3 minutes
You may be familiar with the term, but if you are wondering what gamification is, we want to explain that gamification is a modern learning technique that brings game mechanics into education.
Gamification aims to maximize children's skills through experimentation and play, since experience and enjoyment make it easier to achieve more meaningful and functional learning.
Why implement gamification?
Teachers' greatest challenge is motivating students, since sparking curiosity about a topic is key to retaining it, processing it, transferring it to long-term memory, and consequently learning it. Technology should be an ally in the effort to reinvent and modernize your classes. To help, we suggest free tools for applying gamification in the classroom and achieving students' full engagement.
BRAINSCAPE
Highly customizable virtual flashcards serve as summaries of the main concepts on a topic. Reviewing them regularly helps consolidate knowledge and add new information when the cards are edited to change their content. Images convey ideas well, and color stimulates visual memory. Students can collaborate with one another, and you can monitor progress within the application itself.
If you are interested, you can find it on its official website
PLICKERS
A distinctive mechanism for knowing in real time whether students understand what you are explaining. In the application, you create multiple-choice or true-or-false questions to ask students during class.
To answer these questions, students must use a card —just a piece of paper—assigned to each student and containing a special code generated by the program itself. Depending on the answer they want to give (A, B, C, or D), they must rotate it one way or another, each differently from the others. Then they hold up their coded card with the answer they think is correct.
All the teacher has to do is point a mobile device with the Plickers application installed toward the students for a few seconds. The augmented reality system automatically recognizes each student's choice, transferring the information in real time to a chart displayed on the classroom computer, connected to a projector, for example, showing who answered correctly and who did not. This motivates participants because it is like "a game."
Students cannot tell what others are answering by looking at them, because the code is deliberately designed so that their answer is not obvious; a large A, B, C, or D does not appear on the card.
If you are interested, you can find it on its official website
Play brighter
Build a learning environment to your liking by creating sets of questions to share with students for them to solve. Each student has a virtual character that must complete different missions while answering the questions you designed. For example, in the science laboratory, students can meet objectives by performing a calculation or applying a formula. You access results instantly to assess how each student answered, and if they answered correctly, they receive a coin to change an aspect of their avatar, such as hair, clothing, or an accessory.
If you are interested, you can find it on its official website
Classcraft
Similar to a video game, it enables the creation of different virtual characters that play collaboratively to earn points and receive rewards. Players can only advance by completing proposed missions linked to specific knowledge. In addition to teaching concepts from your subject, you help incorporate the digital skills required in the 21st century through design.
If you are interested, you can find it on its official website
Poll Everywhere
This tool lets you interact with a live audience through polls you create yourself. As students' answers arrive, the chart changes to illustrate the results, and you can choose its appearance to share with the audience. It offers a different, fun way to encourage active learning as students formulate an open-ended response, select a multiple-choice answer, or even respond with images and word clouds.
If you are interested, you can find it on its official website