Gamification is a term that gets thrown around in higher education frequently these days, but what and more importantly how can that be achieved?

The concept of Gamification is creating game mechanics (point systems, levels, leaderboards and challenges) into a learning environment. Video games are the dominant entertainment form of our time because they are powerful tools for motivating behavior. The idea is to create a game like environment that plays on peoples’ natural need for competition and achievement. A very common use of Gamification in Higher Education is the technique of rewarding learners who accomplish tasks.

An example of this in a course setting could be by adding in some hidden tasks in your course a learner would have to accomplish in order to gain badges, points, or credits. Those badges could then be traded in for possible prizes within the course such as extra credit, a test retake (maybe), or a get out of homework free badge. These are some of the simpler ways of incorporating this concept into a course setting.

That example is a simple way that anyone can take advantage of this concept, but personally I have always thought the best way to accomplish “Gamification” is playing a game and learning about content without knowing I learned anything at all. I know what you’re thinking, building an entire game takes time, graphic skills, and development skills that most people don’t have, but I firmly agree accomplishes the concept of Gamification more efficiently.

Think about playing The Oregon Trail years ago. That game was about getting your family from point A to point B without getting everyone killed, a simple game. Personally I always lost everyone to dysentery (Which I think I’m still mad about), but as you advance through that game you accomplish little quests in order gain food, fix your wagon, and cross rivers. All that time playing the learner is absorbing content like foraging and hunting techniques, wagon differences and repair, and even geography. 

Games have always been an effective way to create motivation in people so why not try them to motivate students?

Created by Knewton and Column Five Media

D2L Course Navigation

D2L allows you to navigate between your courses without having to constantly return to your “My Home” page. When you are finished working in a course and want to access another course/section, simply click on the drop down arrow beside the name of the current course.

And then select the other course that you want to access from the list. Please keep in mind that you must initially access a course from the My Home page before it will appear in this list.












Another feature of this course navigation list is “pinning.” If you pin (clicking the gray push pin icon to the right of the course title) a course to this list, that course will always appear as one of the top courses in the list.

















To remove a course from the list, simply click on the orange push pin icon. Pinning and unpinning courses is an easy way to quickly access the courses that you need the most in any given semester.

What is this ID thing anyhow?

Contrary to popular belief, instructional design has nothing to do with technology. Granted, like most other professionals, instructional designers use technology to accomplish their goals, but the process of designing instruction does not depend on technology. In fact, I would argue against even discussing the technology until after a plan is in place.

Using the most simplistic (and (appropriately?) circular) definition, instructional design is the process of designing instruction. Some instructional design theorists will argue for hours (days) over the intricacies of the various instructional design models; however, from a broad perspective, most instructional designers follow the same basic process: determining the needs of the learners; establishing goals and objectives from those needs; designing, developing, implementing, and evaluating instruction to meet those needs.

You’ll notice that in that basic process I never mentioned the technology; that’s because regardless of the course delivery method and regardless of the level of the course, the instruction must come first. The technology can be used throughout the process, but it should not be the first (or even second) consideration in the design of the instruction.

Obviously (hopefully), the first consideration when designing instruction is what do the learners need to be able to do after they successfully complete the instructional activity. “Wait a minute,” you might say, “education is about knowledge too!” True, beginning with the knowledge is a good starting point; however, being able to do something with that knowledge is usually what matters.

Let’s use photography as an example. Using an aperture of f2 will result in a much shallower depth of field than using an aperture of f16. That information is a part of my knowledge base, but unless I can apply that information when creating a well composed photograph, it remains a random fact that I can use to say answer a question on a multiple choice quiz. (I’ll save my contempt for multiple choice for another posting.)

So now we know something that our learners need to be able to do:

• Create well composed photographs using various depths of field (Our first learning objective).

As you can see, the knowledge is also “built into” that objective because the learners need to know about apertures and how they affect depth of field in order to successfully accomplish the objective.

Our next step is to design, develop and implement instructional materials to help our learners achieve this objective. And finally we need to determine the effectiveness of the instruction by assessing not only the learners, but also the instruction itself. If the instructional materials are not helping the learners achieve the learning objectives, then we need to revisit the instructional design of those materials— beginning the cycle again.