Gamification in Education

What is Gamification?

Gamification is defined as the process of applying game related principles to something that wouldn't normal use hands on or engaging principals such as education. this idea was originally brought up in the 1980s by a schoor in an article called "What makes things to learn a study of intrinsically motivating computer games." The term was invented in 2003 though by a man named Nick Pelling.

How can gamificaiton be used in education? 

One professor from the university of Indiana who took away letter grades and replaced them with "experience points" meaning that his kids didn't get grades for what they did but instead for how much they did and then at the end did get a letter grade based on the amount of points they have 

another way is by giving students awards like stars or badges like khan academy uses. Another way is to incorporate educational video games on third grade teacher incorporated the Nintendo ds into his classroom and his 3rd grade class went up to a mid 4th grade level.

A sense of competition is crucial for these to work though you want students to work for a goal and want students to strive to be better than they were when they started or even just better than the kid next to them.

How gamification be beneficial to educational setting?

Gamification can be useful in many ways but one way I already touched on a little was the story of Mr. Pais third grade class and how they all shot up a year and a half in education another way is different kids have different learning styles and each games uses different styles to teach. Gamification also allows for focus on certain subjects as well!

Here is an article about all of the benefits of gamification in the classroom:

http://www.gamification.co/2016/01/20/3-beneficial-impact-games-education-students/