Gamification
Excellent article (http://elearnmag.acm.org/featured.cfm?aid=2031772)
about using game mechanics to enhance eLearning; based on the concepts giving
in that article I would say that my students “Target Audience”
are really “wanting” this simulation tool as it give them the
opportunity to practice most of the
lab exercises and most of them are
“liking” this tool. So it does worse “rewarding” for them
to use the simulation tool which achieves students’ engagement and deep
understanding “teacher’s rewarding”.
The simulation tool is built with a structural way to
achieve short-term win (the easy parts assembly like computer’s power supply,
DVD...) and long-term win (Assembling the whole computer unit), this fill in “Linear
flow of Goal” model.
The simulation tool does have a “learn”
section with written instructional “navigation” steps about the
assembly process for each section in computer unit. Then another section call “test”
is there to give a feedback to user about his progress (measure user
progress) by letting him/her do the assembly in his own with different
levels till last level of assembling the whole computer unit.
“Reward schedule” within simulation tool is
not there, I think it is a good idea to have some reward points/coins but I can’t
do it as I do not have the code for this simulation tool.
I think that some of the critical success factors of this
simulation tool are simplicity and its user-friendly interface.
Hi Ahmed,
ReplyDeleteIt's good to see you synthesizing the writing of others into your classroom practice. I've always felt there was a lot we could learn from real game designers when designing educational games. World of Warcraft and other games are addictive for a reason, and I feel we need to create a positive addiction in our students for learning.
Cheers,
Dean
Yes Dean, I hope we get into this Area soon with creative ideas and inovative ways to represents core concepts.
ReplyDeleteIt is always good to do things practically then just reading theories. With the help of these simulation tools students get opportunity to implement things what they have learned and see the output. As you mentioned there might be no rewards in the simulation software itself but you can create a reward scheme in term of marks for those students who complete these simulations.
ReplyDelete