eLearning technologies have been continuously evolving along with the evolution of the internet and technologies. Instructional designers are continuously adapting newer and more effective strategies to ensure learners retain a higher percentage of information from the eLearning content. One of the strategies that is widely used in the modern day is Gamification.
Gamification is a highly effective eLearning strategy. It has allowed eLearning content to be transformed into an interactive, engaging, learner-centric experience. In this article, we will deep dive into the Gamification strategies, benefits, and best practices.
What is Gamification?
Gamification is a process of adding game-like elements and mechanics into content that is not a game. It includes adding points, levels, badges, leaderboards, and sometimes even creating a gaming experience in 2D or 3D environments to train or provide information to the learners.
When we incorporate Gamification into eLearning it makes the eLearning content more engaging and drives a goal among learners. It creates competition among them and gives them a reason to engage with the content and if we create an entire gaming experience as content, it becomes more effective in doing so.
Gamification Tools
Though there are not many Gamification tools in the market still you can gamify your eLearning content using tools like Authoring Tools, and Game Engines and if you are a WordPress user you may leverage plugins like GamiPress and Badge OS.
Some of the popular Authoring Tools that provide Gamification elements are:
- Articulate Storyline
- Adobe Captivate
- iSpring Suite
Usage of game engines:
Basic level of 2D animated games like interactions can be created using Authoring Tools but If you are looking to create an entire game-like experience for eLearning content then you should actually look towards the game engines. Two of the most popular game engines are Unity and Unreal Engine. Unreal Engine is known for being used by big Game Studios as it is a bit harder to learn, so not widely used by beginners.
Unity on the other hand has a very big community, tons of tutorials, and plugins available for ease of use for beginners. You should start with the Unity game engine to create an eLearning gaming experience.
Integrating Gamification with Other eLearning Tools
When you work with eLearning content you use tools like LMS(Learning Management System) and LRS (Learning Record Store). But you might be wondering whether the gamified content is going to be compatible with other tools like LMS and LRS.
Most of the LMSs support Authoring Tool content, If you are a WordPress user you can use GrassBlade xAPI Companion to handle Authoring Tool content but make sure that it has an integration with the LMS. But when it comes to game engines then you may encounter incompatibility with the LMS but still, you can track the learners using LRS by sending a statement manually. In the situation of game engines, you can provide the content as downloadable and still use LRS to track the learners.
Strategies for Effective Gamification in eLearning
Setting Clear Objectives
When you create eLearning content even if you aren’t following the Gamification strategy still you have to start with a clear objective that you want to achieve with the content. In the case of Gamification, you align the gaming elements with the goal and ensure that it supports the learning outcome.
Incorporating Levels and Progression
You have to break down your content into Levels in a way that previous levels train learners to solve the next level problems along with increasing difficulty. This strategy is pretty much like a game.
Uses of PBL ( Points, Badge, and Leaderboards)
You already learned about points, badges, and leaderboards in the Gamification definition, These are classic Gamification elements and encourage competition among learners. Here is how you can incorporate them:
- Points: It can be rewarded if the learner completes a task or quizzes. Points in a way represent the progress of the learners and it motivates them.
- Badges: You can use badges as an award for some accomplishments, like completing a certain section of the course, scoring a hundred percent in quizzes, or learning daily for a certain amount of days.
- Leaderboards: A Leaderboard is a tool that becomes highly effective by displaying the points and badges of the learners. It creates friendly competition among them and as a result, improves engagement.
Interactive Quizzes
Quizzes are an effective eLearning element but what if we make it gamified? You can create a game-like environment for the quizzes to be more engaging and interesting. You can use them to simulate real-world scenarios for better learning retention.
Narratives and Storytelling
Last but not least, how can we forget about storytelling when we talk about gamification? If you incorporate narrative and storytelling into your eLearning experience creation, it will make even the complex subject more compelling and create an interest for the learner to approach and engage with your learning content. You can add characters, storylines, and missions that guide learners through lessons.
eLearning Gamification Benefits
More Engagement and Motivation
We already talked about engagement and motivation throughout the Gamification strategies. Strategies like storytelling improve the engagement of elearning content by making it more interesting and compelling. Whereas PBL(points, badge, and leaderboard) creates friendly competition and motivation.
