The Gamification of Education

I was introduced to idea of using games in education in a MOOC on edx.courses. I was impressed by the idea. I always thought that games are for fun rather than education.


I was impressed by professor Eric words:" It's important to remember that educational technology and games are tools to enhance the learning process. However, they are not meant to entirely replace real life contexts and interactions between students and educators."

He added: "You need to ask yourself, how will this work in an everyday classroom?

How will this support curricula already in place?
Does this require a whole new curriculum?"

I was also affected by Konstantin Mitgutsch notions about putting in mind the purpose of the game:

"What do you want with that game?

What impact do you want to reach with that game?

It's also very important to think about the target group and the framing.

Who plays this game, when, where, why?

And on top of that we realized that interaction is an interesting aspect too.

How are other players interacting with each other or with the technology or with the game?

Why is that interaction of importance?"

He adds " We've reached a time where more and more of these games are coming and where, I think, people have to be
stopped when they think oh we have such a good educational content, and now we need a game about that.

I think it's not the right approach.

I think sometimes a book is better than a game.

Or sometimes teaching class is better than a game if you didn't realize for itself what the purpose of this game is.

So I think that the framework-- the main part of this framework is that you start with a purpose."


To me I find that highly impressive daily we are bombared by educational tools but how can we use them in enhancing language learning. Can one suffice? Shall we use the tool according to the students preferences or should we use one tool only. I am very impressed about the idea of using games in education and I really want to introduce my students to using them to enhance their language learning.