April 6, 2026
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Case Study: Game Based Learning for Civil Engineering

Kevin Shane04 mins

There has been a lot of buzz going on as more schools and universities adopt methods of game based learning. It’s gaining so much ground that studies are emerging to test if game based learning is truly effective. From what the studies have learned thus far , the answer is a resounding “Yes, it is.”

In late 2002, the iVISiCE (interactive Visualization in Civil Engineering) project was founded to assist students of Civil Engineering in their studies. The project was to test if learning by ways of animations and visualizations was more effective than traditional textbook methods.

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conspiracy code

Conspiracy Code Conspires to Teach American History

Kevin Shane03 mins

Conspiracy Code Teaches American History with Virtual Spies When considering the difference between gamified learning and game-based learning, Conspiracy Code is a perfect example of a game-based learning game. Conspiracy Code is a 3rd person action/puzzler game that teaches a high school American History curriculum. Students play the game as two teenagers named Eddie and Libby living…

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game based learning training

How Game Based Learning Can Be Used For Training

Kevin Shane34 mins

The concept of game based learning was developed around ten years ago, and it has become a very popular one in various circles. A very good example of this is in business. Traditionally, business has been associated with boredom, since most of the things done in the name of business are basically routine. This means that there is a lot of room for one to lose their focus and drive especially if they have to do repetitive tasks. Doing training in business also poses challenges to many, since it usually involves the use of very abstract concepts and terms. However, game based learning techniques are starting to emerge as a solution to some of these solutions, specifically for training.

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andrew grauer course hero

Course Hero’s Knowledge Marketplaces and the Gamification of Education

Ivan Kuo12 mins

We’re reading more and more about online education portals incorporating sophisticated game mechanics into its applications. There’s no doubt that education is a space ripe for gamification and in classrooms—both virtual and walled—educators are shifting their approach to offer a more personalized, yet interactive and adaptive curriculum. Course Hero, an online education start-up, has been engaging college students in its online learning community by using game mechanics from Bunchball for more than a year to great success. Harnessing the motivational power of games and applying it to real-world problems, Course Hero’s gamification elements motivate students to learn in a more interactive manner and urge them to care more about what they’re learning.

In this GSummit SF 2013 talk, Course Hero CEO Andrew Grauer will share details on how participation on the site has increased by 25% since implementing gamified elements, as well as how the site has seen a 51% growth in badges awarded since February 2012. Watch the full video below.

Also, be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel to get the latest videos from GSummit SF 2013 as they’re released. You can also download a copy of this presentation by downloading it here.

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mike skocko

Turning Art Class into a Creative MMORPG with Mike Skocko

Ivan Kuo12 mins

The Gamification Revolution is the only live gamification webcast featuring Gabe Zichermann and fellow gamification experts every week. Be sure to catch our next episode next Thursday, September 26 at 1PM ET/1800 GMT, where we will feature the best and brightest in engagement.

Remember you can participate in the show if you sign-in and RSVP! Signing in will allow you to receive show reminders, ask questions, and even join Gabe and our guest for a live question.

In this review, we feature Mike Skocko, a visual-arts educator at Valhalla High School in California. We had first heard of Mike through an esteemed recommendation from Adobe’s Tacy Trowbridge on Mike’s awesome gamification initiatives. Listen to Mike’s story below to learn about the questing system he adopted into his visual-art class to deliver curriculum in an interesting way.

This is a great conversation about a real-life teacher using effective game mechanics in the classroom. Watch Mike’s full interview below.

 



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karl kapp

Karl Kapp on The Gamification of Instructional Design and Learning

Ivan Kuo32 mins

The Gamification Revolution is the only live gamification webcast featuring Gabe Zichermann and fellow gamification experts every week. Join us and have all of your gamification questions answered by these experts. Today we’ll be looking at last week’s guest: Karl Kapp, Professor/Consultant at Bloomsburg University and Gamified Learning Veteran.

Be sure to catch our next episode this Thursday, September 5th at 1PM ET/1800 GMT, where we will feature Jon Radoff, entrepreneur, author, and game/gamification designer.

Remember you can participate in the show if you sign-in and RSVP! Signing in will allow you to receive show reminders, ask questions, and even join Gabe and our guest for a live question.

In last week’s episode, Karl and Gabe went through many of the anxieties teachers have with games in the classrooms and how to address them. This is a great episode to watch if you’re an educator and are unsure about the right way to incorporate games into the classroom. Karl goes into some really top-notch insights about not only the games but the teachers themselves!

Check out the full interview in the video below:



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what critics don't understand about education in gamification

What Critics Don’t Understand About Gamified Education

Eugene Sheely58 mins

Critics of gamified education always seem to miss some major points:

  1. Gamified education is much more than making mundane activities like work and study fun
  2. What makes a game fun is constant learning
  3. Not all gamified activities are fun, but they’re engaging
  4. Gamified education is the best way to leverage our new technologies to gain the necessary skills and knowledge in the information age

Gamified education should be advocated for its most practical reason: It’s the best method we know on how to organize learning environments to increase knowledge in both diversity and density. Gamified education is not merely an improvement from the current traditional educational model; it’s a completely new innovative way of learning.

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babbel

Babbel Offers Gamified Online Language Learning

Kevin Shane05 mins

In a previous blog we received a lot of positive feedback for mentioning a few gamified language learning tools like Duolingo and Byki. If you want a somewhat more feature-rich language learning package and are willing to pay a low monthly subscription fee, try Babbel!

This site uses game based-learning to teach, reinforce and track your lesson progress in its array of 10 foreign language offerings (Danish, Dutch, French, Indonesian, Italian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Swedish, Turkish — and English for the folks overseas).

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POKEDU: The Educational Poker Game

Ivan Kuo25 mins

POKEDU is a gaming method involving poker card decks which utilize a concordance of facts within the four suits to complete poker styled hands. Standard shared and draw poker games (i.e. Texas Hold’em and 5 & 7 Card Draw) can be played using these decks; as well as many other popular youth and family games.

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Why Bother with Games in Education?

Kevin Shane23 mins

Gamification/game-based learning and schools can be either complementary or, depending how it is done, make things worse. Using games in education, according to a paper published by two Columbia University educators, Joy Lee and Jessica Hammer.

The good news about gamification is…

Gamification in the classroom can be a particularly effective motivational tool for engagement. It can also be a enable teachers to closely guide and reward their students and bring the students into a truly immersive way to learn. Then there’s the fun and joy in a learning experience that result in a “blurring of boundaries” between the formal and informal learning that students will experience all their lives.

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Exploring Ancient Rome through Minecraft

Ivan Kuo32 mins

Awhile back, I reported on one educator’s vision of using Minecraft to educate children about history. For those who don’t know, Minecraft is an open-world sandbox game that allows players literally create and explore anything their heart desires. One especially dedicated group of people has actually recreated a scale version of Ancient Rome in this…

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