Improvement in Knowledge Retention
Gamified learning experiences are more memorable and enjoyable, resulting in better learning retention. It makes the learner engage with the content actively with a clear goal and motivation to go through each chunk of information with interactive elements and challenges. As a result, learners are more likely to retain the knowledge and apply them.
Promotes Active Learning and Collaboration
As the gamification makes the content more interactive and interesting, learners actively engage with the content. Gamification also allows you to even simulate multiplayer games like scenarios where learners can team up and collaborate to compete with other teams in gamified learning tasks. To accomplish such a mechanism you will have to rely on Game Engines like Unity.
Provides Real-Time Feedback for Self-Assessment
The gamified approach is all about instant feedback on a task or quiz in the content. When you apply a gamification strategy in eLearning you have to provide instant feedback on a quiz or a task just like in a real game when a player completes a puzzle and gets an instant result by level or door getting unlocked.
In Gamified eLearning instant feedback with self-assessment tools allows learners to adjust their learning pace.
Best Practices for Implementing Gamification in eLearning
Rewards should be Meaningful
When you reward learners with points and badges it should be meaningful and should be rewarded only when a particular skill is learned. Adding unnecessary pieces of points and badges may become a distraction rather than serving as a motivator.
Naming of the rewards, especially badges should correspond to the actual skill earned instead of the completion of a task.
Balance Challenge with Skill Level and Adaptive Learning
Well, this strategy can be seen in game development so It becomes part of Gamification too, but This is also an eLearning strategy commonly known as Adaptive Learning or Personalized Learning with slight differences. Let’s just simplify what exactly these strategies are.
- Adaptive Learning: Adaptive Learning or Personalized learning is a strategy of providing eLearning content based on the skill set of the learner. A tool like the Authoring tool is used to create adaptive eLearning content that has a branched learning path which is shown to learners based on their performance in an assessment.
When we create gamified content we leverage the same technique of game development where, as the player’s skill improves levels and challenges become harder. In eLearning, we can combine this strategy of making challenges harder based on skill along with adaptive learning where we can branch the lessons based on skills.
Uses of Social Elements
You can incorporate another Gamification practice which is letting learners share their achievements and score on their social media accounts. You can create a social media group and add learners to foster a sense of community and friendly competitiveness. This allows a learner to share their success and even learn from each other.
Gamification for Skill Building with Fun, Not Just Fun
Gamification shouldn’t be exaggerated. Remember the primary goal of creating eLearning content is to build learner skills and make them learn something new. Gamification should only be used to make this process engaging, interesting, and fun.
Over-gamification may lead to learners switching their goal from learning new things to just enjoying the gaming part of your content. They may start competing and getting to the top of the leaderboard by solving tasks and quizzes from another source of information instead of learning and applying the knowledge.
Incorporating Data-Driven Improvement
You can use an LRS (Learning Record Store) to track and analyze the Learner’s interaction with each part of your Gamified learning content to Improve them based on how learners perform.
This allows you to make sure that your content is gradually improving the learner’s skill, With the help of an LRS if you find that any part of your eLearning content is a bit harder to understand for the learner’s skillset at that point, you can adjust content to be more understandable or add an eLearning experience before that part to up the learner’s skill.
When you use an Authoring Tool to create gamified content you get options to export the content in formats like SCORM and xAPI which allow it to integrate with an LRS. In case you are using a game engine to make a more game-like experience you will have to send the statement manually to an LRS by following xAPI documentation.
Conclusion
Gamification has become a trending modern eLearning strategy. It has become one of the most effective strategies that engage the learner with eLearning content. It makes the learning more interesting, and interactive and creates a goal and motivation among the learner to deep dive into the content. Most of the Authoring Tools provide tools to add a basic PBL(points, badge, and leaderboard) system in your content and basic 2D games like animated interactions. If you are a WordPress user you can use a plugin like GamiPress to add a PBL system.
For advanced Gamification, you can leverage game engines like Unity and Unreal. Add multiplayer game-like elements to add more competitiveness among learners or even collaboration. You can leverage LRS to improve your content. Add social elements like accomplishment sharing and create a social media group for learners to engage with each other.
I hope now you have a complete picture of what Gamification is and how everything works around it. Don’t forget to comment on what strategy or practices you follow to gamify your eLearning content. If you have any questions you can ask in the comment section.