Game-Based Learning & Gamification

Game-Based Learning (GBL) and Gamification are two different things in education. The first time I heard the word of gamification, I thought that it has no difference with the game based learning. but logically they supposed to be different as the spellings are not similar. I supposed to learn about these two from Dr Nurul lesson 4 weeks , but we never know Allah's plan. It happens to be that I was absent on that day due to my poor health condition. I postponed writing this entry as it took me some time to consult and understand clearly about this content. 

GBL and gamification are commpletely different!GBL can be divided into 2 elements; the first one is students play games and the second element is students make games. Both of these elements involved in the process of learning and it is being used to achieve instructional goals. Meanwhile, gamification

is the application of game mechanics in a non games context which normally used for the purpose of assessment for example Kahoot, plickers and Quizziz. Alhamdullillah, I have implemented all those three into my teaching session.

Gamification: Applying Plickers in my lecture session

Students enjoyed the lesson when I used Plickers. Among the advantages of using Plickers is we could get the results instantly. Conventianally, when I asked students to answer my verbal or written questions at the end of the learning session, some of them were reluctant to answer the questions and some were copying their friend's answer. However with Plickers, they don't have the chance to skip the Q&A session. This is because Plickers cards are showing different forms of symbol for each students for the multiple choices answers of A, B , C and D. As this activity is perceived interesting to them, I can see their excitement to involve in and they did answer all the questions. Since, the forms on the card are not the same, they were unable to copy down their friends' answer. The picture above shows the moment I snapped the pictures of all their Plickers card to get their answer. Their answers then appears on my LCD screen so which then they can who is right and who is wrong. I love using Plickers as it does not need any internet connection apart from downloading the apps earlier in the steps. However, I could see the disadvantages which sometimes happened where the camera failed to detect the pictures if the position of the students' cards are not facing the camera properly. With the various resources of gamification, I'm now having a lot more choice of resources to apply in my session. 

Tabletop games is among GBL that is splendid and I would like to elaborate on why I fancy tabletop games more compared to the other types of online or virtual games.  First, the tabletop games might relates to the similar pattern of games that students used to play when they were small for example such as Scrabble, Snake & ladder, Chess and Monopoly. Second, this type of games does not require internet connection and mobile devices for the whole process of playing. This is important because sometimes, those tools possibly reduce the play time due to the technical problems which hence distracts the process of learning. Apart from that, students can learn actively with their peers which indirectly develop their soft skills as the tabletop games usually involve group works.

Ref: Tabletop Games: Snake & Ladder 

However, I never denied the advantages of online games that are sometimes more interesting due to its interactive features. I will make sure that I have complete and well-functioned facilities first for my digital game based learning. In matriculation, students are taught both in lecture of big number of students and also tutorial session of much fewer of that which is about 20. In my opinion, the digital games and gamification are best applied in lecture as it has facilities such as LCD, IE camera scanner and better WiFi. Tutorial class does not has all those facilities which hence suitable for tabletop games. Games is an innovative way of teaching which led to more interesting lesson and students will enjoy it for sure as it is kind of substituting formal lesson into learning through play.

Thank you,

Ummi Atiah  Mohamad
Med Physics
UPSI

                                                     ~ May it Benefits You ➽💕