By Jing Ma
Last year, I started using Kahoot, a popular user-generated, gamified e-learning platform, to check my students’ reading comprehension in an online class. I wrote questions about the assigned reading in Kahoot so students could answer questions about the reading. The student who answered the most questions correctly within the limited time and got the highest score would rank first. Kahoot embeds features such as game-like music, visual design, and memorable moments, which can help students become self-motivators. It has been developed for use at school, work, and home (see Figure 1). Recently, Kahoot successfully raised a new round of funding of $28 million to serve 1.3 billion active users. What contributes to the success and growth of this Norwegian educational game company? Let’s see the basics of gamification in e-learning and trends of gamification in the e-learning industry.
Note: A screenshot of the Kahoot interface when the user is about to join a battle and needs to choose the mode between 1 on 1 or team vs team.
Gamification and E-Learning
To understand gamification in elearning, let’s start with the two essential concepts — gamification and e-learning.
Gamification was first used in 2003 by Nick Pelling, a game designer who had been developing a game-like interface for ATM and vending machines (Gerald, 2018). But what is gamification? In Gamification Application in E-learning: A Literature Review (Saleem et al., 2021), the authors identified 9 articles that shared the same argument that gamification is the procedure of adding game elements to a non-game situation. According to the review, the most common game elements used include points, badges, leaderboards, levels, rewards, feedback, and challenges.
On the other hand, e-learning is an innovative web-based system that integrates digital technologies and other forms of educational documents (Rodrigues et al., 2019). The primary goal of e-learning is to provide students with a personalized, learned-centered, open, enjoyable, and interactive learning environment that assists and improves the learning processes.
The marriage of gamification and e-learning leads to a set of methods and technology, which enhances learners’ motivation and engagement to use and complete a course in an e-learning environment (Tomislav & Liliana,2019), making gamification increasingly crucial in e-learning design.
Gamification Trends in E-Learning
Now that we know what gamification in e-learning is, what are the current trends in using gamification for e-learning? According to my observation as an e-learning designer, gamification in e-learning develops by using the latest technology. Therefore, we could predict the future of gamification by looking at the trends in technology development. Below are several examples of how the latest technologies have been applied in gamification for learning.
Trend 1. Chatbots in e-learning gamification
A chatbot is a robot who can communicate with you using text or voice. Artificial Intelligence (AI) chatbots are programs that mimic human-like conversation. In e-learning design, an AI chatbot could make the learning more engaging and personalized. The chatbot could also be an intelligent tutor or learning assistant for factual knowledge. Kharod (2021) shared one of the examples — QuizBot designed by Stanford University. It uses a cute penguin to gamify the learning process. This AI-assisted chatbot can help college students review questions through conversation. The results showed that QuizBot enhanced students’ performance and increased motivation.
Trend 2. Virtual Reality (VR) in e-learning gamification
Last month, Mark Zuckerberg showed Horizon Workrooms, Facebook’s new VR workplace. We could imagine that we may apply this technology into the virtual training process.
With VR technology, you can protect the learners from hazardous situations and reduce the cost. Therefore, gamified e-learning with VR is popular in training for construction professionals, nurses, firefighters, and so on. Similarly, you can use VR and AR technology in your training programs to explain complex machinery and simulate the ways to solve technical problems. For example, at the Adobe e-learning World 2021 conference, I attended a workshop on using Adobe Captivate to design an interactive VR training without programming. Speaker Wortimla RS introduced how to use VR devices and Captivate to create courses. With these tools, learning designers can easily create engaging gamification experiences by adding quizzes and hotspots, which could be a graphic or text triggering any event such as gaming music or avatar dialogue.
As technology evolves, gamification in e-learning will become more popular, sophisticated, and efficient. In this way, it will continue to drive the innovation in learning design to promote learner engagement and help learners achieve their learning objectives.
References
Aini, Q., Rahardja, U., & Khoirunisa, A. (2020). Blockchain technology into gamification on education. IJCCS (Indonesian Journal of Computing and Cybernetics Systems), 14(2), 147. doi:10.22146/ijccs.53221
Christians, G. (2018). The origins and future of gamification [Unpublished senior thesis] . University of South Carolina.
Rodriguez, P. (2021, June 15). 19 gamification trends for 2021–2025: Top Stats, Facts & Examples. Growth Engineering. https://www.growthengineering.co.uk/19-gamification-trends-for-2021-2025-top-stats-facts-examples/
Rodrigues, H., Almeida, F., Figueiredo, V., & Lopes, S. L. (2019). Tracking e-learning through published papers: A systematic review. Computers & Education, 136, 87–98. doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2019.03.007
Rozman, T., & Donath, L. (2019). The current state of gamification in e-learning. Mednarodno Inovativno Poslovanje = Journal of Innovative Business and Management, 11(3), 5–19. doi:10.32015/jibm/2019-11-3-2
Saleem, A. N., Noori, N. M., & Ozdamli, F. (2021). Gamification applications in e-learning: A literature review. Technology, Knowledge and Learning. doi:10.1007/s10758-020-09487-x
About the Writer
Jing Ma has over 10 years of experience in the international/Asia Pacific edtech industry. Currently, she is working diligently by researching industry trends and contributing her expertise as an aspiring thought leader in educational technology. With an entrepreneurial spirit, she worked as the second employee hired at a transnational start-up serving the Chinese-American community and helped raise capital from angel investors and venture capitalists. Jing is also an Instructional Designer Lead and a board member of the KeelWorks Foundation, a non-profit organization which is dedicated to supporting global economic equality through individuals. She has also spent time as an Education Intern in the Children’s Creativity Museum working with artists, educators, and exhibit developers to offer a warm and collaborative environment for children to develop skills and interests.
Jing Ma earned her Master of Science degree in Education, with a focus on Technology Leadership from California State University (East Bay) and her Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration from Tianjin Cheng Jian University in Tianjin, China.
In her spare time, Jing enjoys creative portrait and nature photography, hiking, and playing the violin.
This article is brilliant. Yes, gamification + elearning is a big tread in online learning design. VR learning environment (LE) is also going to be a great support to online learning or CSCL.
A further idea that people are working on is to combine the learning management system (LMS) with a VRLE. In this way, either online courses or online degree programs can be offered directly in a VR world. Instructors and learners can assess everything (including but not limit to: program handbook, advising, course selection, enrollment, orientation, course delivery, discussion, assignment, office hour, exam, grading, and commencement) without hopping out to a web-based LMS. Such an online VR degree program can be a small component on the education side that contributes to the so-called Metaverse.