Gamification is generally viewed as an innovative way of getting children engaged with learning. And the best part? Gamification isn’t something that’s strictly limited to online settings, and is just as effective when applied to more traditional educational environments, like in the classroom.
That’s where we operate - here at Educational Printing Services Limited, we’ve been providing school exercise books, personalised exercise books and supplementary reading material for over 45 years. We’ve kept our fingers on the pulse with regards to how the education system has evolved over the years, and we’ve learned plenty about how gamification has played a major role in the development of child education over the years.
What is gamification in the classroom?
Gamification is essentially when you take something which is not a game, and then you add game-like elements to it. For example, if you take a standard exercise that you might find in an English language course book, or an assessment, and then put that in a framework of badges, points or levels - voilà! You have achieved gamification.
We’ll spare you the lengthy history lesson and give you the short version - basically, the link between learning and playing is longstanding and predates the era of the internet by thousands of years (things like puzzle games, physical games and board games can be traced all the wayback to ancient Greece and China).
Its importance on the development of cognitive ability was emphasised in the 20th century by leading theorists Jean Piaget and Leonard Vygotsky, and once personal computing and the internet became prevalent parts of everyday life, this opened up a range of opportunities for gamification to take the education sector by storm. As an added fun fact - the term ‘gamification’ was first coined in the mid 2000’s by Andrzej Marczewski, who wrote the book ‘Gamification: A Simple Introduction’.
What are the benefits of gamification in education?
Gamification and digital games introduce an element of fun and focus to classroom learning, especially when applied to the subjects deemed as the most boring by students. Students often end to be competitive, which means they can be an extremely powerful motivator when coupled with the added incentive of intrinsic and extrinsic rewards. And online games can be useful in providing real-time data that helps you to judge the overall performance and skill level of students.
Clearly, there are benefits to adopting the gamification approach, whether that’s online, or in class on paper. For your students, we’ll leave you to choose the best approach. As for us, we’ll stick to doing what we do best - supplying a huge range of school exercise books, personalised exercise books, and supplementary reading material, so that you and your class have everything you need to stay organised, motivated, and productive.
With more than 45 years of experience behind us, we’re top of the class when it comes to producing resources and learning solutions for schools, so you can count on us to provide answers in as much or as little detail as you need. Feel free to give us a call on 01254 686 500!
