Transcript of Video

Music

Hi there, welcome to educational technagogy. BAAAAAAAA!

ya that’s a sheep you heard. Did you know that sheep had knuckles? That’s what the first dice were played with sheep’s knuckles. Well, they were made out of a sheeps knuckles.

BAM! Yeah that’s right, football <cheers> WhoYa Fumble! I’d like to tell you a story. The ancient Lydianswere a group of people that lived around three thousand years ago in the Mediterranean area the world most likely near present-day Turkey. They had a problem, no this problem didn’t have anything to do with sheep knuckles, they had a problem with food. There was a great famine throughout the land that lasted at least two decades.

And, what these people decided to do to handle this famine was they would eat one day and the next day they would play games the entire day without eating. This would take, playing games, would take their minds off the fact that they didn’t have enough food. And so they ate every other day and played good hard games the other days of the week. They did this for at least eighteen years so the story goes whether it’s true or not, we’re not quite sure but we have found, through research, that games do even today help take our minds off of the awful things that may be happening in our lives. BOOM! <crack> Baseball! it’s a game it’s not just a game some people make a living at baseball.

<noises from device> Oh mighty Time Lord! yes my sonic screwdriver just like Doctor Who I can pretend to be in a game.

Game-based learning

Game-based learning, GBL, is simply taking games and implementing them into your curriculum. It can be as simple as taking an off-the-shelf game such as Monopolyto teach economic facts or it can be using computer-based games such as doctor Kurt Squire from University Wisconsin used in his doctoral research Civilization 3. Civilization 3 he found really helped his students to understand geographical concepts through time. He was hoping that it would help them

understand history better but going through these periods of time they learned geographic concepts much better than historical ones. But, games can be used to learn any number of concepts. There aretons of games available and game-based learning is something that we’ve been doing throughout time.

I was thinking just the other day how could I take a twenty sided and in use in my classroom? Hmmmmmmmm……..

Gamification Gamification is basically taking game dynamics and game mechanics and using them in non-game settings such as a classroom. Game dynamics are kinda the touchy-feely sort of stuff the narrative, the relationships, the emotions, progression, and storyline. All these things are qualities of good game dynamics. Game mechanics also need to play into gamification this is HOW the game is played it’s the rules it’s things like leader-boards, levels, resources, badges, how are you going to win? what are the winning conditions? challenges, quests. These are the mechanics that make up a good game.

Some of the story lines that people use are story lines from great games such as World of Warcraft, Game of Thrones is a good excellent story line The Hunger Games is a story line that’s often used, Some people have even used the different factions from Veronica Roth’s Divergent series as a setting for their games.

I think that’s all I’m going to go over for this week. Join me next week for a further discussion of gamification in education. Go ahead roll the dice, and see if you can implement games in the classroom.

Thanks and have a great week! yeah

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