusher in schools—we need it.” He laughs. What he means is that we…
Brian Brennan of Mozilla reveals their amazing new Open Badge Infrastructure with a demo. He asks, How do you share and issue badges? You require criteria and evidence. You have to know when it was issued and what it was for. Mozilla has developed a tool that combines these things. He reveals the web “backpack”…
Moderated by Eric Goldberg, the four previous speakers return to the stage to discuss practical tools for implementing gamificaion. Wu asks based on an audience question about well connected users who don’t access their base – “What can I do with my million fans?” if a person has a lot of fans but doesn’t or…
Michael Wu of Lithium Technologies is here to talk about his research into the science of gamification and online communities. With a PhD in Biophysics from UC Berkeley and three years of extensive study, Wu has produced of the most meaningful insights into the complex world of engagement. Wu analyzed what gets a person to…
James Gardner of Spigit, author of Sidestep and Twist, explores the ways in which gamification can be utilized to build new ideas and follow them to completion. In his career he developed a game for bankers using a virtual currency. In short order, all the bankers began fighting tooth and nail to get to the…
