What will you change?

[image credit: http://errantscience.com/]

As this module draws to a close, I thought I would reflect back on some of the key things I have learnt along the way and hopefully some changes that I will adopt and use in my own practice. Lesson number one: Coffee really is a very important factor in my learning style! Which is why I have picked the cartoon I have for this post.

A couple of notes on the art of blogging and reflective writing to begin with.  At the start of the module, I was slightly dreading the idea of having to write a blog post each week, but over the course of this module I have really seen the value in it. It has been quite cathartic to reflect sometimes, it has helped to make sense of things sometimes outside of the Moodle walls. I had never written a blog on my own, I had only contributed to community blogs, which in a way felt a slightly safe venue for blogging, this felt a little more exposed. Although I do know that my statistics have been low for my blog 🙂

It can be a bit daunting when it is all on you, and knowing where to start can be tricky. Thankfully our module leader towards the beginning of this module posted some useful resources about reflective writing. One of the main approaches I took away and adopted to some extent from reading the resources was that it can help to frame the writing as an interview. I have tried this approach by posing a question in some of my blog titles and then using the posting to bring together my thoughts into a kind of answer.  Which brings me onto my first change that I would make, if I find myself writing a blog again, this is a very useful technique. Not for every post, but certainly it has been a very useful tool for organising and approaching a blog post. Often your mind wonders and you can find yourself diverting on tangents. Importantly this technique gives you a focus and a bit of a starting point and more importantly an end point. It is important to sometimes remember and think about the point/purpose of reflection. In this sense I am grateful to our module leader steering us towards Jenny Moons model for reflection: http://skillsforlearning.leedsbeckett.ac.uk/preview/content/models/06.shtml 

Images, while they do not necessarily gain you marks, they are an important part of online communication these days. They draw the eye and I have noticed that often when having a quick flick through some of my fellow BOE’rs blogs, often it is the ones that have a pretty image that I will be drawn to. For instance Jordan Gambles blog: https://jgamblesite.wordpress.com I noticed has quite a good look and feel to his blog. Design as well as content is important, and I think if I had more time, this is something that I would change, I would pay more attention to the lay out and design of my blog. So I hope that this image meets with approval- it has certainly made me chuckle. Errant science is definitely a blog that I would recommend.

There are a lot of blog posts about blog writing, but I think this one from the Kate Cowan from The Guardian http://www.theguardian.com/culture-professionals-network/culture-professionals-blog/2011/nov/17/top-tips-successful-blog  has a lot of tips. Which again if I had more time I would recommend. Interestingly she speaks about encouraging interaction. When I started this module, this was something that terrified me! But I can actually really see the enormous value in this, the comments that I have received from  tutors and fellow students have really helped me to trust my ideas. The questions help you to frame your ideas as well, and these are really nothing to be scared of, they can be brilliant learning tools. So the another thing that I would change would be to make more time to read and reflect on other peoples blog postings and draw that into my blogging experience. This is really a key theme in terms of this module and in particular the ideas we looked at in terms of engaging in a community of inquiry not just in our virtual learning environment but through the blogging process as well.

What will you change? the title of my last blog post actually came from one of the first student units we participated in. It was a review question that #Teamdigliterati used. Which I think is a very useful evaluation and reflection tool. This is something that I think I will try to employ more in my own practice. To me it is a rather important idea for thinking about the impact of sessions for students. I thought this question was good, as firstly it is a ingenious way that one group has decided to get people to reflect on their teaching and ask what they would do differently in light of some of the discussions and activities that they have had you do. Very good practice in itself: a) promotes reflection, b) constructivist learning style and helps to cements learning.Secondly I find it is never a bad question to ask yourself after a teaching session…. what went well, what went badly and what would I do differently….. Even if you do not always write down these reflections. it is still good to think about.

Many of the themes of this module; particularly around the ideas of digital literacy, the visitor and residents models, and designing inclusive curriculum. Many of these themes have for me  reinforced the way we view learners, they are not a homogeneous group of people. Education, learning and teaching is always going to be a developing field as it is not possible for it to be an exact science. And that actually, that is OK! You will probably never know everything, knowledge is definitely one thing but having an aptitude to learn is possibly a more important skill, with the knowledge that it is OK if sometimes not everything is perfect and sometimes ideas/theories don’t always work in practice 100% and need adapting.

