Gamification is a technique used in e-learning to enhance user participation. Gamification techniques are intended to leverage people’s natural desires for socializing, learning, mastery, competition, achievement, status, self-expression, altruism or closure. Gamification strategies use rewards for players who accomplish desired tasks or competition to engage players. Types of rewards include points, achievement badges or levels, the filling of a progress bar or providing the user with virtual currency. Making the rewards for accomplishing tasks visible to other players or providing leaderboards are ways of encouraging players to compete.
Retention also improved when gamification was used in the workplace. In the future, virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) may also become a regular part of gamification in business. These two types of gamification put the user in an entirely different place (VR) or augment their surroundings (AR) to offer just-in-time training simulations and problem-solving situations. Read about ways to include gamification into e-learning programs.
1. Stories
Create a compelling storyline to captivate your users and take them on a journey. Create a story that embeds users in the plot as they tackle each section of the content. This is a great way to create immersive content and keep learners engaged throughout. Incorporating characters or avatars to represent employees can add an extra layer of fun to this.
2. Visual design
Eye-catching visuals and aesthetically pleasing designs can make your elearning more appealing and draw your users in. Combine bright colours and graphics for a visually-stimulating learning experience.
3. Competitions
Who doesn’t love a bit of healthy competition? Allow users to compete against others in their team or anonymous players, or even against themselves to keep motivation levels high. Consider including leaderboards so learners can see how they’re performing against their peers.
4. Challenges
Reward your learners with smaller, more frequent tasks and then ramp up the difficulty level as the session progresses. This will not only help them get into the swing of things, but leave them primed and ready for more difficult, rewarding challenges using what they have learnt along the way.
5. Rewards
Incentivizing your users in the way of rewards such as badges, medals or unlocking new levels can help to boost their motivation and keep them engaged for longer periods of time.
6. Leader Boards
They are dashboards that are used to provide a pictorial view of the overall progress—including against others. The analytics keeps learners connected to the learning journey and aligned to meeting their terminal objectives.
7. Instant Feedback
Providing instant feedback when a learner completes a task or quiz is a great way to keep them focused and engaged as it allows them to track their progress as they move through the different stages of the game.
Will gamification truly help learners learn?
The fact remains that the success of any learning strategy is determined by the effectiveness of its application. Remember, gamification can help create not only extrinsic motivation through rewards and competition, but can also be helpful in providing intrinsic motivators like skill development and autonomy for students.
Use Of An Avatar
An avatar allows employees to place themselves in a game. This type of game can be very helpful when everyone in the company needs to undergo a new training at different levels.
Simulations
As discussed above, gamification using VR and AR are great ways to teach hazardous situations without placing employees in harm’s way. First responders in the early stages of their training can use gamification in this way to make decisions or react to emergencies, but simulations are also effective for training in call centers and engineering and retail.
Task-oriented approach
This type of gamification in eLearning uses a specific, task-oriented approach to teach employees a specific process. This could be something as simple as teaching a new plumber how to hook up a water heater or as complex as developing a new system of resource management.
Gamification in Assessments
For companies that need a quick overview of what their employees know, either in theory or in practice, gamified assessments can provide a snapshot in a low-pressure setting. Some of these applications can be developed in such a way that employees don’t even realize they are being assessed. This is not to be done in a “gotcha” way; rather, managers can use this data to structure relevant future trainings and clarify anything that is widely misunderstood.
Click the link below for more information on integrating your organizations content into gamification software from The Training Arcade:
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