5 Reasons to “Gamify” Your Class

Imagine if students were as motivated to do their schoolwork as they are to beat Halo 4. “Gamification” is a fancy word to describe how to achieve exactly that - bringing game-like engagement to non-game settings - and it’s beginning to pervade all aspects of life, including education.

For example, Sam Webster, a 4th grade teacher, gamified her class using a teacher-created project called SuperFunner. “I’ve seen kids who aren’t normally excited become really excited about school all of a sudden,” Webster said about the system.

Here are 5 reasons to consider gamifying your class.

1. Engagement - If you’ve ever played or watched someone play a good video game, you’ll know that nothing engages people like games do. Even kids who are normally unfocused, unmotivated, or undisciplined become highly focused, motivated, and disciplined when playing games. Gamification can help bring those attitudes to class.
2. Intrinsic motivation - Not only do kids spend significant amounts of time playing games, but they do so voluntarily, with no hope of earning extrinsic rewards like candy or pizza parties. Gamification is all about guiding people to achieve things that perfectly challenging them, and typically the only incentive to do so is the sense of accomplishment they feel when they succeed.
3. Extension of learning - It’s tough to design a course that challenges each student to the level they need. Video games, however, somehow manage to capture the full attention of multitudes of people at a myriad of skill levels simultaneously. Gamification can help deliver challenges at the right level for all students in a class, whether they’re two grades behind in reading comprehension or three grades ahead in math.
4. You’re already doing it - School is inherently game-like - students earn points for completing challenges, and are eventually rewarded with badges in the form of grades. Gamification only improves the current system by employing game elements proven to be extraordinarily effective in video games. If we’re already doing it, we might as well do it right!
5. Straight up fun - It’s just more fun!

This infographic helps put the significance of video games in relation to school in perspective.

For more information about gamifying school visit http://www.SuperFunner.com

Using Cell Phone Friendly Social Networks for Global Benefits! - Wednesday Morning

Start your Wednesday morning with the Global Education Conference
8:00 a.m. EST, 6:00 a.m. MT

Here is the link to the session: https://sas.elluminate.com/d.jnlp?sid=2008350&password=GECPart116

Learn how to set the building blocks for success with cell phones. Empower students to connect globally through the integration of social networks. See how twitter, textnovel, and celly support students with global education networks. The authors of Teaching Generation Text: Using Cell Phones to Enhance Learning share their experiences and immediately applicable tools for leading students in making global connections with their cell phones, even in schools where they are banned.

Translate Informal Learning Into PD Credit with Knowit

When it comes to innovative educators it’s not unusual to spend a lot of time on social media—reading, watching, sharing, learning, connecting, and creating. The articles you read, comments you make, and ideas you share on social platforms like Twitter tell a compelling story of your knowledge and interests. However, right now all of that work is undocumented.

What if there was a way to turn all this learning into something that could be quantified?

The challenge seems difficult because social media is mainly focused on what is going on right now, so it fails to show the story that has built up over time. Your learning is there in the chaos, but much of it is buried pretty deep.

Knowit is a free tool that addresses this challenge making sense of that chaos. When you sign up, Knowit scours the links you share on Twitter, automatically categorizes them, and makes inferences about your expertise. It then builds a simple but information-rich profile that tells your knowledge story. Once the story of your informal learning has been pulled together, you can use it to document your professional development, learn more effectively, and even use it on your resume to give hiring managers something positive to find in your social media profile and help you land that perfect job.

Check out my Knowit profile below or see it live at: http://knowitapp.com/innovativeedu


So, what are you waiting for? Go to Knowit and find out the areas in which it says you are an expert.

Cell Phones in the Classroom: Distraction or Undervalued Teaching Tool?

While some educators see cell phones and digital devices as distractions and sources of attention deficit, others say these are wonderful, undervalued teaching tools. Do we need to suppress the use of cell phones in classrooms or bring today's teachers up to speed on how to teach with this new tool?

Listen as Rae Pica hosts a conversation on BAM Radio’s Educator’s Channel where "Cell Phones in the Classroom" author Liz Kolb and I take on Greg Graham author of Cell Phones in Classrooms? No! Students Need to Pay Attention to discuss the benefits of cell phones for learning.

Discover more reasons why I believe cell phones can be effective learning tools by reading Teaching Generation Text: Using Cell Phones to Enhance Learning.

The hottest posts that everyone's reading

Here’s the roundup of what's been popular on The Innovative Educator blog this week. Below you’ll see the top weekly posts along with the number of pageviews. I hope there's something that looks of interest to you.  If it does, check it out. If you’re inspired, share it with others and/or leave a comment.

Entry	Pageviews
4 things to help your students manage their online rep... Oct 29, 2012, 1 comment	2399
Group work doesn't have to suck Nov 1, 2012, 4 comments	1993
5 Reasons to Allow Students to Use Cell Phones in ... Jul 8, 2012, 15 comments	1796
Why Using Interactive Whiteboards May Be Smart... Dec 8, 2010, 1 comment	1769
The Ten No Nos of Teaching with a Smartboard... May 10, 2010, 39 comments	1505
7 ways educators can use Twitter during a disaster... Nov 5, 2012	1468
Free digital citizenship materials for innovative ... Oct 30, 2012	1296

5 benefits of learning to play musical instruments

Music lessons offer children many benefits including aiding mental, physical, emotional and social development. Does your child’s school support this?  If not, you may want to share the following benefits of learning to play music.  

1. Boosting Brain Power - Taking lessons to learn to play an instrument significantly improves brain power.  Research from the University of Kansas suggests that learning at a young age will have an impact on a child’s cognitive skills as they grow older.
2. Improving Memory - Young people that learn to play a musical instrument have been shown in studies to have an improvement in behavior, memory and intelligence. All types of lessons for music stimulate multiple patterns of brain development, which is what helps to increase memory.