Written by Betty Adamou
I was thinking not so long ago, how most people I have met in Market Research just ‘found themselves’ in the industry without growing up aspiring to be researchers or indeed taking any University courses to qualify them and yet, there are now Market Research educational courses and workshops all over the world. Who would have thought it 10 years ago?
And who would have thought that Gamification, a word that was first searched on Google only a year ago would have spurred a hot, buzzing interest in several industries globally to the point where business are changing their practices to incorporate Gamification techniques, companies have been born to provide t
hose techniques and The Gamification Summit would come into existence?
So how long before we offer College and University courses in Gamification? It could very well be that your daughter or son in the future will come home and let you know what they want to study at University. Eyes beaming with pride and anticipation, you ask ‘What, my child?’. Your offspring, probably already a keen gamer and prodigy of using technology says: “I’m going to study Gamification Theory and Practice!” or better yet they may say that they want to study the following degrees. Here are some course names I invented but could very well exist one day:
- “Gamification Mechanics”
- “Gamification in Business”
- “Gamification Psychology”
- “Gamification and Social Impact”
- “Gamification and Technological Evolution”
- “Gamification History”
- “Augmented Reality Gamification”
- “Political and Social Gamification”(this one particularly interests me)
- “Gamotion design and implementation”
- And here’s my favourite (for obvious reasons): “Gamification in Research”
The Gamification sceptics who may see the subject as ‘fluff’ are probably rolling their eye
s now and muttering something under their breaths about the education system being dumbed down however, I have to disagree. Media studies, like Art and Drama have long been dismissed as ‘micky mouse’ subjects. Subjects which are felt to have little or no substance for the real world. What subjects like these and Gamification can teach us is about one of the most important things in the world: People.
And not just people, but ho
w people behave, how we have developed and one day we may even study Gamifications impact on the world around us. Art, as well as Media and Drama/Theatre has been shaped by politics, world events, creativity and changes in technology. So too will Gamification.
Gamification and gaming at the root has taught us massive amounts about human psychology, what motivates us and what drives us to pass our precious time overcoming unnecessary obstacles, often for an unaffordable financial price. In understanding gaming, we’ve had to learn about how our brain works, incorporating neuroscience and biological understanding and it forces us to look at our histories to come to grips with the origins of gaming and its social and political impact. Gaming has taught us about brain development and the progress children make in their youths. It has also taught us how to push our technological knowledge and abilities to the limits and has inspired an entire gene
ration of young people to harness their creativity to make their own games and contribute those ideas to some of the biggest name games ever made.
Gamification courses could offer a chance to study all these things, and incorporate all these things. I hope that in the future, Gamification courses can be real and help shape a new generation of students to push the boundaries we currently have, improve business, education, learning and even politics.
What’s even more fascinating about these future Gamification courses is the way in which students could study. And no, I’m not just referring to the use of iPads in classrooms and waving goodbye to PowerPoint; I’m talking about the entire course being gamified. Welcome to a 3 year game for teens: ‘Gamification Graduation’.
Ideas for the ‘Course Game’:
- The separate modules could be mini-games or ‘in-games’. Each year of study could unlock a new level and doing fantastic work could earn students a leap up the leaderboard.
- Earning a great degree could earn students extra, shareable rewards which they could carry over to their first Gamification job.
- University friends could collaborate to help one another land the perfect first Gamification job.
In many respects, educational courses are similar enough to this already, offering points and bonus points for good work, but gamifying the whole process of learning could have certainly made my University course much more fun. And what better course to Gamify then a Gamification course?
On August 8th, the Gamification Blog posted that “The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania will host the first ever MBA-course on gamification as it applies to business. The class will be taught by Kevin Werbach, a professor of Legal Studies at the Wharton School, and Dan Hunter, a professor at New York Law School. ”
Whether they are Gamifying the course, I am not sure, but I can be sure that this is a step in the right direction and is a positive start to teaching our children how to harness gaming techniques to make the world a more positive and productive place to live in.
