trends

LEARNING TECHNOLOGIES

What is gamified learning, and how can it improve curricula?

Breaking Through
BY JON WOLPER

T
he screen flashes. A student has just answered a quiz question correctly
and is rewarded with points. Maybe the student gets more points for an-
swering quickly. The next question appears on the screen, and a classroom
full of rapt learners rushes to figure out the answer.
These flashy experiences have become prominent learning tools during
the past few years, as the gamification of learning is seen as a potential path for-
ward for the talent development industry. Gamification can include
the addition of competitive quizzes, games with leader-
boards that pit you against your colleagues, and
the addition of music and countdowns.
Besides the surface-level excitement of
learning through a gamethe immedi-
ate emotional responseare there
real learning advantages to be
gained from this method? And
whos on the cutting edge of
gamified learning?

Successful gamification
If a gamified learning sce-
nario is going to have any
lasting impact, it has to be
well-designed.

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TDTR700901Wolper.indd 24 8/19/16 2:17 PM

 First and foremost, make sure the
game is addressing a real business
need, says Karl Kapp, assistant di-
rector of the Institute for Interactive
Technologies and professor of in-
structional technology at Bloomsburg
University. This should go without
saying, but games need to focus on or-
ganizational needs. Second, align the
game mechanics with what happens
on the job. For games to be effective
for learning, the learner should be un-
dertaking the same cognitive thought
process as they do on the job. If the
job requires answering questions, the
game should include answering ques-
tions. If the job demands juggling
priorities, so should the game.
Third, he continues, focus on en-
gagement and not fun.
If you are designing a game with
the end goal of it being fun, youre
doing it wrong. (If you really want
people to have fun, give them the
day off, Kapp advises.) Instead, en-
gagement is the magic word. That
means designing a game with spe-
cific outcomes in mind and focusing
on learning goals. Add in the interac-
tivity that games are known for, and
youre on your way to a successful
product. Games offer the freedom to
fail, and naturally lend themselves to
interactivitywhich could be a plus
compared with a more staid class-
room learning situation.
But just adding things indiscrimi-
nately does not make a good game,
according to Kapp. For instance, add-
ing quizzes and leaderboards to a
learning program can be a boon
leaderboards can help learners set
their own goals and work hard to
achieve them. But that wont be the
case for everyone. If your leaderboard
shows the top 10 participants, the per-
son who comes in at 11th place wont
be as motivated as the people above
him. And the person ranked in the triple
TDTR700901Wolper.indd 25
digits might be demotivated entirely.
Its also important to let learners
reflect on their gameplay experience
afterward, Kapp saysotherwise your
goals might not be achieved.
Where to look?
Yes, gamification can make learning
fun, but its bigger than that, writes
Aleksandr Peterson in his eLearning
Industry article 4 Innovative Compa-
nies That Gamified eLearning. With
the right support and strategy, it can
make learning important.
In his article, Peterson lists a few
companies that have had success with
gamifying e-learning. For example, in
the corporate sector, theres Deloitte,
which created the Deloitte Leadership
Academy, an online training program
for both employees and customers.
Theres also ExactTarget, a market-
ing software company that uses the
Knowledge Guru, an online game plat-
form that is used to teach through a
narrative experience.
On the education side, Peterson
notes Brainscape, which is a virtual
flashcard system, and Class Dojo, a
full-on classroom management tool
that lets students pick avatars and
earn points for their successes.
Theres also Kahoot!, a free quiz
platform and app with members that
have published several million quizzes
already. Teachers can offer a question
up to their students, who can answer
on their own devices. According to
Kahoot! CEO Johan Brand, the apps
use of music, timers, and points ap-
peal to learners emotions.
Rethinking the way the classroom
is structured is one of the most impor-
tant issues at the moment, Brand says
in an interview with Pivotl. We call it
bringing the playground inside and its
about optimising the environment for
what you need to teach. Its different
teaching maths and teaching music
technology can make the classroom
space much more dynamic.
Similar apps include Quizizz, which
offers extra features such as more time
per question. Theres also Pear Deck,
which has the capacity to widen the
quiz-show format into a presenta-
tion. The question remains, though: Do
these programs truly impart learning
or just achieve emotional reactions?
Though quizzes and leaderboards
can be effective mechanisms for cre-
ating extrinsic motivations (which
might lead to repeated play and rein-
forcement of content), we believe that
the real value in games and game-like
learning is to help people realize the
intrinsic value of doing something,
says Rebecca Rufo-Tepper, the director
of programs, professional development,
and teacher education at Institute of
Play, which builds learning experiences
via game design principles.
Both the corporate sector and the
education community are making
inroads on gamified learning. Accord-
ing to Kapp, small, start-up firms in
the corporate sectoroften staffed
by younger people who grew up
playing games and understand their
languageare making a large impact
in the field. Private companies are a
bit ahead at the adult level, he says,
while the education industry is cater-
ing successfully to the K-12 crowd.
Rufo-Tepper says that the educa-
tion sector is making a large impact,
in particular.
Right now, new departments focus-
ing on game design are popping up in
universities around the globe, she says.
Unfettered by the need for commer-
cial success, these programs are often
leaders in the field in terms of using
experimental technologies and uncon-
ventional game design choices. The
students and faculty in these programs
are helping redefine the whole concept
of what a game is and what it can be.
September 2016 | TD 25
8/19/16 2:17 PM
 trends

The future
Technology obviously has had a major
impact on learningbut its not going
to stop here. New tech on the horizon
may affect gamified learning expe-
riences. For instance, there are the
increasing developments in artificial
intelligence.
Advances in artificial intelligence
through complex machine learning
algorithms, for examplehelp cre-
ate realistic simulations that players
can react to, Rufo-Tepper explains.
She adds that the burgeoning field of
virtual reality could become a factor,
tooat the recent G4C conference, she
said, VR was discussed as one of the
best ways to create empathy within
players about situations and people
they might be uncomfortable with.
Similarly, Kapp mentions aug-
mented reality, or AR, as a possible
new horizon for gamified learning. He
notes the enormous success of Poke-
mon Go, the mobile game that tasks
players with catching the creatures,
which are placed against a backdrop
of the players actual location using
the phones rear-facing camera.
Theres also the marriage of learning
with video gamesless simulation, more
actual game. Kapp cites Zombie Sales
Apocalypse, in which players can pilot
their characters around a 3D, graphi-
cally immersive location, carrying on
sales calls while running from zombies.
The great thing about games is
that they provide rich and robust
analytics, Kapp says. In the zombie
game, trainers are able to see how a
sales rep did in the sales call as com-
pared to an ideal model and track
progress over time. Neither of these
technologies is overly new, but they
are being used in new ways.
Jon Wolper is a writer/editor for the Assoc-
iation for Talent Development; jwolper@td.org.

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