Increasingly, the phrase “Gamification. We need to introduce gamification.” But there are few who really know how to put it into practice.
What is this beast – gamification
Gamification is the introduction of game mechanics into non-game processes: business, education, and more. This approach increases the involvement of participants and helps to achieve goals: attract customers, stimulate sales, and motivate employees to learn and work more efficiently.
We are sure that you yourself have encountered gamification techniques in your life. These include:
- store bonus programs, loyalty cards (Pyaterochka);
- statuses of clients in the company: silver, gold, diamond (L’Etoile);
- interactive Netflix movies in which the development of the plot depends on the choice of the user;
- payment of traffic police fines at a discount;
- the title of the best employee of the month (McDonald’s) and so on.
Gamification in education
The question arises: why introduce serious games for education through gamification into training if there is no goal to sell a service or product to a client? In short, in learning, we “sell” the desire to learn new things.
The student needs to be attracted and motivated: an adult is loaded with problems and difficult things. New information – even if very useful – is often rejected by the brain so that it does not “overheat”. And learning, especially on the job, falls into that category. But add a playful approach, and the brain is already ready to learn new things.
The business sector is developing rapidly and is not afraid to introduce new approaches to working with clients. Whereas the training of employees in this regard lags far behind.
Let’s consider the learning gamification process using the Reward-based learning platform as an example.
Point system
Users test their knowledge in arenas that are divided by topic. Players fight each other: answer questions in a quiz format and thereby earn points. They reflect the progress of the student and form a rating.
Overall rating
It is he who brings a competitive spirit to the learning process. BoxBattle has the ability to filter the rating by victories and points scored.
Tournaments
In order to burn the interest of users, online competitions are held for a limited time. In honour of the company’s birthday, we launched such a tournament among employees for a day. As a result, 774 fights were played, and 705 victories were won. The winners scored 2080 and 1850 points and were awarded a nice bonus.
Progress
Users collect badges that they receive for completing tasks. Among them are such as: “Play 100 battles in any mode”, “Win 100 battles in any mode”, “Complete 10 any courses” and so on.
Microlearning and Timelines
It is easier for a person to absorb information in a dosed manner – break the learning into stages. We implemented this principle through quests. The student receives a set of tasks: training modules, quiz fights, diagnostics of their skills and condition, and additional materials. Creativity is easy to show here too – for example, give the task to listen to soothing music or watch a training video in cartoon format.
The limited time to complete each stage encourages you to act “here and now.” We set a limit for each task and the entire quest. The student sees the time limit and concentrates on the task to complete it on time.
Course Library
Excitement encourages users to explore content in order to climb the rankings and get achievements. To do this, training courses are loaded into the system that helps students improve their personal and professional skills.
Summing up
For effective learning, 2 things are important – understanding its purpose and motivating students. We will help you set goals and involve your employees in training.