Speaker panel at the end of #GameLearnBtn looks like the usual suspects! #Gamification & Learning Meetup pic.twitter.com/wEXE6zmMVo
— Pete Jenkins (@petejenkins) March 10, 2016
We hosted another meetup, this one based on Gamification and Learning.
Our first speaker was Fiona Macneill, Learning Technologies Adviser from University of Brighton who provided an overview of recent projects (many of which have not been broadly publicised) and the use of game-based mechanics to support learning in higher education.
Fiona concluded that, whilst gamification was an emerging and demonstrably valuable trend in higher education, it was not yet widely understood or adopted, despite several universities having developed and deployed the approach.
Fiona MacNeill has prepped a reference/resources blog post featuring thumbnails of the slides that she is allowed to share: http://blogs.brighton.ac.uk/fjm15/2016/03/09/gamification-in-higher-education/
A reminder that #gamification doesn't always work for everyone. Small steps, reflection, iteration, says @fmacneill #GameLearnBtn
— Niall Gavin (@niallgavinuk) March 9, 2016
Next up was James Cory Wight (@jamescorywrigh1), Head of Learning Design from City & Guilds Kineo, in whose talk entitled "21st Century Schizoid Man" he shared some reservations about gamification in e-learning, back to back with enthusing about a couple of gamified solutions Kineo has in production right now and their plans for the future.
James Corey-Wright's talk 21st Century Schizoid Man - http://files.meetup.com/18891917/21st_century_schizoid_man_JCW_v0.1.pdf
Michael Norris and Sezer Tunca of Whiteboard (getwhiteboard.com) talked about teacher and student engagement, achieved via their online learning support tool, one of the features of which they highlighted being gamification. I would highly recommend checking out the website, as their work has the potential to be ground-breaking.
Adding gamification to simulations and problem based learning, w/ badges & rewards also emerging trend at #brightonuniversity #GameLearnBtn
— Niall Gavin (@niallgavinuk) March 9, 2016
Nick Beddows of Arcobaleno Media talked about how we're hard-wired to learn by finding the story in everything we experience and how we can use that in a gamified approach to design engaging content.
Nick Beddow's talk on Gamifying the Story - http://files.meetup.com/18891917/Game%20the%20Storify.pdf
Craig Taylor, a solutions architect for HT2, talked about his 'naive' approach to using gamification for learning and what he's learned from doing this. He does not consider himself a Gamification expert and his approach to the subject, and to the MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) examples that he shared with us, reflected his customary pragmatic and developmental way of working.
The #gamification need not be overt, but adds value anyway, suggests @CraigTaylor74 #gamelearnbtn
— Niall Gavin (@niallgavinuk) March 9, 2016
The final speaker of the evening was Jim Piggot, CEO of TPLD Ltd, who spoke on "How Games Based Learning (GBL) can improve value sales and scale across a large enterprise effectively."
Jim Piggot's case study of Games Based Learning - http://files.meetup.com/18891917/Gamification%20Plus%20Presentation%20Rev%20Final.pdf
Niall Gavin’s conclusion from the event. “It's time L&D developed an understanding of the principles of gameplay and gamification to enhance engagement with and participation in modern blended learning. The technologies to enable this are available now and will only get easier and cheaper as time goes on. Whilst VR and simulation are the next 'big things', leader boards, badges, recognition and reward are with us now and can be applied with existing technology. We should be playing with gaming!”
A helpful overview of the event can be found here: https://storify.com/niallgavinuk/games-and-gamification-for-learning-and-elearning