9 Fresh Gamification Ideas For eLearning

August 8, 2022

Aarav Batra
Aarav Batra

Don’t you hate it when students don’t pay attention in classes? This is further magnified by the rise of online classes and virtual workshops. In this article our guest blogger covers everything you need to know about gamification and suggest fun gamification ideas for elearning.

 

Why Is Gamification Important For e-Learning?

While there are many ways to increase student motivation, gamification quickly is becoming quite popular with students and trainers alike. Gamification is when you use elements that are commonly found in video games and weave it into your online resources. 

Implementing gamification into online learning increases motivation, boosts engagement & decreases boredom.

Gamification survey results

          Source : https://www.talentlms.com/blog/gamification-survey-results/

Not only will you feel less frustrated, but so will your students.

 

Gamification Elements in elearning

Elearning gamification elements

These are the key essentials that should be a part of gamification in your Learning Management System (LMS). Some of these features might need to be custom-built with an LMS software development company. Partnering with such a company ensures that your LMS is not only functional but also engaging and tailored to your specific educational needs. This collaboration can significantly enhance the user experience, making learning both effective and enjoyable.

Point/Coins

Point systems can be the heart and soul of a video game, and it is usually what makes games competitive and worth playing. If you give out points to students or workshop attendees, it will encourage them to pay better attention. Another big aspect of games is coins. Coins are used to buy things and make the experience better. 

Rewards

What is the point of giving out coins if you can’t use them? Just like in games, why not give your students an option to use their coins to get rewards, such as gift vouchers. Not only that, it motivates students to try harder because it gives them a goal.

Leaderboards

When a leaderboard is involved, everyone wants to be number one. Using the point system from earlier, you can create a competitive spirit between your students or attendees and give them recognition for their efforts. In addition, there are bragging rights up for offer! 

Animation

According to the Brain Balance center, teens and young adults have an average attention span of 32-48 minutes and will be even less if your event app is plain and boring. With some interactive animation, that can easily change. It can be anything from the words sliding in when you scroll down, to a plane carrying a banner when you get a quiz question right. 

Penalties

This may not seem like an important and successful element in your event app, but according to Verywellmind, penalties such as point deductions hit harder than points earned. After all, no one wants to be the one that didn’t put in the effort. What kind of game doesn’t have a way to lose points?

 

9 ELearning Games Examples & Ideas

1. Video Challenge

Video Challenge for elearning

Everyone’s probably written an essay about a topic, but what about making a video?

Challenge your students to create an animated video about a topic, with a voiceover explaining what is in the video. Give out rewards for the best videos.

This can be a much more entertaining task for learners compared to writing essays and can deepen their understanding of the topic without making them feel bored and uninterested.

2. Daily Wordle

Recently, the “Wordle” craze spread across the world and was known for its simplicity and easiness of sharing scores.

Why not treat your attendees to the same fun?

With a topic-based daily crossword, you can get attendees to pay attention during classes or workshops, and give them the satisfaction of doing so!

Allow them to create streaks over consecutive days that they complete the crossword and compare their scores with their fellow participants. 

3. Quizlet Live

quizlet live gamification idea for elearning

Let’s face it. Students LOVE quizzes and the competitive spirit that they offer.

Why not combine it with teamwork to create a competitive atmosphere where students have to work as a team to get questions right and win points.

A question or definition will come up on a shared screen, and one of the team members will have the answer; if they don’t know what the answer is, communicate with your team members to help them out. The first team to get through all their questions wins!

4. Taboo

taboo - elearning gamification idea

This word game will test how well participants have studied.

Play it just like the classic word game, except using words from a topic.

See if your attendees can give effective clues to the opposing team without saying any of the tabooed words. The more words that your opponents can guess, the more points you get. For example, if the word is Africa – you won’t be able to say the words “continent, desert, hot,” etc. . The original game has its own rules, but you can put your own twist on the game and dictate the scoring however you like!

5. Hangman

Hangman elearning gamification idea

Hangman is a classic mobile game that you can play with teams of 2-3, and makes you think hard.

If you don’t pay attention and don’t have a good vocabulary, this game will be a challenge!

Depending on how many lives you have left, as well as how long it took to get the word, teams are given points. The team with the most points wins. As a bonus, you don’t get all the noise and fuss of some other word games!

6. Who wants to be the millionare expert?

elearning group quiz game

Just like the 1999 game show, this game tests how well you know your topic.

Teams of less than 6 players get event-based questions.

The first question can be worth a certain number of points, and if they get it right, then they can choose to keep the points or answer a harder question for double the amount.

The questions progressively get harder.

If the team chooses to keep the points, then they are awarded the points they earned (see gamification elements), and if they don’t answer the question correctly, they get nothing!

7. Heads Up!

Heads up! - POpular gamificationn ideas for elearning

This version of charades made popular by Ellen DeGeneres in her game show can be really fun and entertaining in classrooms. I can be played both online and offline. All you have to do is make images that you send to players. Send the photo over chat while others come live and try to guess.

8. Classcraft

Everyone – especially children love role-playing games (RPG). So why not bring it to the classroom ?

In Classcraft, teachers can create a virtual world where students assume the role of characters and participate in quests and battles to reinforce the material they’re learning in class.

One of the key benefits of Classcraft is its ability to increase student engagement and motivation.

8. Scavenger hunt

Exploring and discovering new places & things is a timeless pleasure for humankind – and this game brings that joy to people of all ages!

Create quests that can be both offline-online using a mobile event app. Some tasks to include are

  • Upload a photo of a particular location or person
  • Scan a QR code to unreval a clue
  • Q&A tasks with multiple rounds of trivia
  • GPS check-in

9. Invent a solution

This game is an incredible way to help your students use problem-solving skills and enhance their creativity. It’s sure to get them thinking outside the box and bring them new, exciting ideas!

A few creatives examples are

  • Create a real-life object with lego blocks
  • Marshmallow challenge – build tallest tower with sticks and marshmallows
  • Play Minefield online

After reading this article, you should now be able to implement a gamification system into your teaching or workshops. You don’t even have to apply all of them; it can just be throwing in a quiz here and there, or creating a class leaderboard.

Not only will you get better results from your students, but you will feel more enthusiastic at the end of the day! 

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you gamify an elearning course?

A key component of gamification in elearning is to integrate well known games with the course content. Some of the examples listed above include Taboo, Trivia, Hangman, Puzzles. The goal is to ensure your students don’t spend too much time learning the rules of the games. It could be useful to poll your students to check which game they are most familiar with. 

What are some examples of gamification?

Besides the ideas above you can see some other examples of gamification for college students and gamification for employees  

What are gamification ideas?

Gamification is inspired from the traditional games concept of entertainment while competing. It incorporates game-like components to motivate students or employees for primarily learning or engagement purposes.

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