1. Liz Kolb
School of Education
University of Michigan
@lkolb

2. “I don’t really like technology”
“I did not want to take this class”
“What do I need to do to get an A”
“Do we have to read for homework”
“Which Standard is that?”

3. COMMON STRUGGLES
THAT TEACHERS HEAR
EACH DAY

4. 2010: Introduction to
Gamification with Lisa
Dawley

5. James Gee and John
Seely Brown
 Learning by doing
 Safe environment for failure (called Risk-taking
by Gee): Games are sandboxes
 Distributed Knowledge: Collaborative Learning
 Open-ended challenges: To create the agency
that results from letting students customize their
progress through the game requires open-
ended activities that allow for multiple solutions.
 Goal- and task-oriented. The learning should be
structured around goals and tasks, rather than
instructions. Players are told: “get here
somehow,” not, “follow these steps exactly.”

6. Gamification as a
Solution?

8. Gamification Elements
Rewards/Badges
Quest-Based
Leveling
Mastering Skills
Modding
Choice
Collaboration
Failure
XP points
Competition

9. GRADES

10. Badges
 Created Open Source
 Badg.us
 Each Badge represents
a Technology Learning
Objective that meets
one or more NETS-T
standards
 Rubric for each badge

12. Core Foundations (all
12)
Emerging
Technologies
(1)
Core
Content
Area (3)
Skills (7)

13. Quests Developed in 3D
Game Lab
 Quests were traditional assignments
reconfigured
 <20 minutes each
 Each quest or series of quests led to a
badge
 81 quests

16. Leveling

17. Modding

18. Core Foundations (all
12)
Emerging
Technologies
(1)
Core
Content
Area (3)
Skills (7)

19. Collaboration
Students were encouraged to work together
on completing quests

20. Failure and Mastery of
Skills

21. Designating XP Points
 1-8 depend on “difficulty of activity”
 1=easy, quick <5 minutes to complete
 2=easy, <10 minutes to complete
 3=moderate, 10 to 20 minutes to complete
 4+ based on difficulty and time

22. Competition: Leaderboard

23. Tour of 3DGameLab
http://3dgamelab.org
Try it Yourself!
Gamer Handle: maculteacher
Password: student

24. What worked well
Data!!!
Anonymity
Feedback and Collaboration

26. Annoymity

27. Instant Feedback and
Collaboration

28. What did not work well
Lack of Deadlines
Too Much Choice
Lack of Purpose for XP Points
Keeping up with Assessments

29. Lack of Deadlines

30. Too Much Choice

31. Purpose of XP Points?
Leaderboard is not as
exciting when students still
know that it is academic

32. Assessment for Instructor!

33. Ultimately…
I had to give a
grade…

34. Two different Classes,
Same Quests
Class A Class B
Assessment XP Points Earned Badges Earned
# of Quests Open Less than 5 at a
time
Many options, up
to 40 at one time
Expiration for Quests Short windows of
completion
Open all year
# of Levels in Quests No more than 2 Up to 6
Amount of Choice Little Lots

35. Conclusion
Student Response
 Felt Overwhelmed by
Quests
 Still wanted to know---”what
do I need to do to get an
A?”
 Many procrastinated
 Public nature of
Leaderboard a sore spot
 Liked the choices…
My Response
 Could not use only
3DGameLab, coupled with
Edmodo
 I LOVED the data from the
player cards
 I liked grading without bias
 I disliked the 24/7 feeling of
the tool

36. Resources for Gamifying
 3DGameLab.com
 Badg.us
 Gradecraft.com