Games and Gamification

Hello everyone , in this blog we gonna talk about games and education. But firstly what is gamification ?

"Gamification is the application of game design elements and game principles in non-game contexts. It can also be defined as a set of activities and processes to solve problems by using or applying the characteristics of game elements." via Wikipedia.

In our case, we will be applying games in education. Learners, especially young ones, get bored very easily nowadays. I constantly emphasize that the Z Generation is not interested in books and basic drills during their lessons. They are born into technology, they grow with it and they expect to learn with the help of it. It's a fact that the new generation kids' concentration span is relatively low and their point of view is different in many ways. That is why you hear sentences like "make learning fun" over and over again. There are lots of virtual environments where you can create your own world. I talked about Second Life before. There is also Minecraft for young learners. There are lots of opportunities to create games in the environment. For instance, If you want to teach your students routes you can make use of places like that. In an environment, you can give a direction card and each student can follow it. Then, they can find something in the place they go solve a riddle for example. Situations are endless. really liked the idea. It is authentic first of all. Secondly, all students can participate without going anywhere and getting any permission. They can practice their skills and learn while having fun.