This is not Gamification

For a second I thought I'd finally managed to reach Nirvana, the hot spot of Gamification. And by saying this, to clear this out from the beginning it's not Gamification but anyway an important experience to share.

What am I plan to do?

By introducing a notional currency we hope that we can save money. Because we use the "money" as points or XP and with prizes to win, I thought for a moment that this was the same as Gamification. But it's not. It's a board game, as Monopoly.

Or something else.

Everything need not be gamifying, you can create interesting and inspiring educational activities anyway.

We have two goals:

1. Our students need to understand the value of money, what a budget really is and what the consequences are if it is not kept.
2. Savings in real world. Or more precisely, if goal number one is met, we will not need to replace lost or damaged materials. Perhaps we don't need to have the double of everything either.

By introducing this fictitious currency (Peuro, P-euro, Prakticum-euro) we hope it will feel more real in our students hands than using numbers in a spreadsheet (which, by the way, havn't worked at all!).

The student group will all be in the vocational media assistant education, they will have two movies to be made. They have to plan a budget for each project; salaries and payroll taxes, to rent materials and what a rental cost of filming per day, before and after tax. Fines applied to both individuals and materials, profits will hopefully increase personal presence and that all materials are returned on time, nothing missing and nothing is broken. This last one is the saving that we hope to achieve.

The school currently has an insurance of this equipment and where the excess is 600€, students (or their parents) pay the deductible or replacing the material itself if it's under 600€. With our system all students, whatever the loss, will have to pay 600P€.

A good production results in a good grade and that generate in a larger prize. Just like in real life, movies can become blockbusters! The one with the most money is the one who handled the deal the best, performed best. The person, or these persons, will at the end be rewarded probably with movie tickets.

Well received by students

Today I have been and presented the project for the first class and the students think this will be both exciting and fun. Above all, because it will be something concrete, they will be able to feel the money, have them in his hand, experience the flow of money.

It's not Gamification.

It's Monopoly ...sort of!

Hay Day

My latest thought about games in education is Hay Day. It hit me when I had a discussion with one of our principals that didn't understood the power of Minecraft. So many adults believe they don't play any computer games but they don't see themselves as doing so, this because the games are on their iPad or iPhone.

My mom is an excellent example of someone who doesn't play video games but probably sitting there with a dozen games of "Words With Friends". She has even invented new own rules: we can not change tiles and if someone accidently pass the other part have to return the game with another pass.

WHAT unintentional learning takes place here? 

English vocabulary (meaning and spelling)

WHEN do we learn it? 

When we try to find new words.

WHY do we learn? 

Because it's fun. And it's multiplayer. You stay in touch with friends...

So, in my colleagues mind they don't play games. Only Angry Birds, Candy Crush Saga and HayDay everyday, but no real games. I asked the principal if she had had a second thought what she really learn while playing Hay Day, and she responded right away; I learn nothing!

Yeah right! But indeed an awesome start to discuss what you really learn from Hay Day and soon we could agree on math, problem solving, language and collaboration.

In Hay Day there is already a functioning economy, there are prospects for a cooperative farm (collaboration part). You can complete (and enhance) your finances by having real money to buy in-game money (or diamonds) only for this game (consumer education)

Since there is a cap of each product you will soon learn to see where you can earn extra by, just like the stock market, buying products cheaply and sell expensive. Or if it is really worth investing in. (Economics)

Challenges in the game, fictitious villagers or goods delivered with deadlines and special rewards require you to plan long term. Sometimes you have to estimate the probability of whether it's even possible to meet a challenge because everything has a production time (math).

Some of these challenges is possible only with cooperation with other neighbors. Derbies are limited events that occur in neighborhoods once a week, those which complete tasks listed on the Derby Stand will rank up and work towards special prizes (collaboration).

Of course there are wiki's and as "the game is horribly addicted" you most probably end up search for information at least once (languages).

So why is this important?

What I'd like to do is make my colleagues, teachers, enlighten of the power of games in education they might start with it. It doesn't need to be more complicated than this and most probably it's a game many teachers already know a lot about.

So, when you use a computer game (in this case, Hay Day) it differs from traditional teaching in the classroom. Suddenly we have gained access to a concrete case in which our students can perform financial transactions that affect their way of understanding how financial markets work from a digital, social and educational content that both affect and are important to them. 

Where are we according to SAMR?

By the digital world as Hay Day adds, we can execute trades in a way that had not been possible with just paper and pencil because there already exists an economic system in the game that students (and teachers) are interested of (third level of SAMR: Modification).

Even beyond our educational mission the idea is already alive and exist, it creates entirely new conditions that would not be possible in a regular classroom situation (fourth stage of SAMR: Redefinition).

Economics with World of Warcraft

I started one other project yesterday, the one we're doing just for fun, some students and I - to learn more about Economics while we (anyway) play World of Warcraft.

Just like some of my students I play WoW (I actually met my wife Tulipe in that game) every now and then, just to relax. Some came by and suggested me to have a course using WoW as a tool with the explanation "if you anyway believes in learning through a game (Minecraft) you should test WoW (as we know you play)..."

For a few weeks I've tried to set this course up. On one hand gather motivating students and on the other hand get support, help and motivated colleagues to help me. Learning through a game is so new ideas that students are often skeptical and teachers get terrified. I also feel that many teachers would see me fail with those projects just to prevent prevent the development of new pedagogical and/or didactic solutions.

My second try to get one of the teachers of Economics to help me was a real success. He thought the project itself sounded so interesting that he didn't thought about the money. His enthusiasm yesterday surprised both the students and me and while he has no interest to play the game self he told us he wants to do his very best so they can learn as much as possible. He even appointed himself mentor during the project, which surprised me because we havn't talked about it and I don't know if there's money to that, but he said he wants the experience more. It's such a joy when you find someone who thinks like that.

Besides Economic skills, and key competences for life long learning, there will also happen a lot with the group. At the moment there's first, second and third years students and six different classes/areas, in total 13 students and me playing. I'm trying to have all participants answer questions about group dynamics and expectations as well as doing The Bartle Test of Gamer Psychology.

As mr E (Economics) never have played any computer games, we started to show him the game. I opened the Auction House, he glanced at it and immediately began to draw parallels to the stock exchange. The learning process had started...

As our guild has been set up, 

we now also have our rank system working. The Our guild reflects a real company so now we have a board of directors, players who have invested their savings in the project. There is an operational management team consisting of the CEO and management team, Last but not least: employees. 

CEO and management team now have to come up with our mission, what we want to be good at? That thing we are going to develop the next weeks. 

We also talked about introducing incentive pays, you earns 50% of the profit and the other 50% goes to the company (guild).

Corporations are not a democracy.