SPECIAL REPORT: GAMIFICATION | PRIMARY AND SECONDARY
oung people today are surrounded and immersed in technology, and have grown up using the latest devices and
gadgets from an incredibly young age. Video games in particular are an intrinsic part of their everyday life – the average young person racks up somewhere in the region of 10,000 hours of gaming by the age of 21. Many parents and a teaching generation that perhaps were not exposed to such technology when growing up see this as time that could be better spent on other endeavours. Some of the time this may be true, but as the gaming medium has gripped the 21st century generation, perhaps we should look at the skills it does develop and how we can harness that to aid educational development. “Problem solving, collaboration, IT
literacy and confidence are all evident in every game, every day,” says Steve Holt, Product Director at Frog Education. Frog supplies e-learning soſtware to more than 11,000 schools and educational establishments, and was also named ICT Company of the Year at the Bett Awards in January. Holt continues: “Blurring learn and play
time does not have to be to the detriment of teaching and learning. As young people use technology throughout their lives, activities in the classroom can be continued at home and learning becomes increasingly personalised to a particular child, as they are able to access resources wherever and whenever they want.”
ENJOYMENT FACILITATES LEARNING It is increasingly clear that enjoyment facilitates learning, so perhaps gaming should be viewed as a valued channel for learning, not a distraction. “The easiest way of thinking about this is to compare gaming to physical education,” explains Sarah Marks, Director of Education, MyCognition. “It is undisputed that PE is good for
children’s health, and that sports games help motivate children, teach them teamwork and encourage them to exercise – enabling them return to the classroom mentally refreshed.” The challenge for game developers is to
convince teachers and parents of the similar benefits of gaming. “Evidence from trials in the US suggests that gamification can raise educational performance by over 10%,” she continues.
“Problem solving, collaboration, IT literacy and confidence are all evident in every game, every day”
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“MyCognition has contributed to
this research process with a 600-strong trial to evaluate the benefits to cognition from playing our games: the trial found statistically significant gains to performance in key cognitive domains for the children who played the games – an encouraging result which tells us that gaming can make a real difference to educational outcomes.”
GROWING THE RESOURCE BOX Games are powerful motivators and integrating them into education can give educators another tool in their resource box to get students learning. “Gamification does not simply imply creating a game,” says Jayne Warburton, CEO, 3P Learning, Europe & ME. “It means making education more fun and engaging, without diminishing or undermining pedagogical credibility,” she adds. Gamification is about more than
making boring subjects 'fun' – though this is a common perception, as Warburton explains: “It’s more accurate to say that gamification is about engagement. It works largely by providing instant feedback – quickly rewarding even the smallest level of progress. 3P Learning offers a range of online
learning resources for maths, literacy and science for pupils aged from Reception to Key Stage 4. Its digital resources, Mathletics, Spellodrome, Reading Eggs and IntoScience, are aligned with over a dozen curricula and used by more than 18,000 schools internationally. “We know (and teachers are constantly
telling us) that 'game'-based digital resources boost learners’ motivation – and thereby their learning – by leveraging cognitive, emotional and social needs,” adds Warburton. “The narrative of a game helps achieve mastery in challenging academic tasks, simultaneously invoking emotions such as pride and frustration, while also allowing learners to test out new social identities that grant them academic kudos.”
GETTING IN THE GAME For schools wishing to test out the games- based learning technique, perhaps the first thing to remember is that ‘gamification’ is actually quite a broad term covering a vast spectrum of activities. “Gamification is not always about playing actual games,” comments Frog Education’s Steve Holt. “It includes the techniques around gaming for engagement too, so consider if there are any easy methods of trying these without
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