This campaign has ended.
Let's make school engagingWe're making school more fun and engaging through the use of gamification. This is a crowdfunding campaign to help us raise funds to complete the project. Check out the rewards below and contribute to help revolutionize education.
EngageWe all know a kid or two who's unfocused, unmotivated, undisciplined, and as a result does poorly in school. What's interesting is, that same kid, if provided the right circumstances (i.e. his / her favorite video game), will undergo a remarkable transformation and become highly focused, motivated, and disciplined, and perform extremely well in that setting.
The promise of gamification is to create the same level of engagement provided by video games in any setting, like the workplace or classroom. We've taken elements that video games employ to drive fun and engagement and infused them into schoolwork with the objective of enhancing engagement in school. 
It's Alive!!!At first, we were skeptical about this whole gamification thing. But after creating a simple gamification system and testing it with 6 teachers and 250+ students, we're convinced it works. Take a look at what the kids liked and would improve about what we did:
I liked it because it made me get better handwriting.
I would in prove by doing it more often.
Yes I did like it because it was fun and we got to do a bonus round. By working on it MORE!
I like WSBWMF (the game);
I liked it because it helped me like writing. I would like it even more if we could do it at home :P
It's fun and challenging
I liked it because of the levels and was more funner than last time. And I want to keep doing it.
Story TimeFrom an elementary-level class:
"Normally [student] is unfocused and off-task. He's a very bright kid, but he doesn't use that to his benefit, and usually does pretty poor quality work. Once we started playing the game, though, he became super motivated. He's now spending all of his free time writing stories, reading his assigned book, and doing higher quality work. The class had an assignment to write a sentence with a noun, an adjective, and a verb. He wrote a couple sentences, I gave him some stickers, and then he came back and asked if he could write more. He ended up filling the entire page with a story he had written, and it wasn't' even assigned! His motivation to beat the game has been unbelievable - the best thing about it isn't even that the quality improved, but that he finally found purpose in his work." --Teacher Pilot Tests7 Teachers
3rd, 4th, 6th, 7th, 11th, & 12th grades Math, writing, reading, spelling, vocabulary, science, & class management Cold Hard QuantificationOne of our teachers was having problems getting her students to turn in their assignments (only 23% were turning in all assignments given in a week). She introduced gamification, however, and that very week saw a huge increase in the number of students completing and handing in all their work (up to 63%). We won't be so presumptuous as to claim causation, but the correlation is interesting.
How it WorksStudents earn xp, advance through levels, acquire badges, and eventually beat the game by completing activities chosen by the teacher, such as "finish your warm-up in 5 minutes or less" or "practice your math facts while upside down".
The system we've created is designed to be non-intrusive in a teacher's life. It does not alter curriculum, can be completely student-run, and is made to be printed out so you don't have to buy an iPad for each student. It merely structures work students are already doing. Here's another example:
Class curriculum: In one of our pilot classes, the students have to read for 25 minutes per day. Gamification: To gamify reading, we introduced activities like:
Results of this kind of thinking? We had kids literally ask their teachers if they could please please play the game at home in addition to playing in class. Crazy? Yeah! This is like...Cold Fusion!Whoa there, turbo. Our system has worked very well in the pilot tests we've run but it won't work equally well for everyone. Then again, what does. But let's maintain reasonable expectations.
RewardsYeehaw!
Gamification template - We've done a lot of work to figure out an effective way to gamify education, and have built all that methodology into a template which is very straightforward and easy to use. It is designed to allow you to easily customize / create your own gamifications with xp, levels, badges, etc. Gamifications - We've already used the template to create a few gamifications in math, writing, spelling, vocab, science, and class management. Materials will be sent to contributors in both PDF and PowerPoint file formats along with instructions. *This will work best if you totally own it. The details of what worked in our pilot tests varied from teacher to teacher, so don't be afraid to take the reigns and make this fun for your students. About this CampaignWe've funded the content creation and testing of this project to this point, and have begun to design an online tool to facilitate our gamification methodology. This particular campaign has three objectives:
Discussion |
|
0Days to go (campaign will close Dec. 1st, 2012)
*Project stats updated nightly
Contribution Levels & Rewards:Contribute $2Help make this happen! We'll love you forever!
Contribute $10May the gods of education smile brightly upon your altruistic soul.
Contribute $25Gamification template + 1 game
*Can be donated to any teacher Contribute $50Gamification template + 3 games
*Can be donated to any teacher Contribute $100Gamification template + 10 games
*Can be donated to any teacher Contribute $500Gamification template + ALL games shared through this project
*Can be donated to any teacher Contribute $1,000Gamification template + ALL games shared through this project + We'll hold a video conference with you to talk about gamification, how to implement it, and answer any questions! Any group size welcome. May be used as professional development.
*Can be donated to any teacher or school. Contribute $2,500Gamification template + ALL games shared through this project + We'll travel to you, hold a training and workshop on gamification, and do the initial implementation for you! Again, any group size welcome. May be used as professional development.
*Can be donated to any teacher or school. |