This module has really made me think about the possibilities of podcasting and its use in my teaching more. I really enjoyed hearing voices deliver some of the content. When we used it in our unit, it was really nice to hear some of my fellow students voices. It makes the experience feel more personal, which is very difficult to build through discussion forums and the like. It is not really a tool I had considered using before this module. This whole unit around the idea of online social presence has made me question a few aspects of my work, in terms of some of the online courses we produce and are they online courses without regular interactions from tutors? I think podcasts and vodcasts might help a little to bring some of our materials more to life.

Gamification, while I do feel some scepticism about it. I do now see some merits there are elements of games that I can see helping motivation. Now I think about gamification…. I see elements of it everywhere. For instance a couple of weeks ago wordpress congratulated me on my 10th post and showed me a little winners cup! I think sometimes for me the concept is a little tied up in the online world in my head, but actually if you broaden out, you realise that gamification is and has been used in a variety of situations. Something I will have to look into a little more, in my practice there are already a few elements of gamification that I employ- for instance in our induction treasure hunts, there are winners who receive a prize.

So as this module draws to a close, I would like to say I will continue blogging, but I am making no firm promises on that front…. lets just see what next few months hold in store. I would like to think that I will try though, as I say, I do see its value as a reflection tool!

 

 

What makes a good game?

The old adage ‘a quick game, is a good game’ I think has a lot of mileage here! Yukaichou identifies 8 core drivers of gamification which I think are good guiding principles:

1-Epic Meaning & Calling

2-Development & Accomplishment

3-Empowerment of Creativity & Feedback

4- Ownership & Possession

5-Social Influence & Relatedness

6-Scarcity & Impatience

7-Unpredictability & Curiosity

8- Loss & Avoidance

Gamification needs to be something that learners buy in to, something that they can immerse themselves in if they wish to- something that has meaning and that will draw them into the game. A very important factor I think, as you will see in my concluding remarks.

Much of the research and writing on gamification recognises the importance of rewards and prizes as well as that element of competition that gamification can bring to the learners experience. Leadership boards, prizes and achievements can be very useful as reward mechanisms (Glover, I. 2013). In unit 4 of the BOE we can see elements of this theory being employed. There is a leadership board with students who have earned the most stars and prizes for students who spotted the most David Bowie song titles in the welcome text. As a learner it is interesting, because I am not sure how this has motivated me to engage more. I enjoy the ideas, but perhaps the leader board is too focused on those at the top, I have no concept of where I am in relation to these other students, so I feel my motivation to catch up is slipping.

I am not sure if I would feel differently if I knew I was at the bottom of the leader board for instance and that factor of loss and avoidance would kick in for me as a learner. It is difficult to say. I do know that as ever studying around work, time has been a real factor for me this last couple of weeks, so even if I knew I was at the bottom of the leader board I am not sure I could have spared more time.

This time factor is something that does strike me about gamification, not just in the designing and delivering of the game, but in the monitoring of it. I listened to the unit 4 podcast during the week on learning analytics which made me think about the performance tracking aspect of gamification (SBOSE 2016). Rules and performance tracking of students is going to be a really important aspect of games. However this might place more pressure on tutors, lecturers and teachers. The idea of some sort of consequence for learners if they are not on track or participating fully. This is where the idea of learning analytics and gamification crossed over for me, having the data and being able to analyse data is difficult in a meaningful way sometimes.

So what makes a good game; is clear goals, something that is easy to engage with, clear rules, rewards and progress tracking mechanisms. However there may be all of the mechanisms in place to make a game good, but this does assume that there is a willingness among students to participate and ultimately what makes a good game- it is, I would say the people that play it. The engagement with other learners is a really important factor and maybe the most important factor when it comes to a good game and determining the success of a game.

Glover, I (2013). Play as you learn: Gamification as a technique for motivating learners. Available from: http://shura.shu.ac.uk/7172/1/Glover_-_Play_As_You_Learn_-_proceeding_112246.pdf [Accessed 17.04.16]

SBOSE (2016) Unit 4 Episode 2: What are Learning Analytics? [Podcast] Available from: http://sbose.podomatic.com/entry/2016-04-11T00_00_00-07_00 [Accessed 12th April 2016].

Yukaichou (no date) Octalysis: Complete Gamification Framework. Available from: http://yukaichou.com/gamification-examples/octalysis-complete-gamification-framework/#.VwONQ3pNdlx [Accessed 15th April 2016]

Learning how to play…. Nice

(Photo credit: Hancock 2009)

As part of unit 4 we are considering gamification. I came at this topic a slightly sceptical, but has got me thinking there may be more to this than I initially thought.

I am also not convinced that this is a ‘new’ phenomenon in education. There has always been an element of competition and achieving results within the education system and this to me has firm roots in gamification!

