"Gamification" I Like the Sound of That and So Will Students
Walk into many high school classrooms a few minutes before class starts and what will you see? A large number of students will be on their cell phones, iPads, etc. and many of those will be playing games. So if they like playing games (and who doesn't?), then shouldn't we be figuring out how to take advantage of this in the learning process? Like making a worksheet into a "playsheet" perhaps. In her article "Beyond the Worksheet: Playsheets, GBL, and Gamification" (I love that term), Educational Technology Specialist Alice Keeler discusses how using electronic devices to play learning games in class has become a hot topic in education. She defines the following terms as " GBL [Game Based Learning] is when students play games to learn content. Gamification is the application of game based elements to non-game situations." Keller also goes on to discuss the use of playsheets instead of worksheets; it's a thought-provoking argument that may...