What this unit really has done is made me think about the use of games and gamfication in education. It has caused me to reflect on a few aspect of my own learning experiences. And actually as I started to think about it, gamification has actually formed the basis for a number of educational experiences through out my life. Two experiences cropped up in my reflections:

Firstly playing to learn is actually quite a key concept in sports coaching. Making drills and sessions game-based is a key aspect of coaching, relating skills that you are asking players to practice in an abstract way is not as effective as situating the skill within the context of where in the match or the game it might apply. This for me is an important aspect to the idea of gamification, it can be an excellent tool for motivation, but it needs to be designed in context and well defined in terms of applying to specific learning outcomes (Hanus and Fox, 2015 p.160).

The second experience that cropped into my head was actually learning from my dad, who is a clockmaker. Often the problems he encounters often require a bit of out-of-the box problem solving. His approach to learning I would call a little bit playful and experimental- for instance he had to fix a Bulle clock which is one which has an electro-magnetic mechanism. He needed to re-magnetise the magnetic bar in the clock. This to me brought alive all the GCSE physics lessons on magnets, and vague memories of conversations about coiling wire around a bar in certain directions to magnetise the  bar and to work out which end would be North and which would be South. We had fun playing around with the concepts to re-magnetise this bar, eventually coming to  the conclusion that we needed more tightly coiled wire to make it a stronger magnet (http://www.markedbyteachers.com/gcse/science/electromagnets-what-factors-affect-strength-of-an-electromagnet.html). The practical act of playing around and the trail and error with this, has made it stick in my mind and has illustrated the practical application of it to me. Which I guess is something that my GCSE textbooks failed to do to some extent. My dad’s playful learning style chimes in with some of the key themes in a lot of Chrissi Nerantzi talks about in her recent blog post for Jisc: Learning to play, playing to learn: the rise of playful learning in higher education. She talks about it being an experimental learning style one where it is ok to sometimes make mistakes and learn from these. 

Which got me thinking about whether there a difference to playing and gamification and do I confuse the two and is this where some of my scepticism is rooted? Do I confuse ideas of experiential learning with gamification?

Well to some extent, but having taken part in the reading game as part of this unit, I think I now have a firmer idea. Gamification seems a more structured approach, where as I guess play is a more organic process. There are rules attached to games and this makes them structured and there is a win, lose or draw mentality.

I don’t doubt that gamfication techniques can improve learners motivation and can have a positive impact on some learners. However I guess that some of  my scepticism also stems from the same idea, while gamification can lead to increased motivation for some, for others it might be a de-motivating factor. Some of the readings do actually confirm some of my scepticisms. Elements of gamification seem to have very positive effects on some (but not all) students motivation to engage (Hanus and Fox 2015, Dominguez et al.2013 and Glover 2013). Hanus and Fox specifically find that further research needs to be conducted about the effectiveness of specific elements of gamification have motivational, psychological and behavioural impacts (2015 p.160).

There are a few key messages to draw from most of the research. There is a fine line with gamification to be drawn, game mechanics need to be carefully considered and sometimes introduced sensitively I think. As long as gamification is well designed and for a purpose I think it can have a really positive impact. Its almost down to us as teachers to play around with these aspects of gamification and learn what works and doesn’t work so well for our style of teaching but also our students learning styles.

So we will see how this next week of the unit develops the idea of gamification for me and where I see it’s use in my practice. Let the games begin!!

Domínguez, A., Saenz-de-Navarrete, J., De-Marcos, L., Fernández-Sanz, L., Pagés, C., & Martínez-Herráiz, J. J. (2013) Gamifying learning experiences: Practical implications and outcomes. Computers & Education, 63, 380-392.

Glover, I. (2013) Play as you learn: gamification as a technique for motivating learners. In World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia and Telecommunications (Vol. 2013, No. 1, pp. 1999-2008)

Hancock, J. (2009). Humble beginning. [Photo] Available from: https://www.flickr.com/photos/jdhancock/3583038761 [Accessed: 10th April 2016]

Hanus, M. D., & Fox, J. (2015) Assessing the effects of gamification in the classroom: A longitudinal study on intrinsic motivation, social comparison, satisfaction, effort, and academic performance. Computers & Education, 80, 152-161.

Nerantzi, C. (2016) Learning to play, playing t learn: the rise of playful learning in higher education. Available from: https://www.jisc.ac.uk/inform-qa/learning-to-play-playing-to-learn-the-rise-of-playful-learning-in-he-25-feb-2016 [Accessed 9th March 2016]