For those of you that don’t know, gamification is a fun and innovative way to reach participants using game-like techniques in non-game contexts like the classroom and onboarding training.

Some might think gamification is a relatively new thing to use in your classroom or onboarding training but the idea’s been around for centuries. According to Founder of Fortech Solutions Kathryn Fortin, Napolean Bonaparte was one of the first leaders to use the idea when he used to award his soldiers with colored ribbons for a job well done, elementary school teachers when they award students for good behavior.

Only difference now is how much more we need it. 

According to a more recent article in Sheqafrica, millenials spend 6-9,000 hrs playingvideo games while they only spend around 2,000 hrs readings books,* and this is exactly where gamification comes into play, no pun intended.

Gamification certified in 2012, Fortin gave a lecture on the subject, so we thought we’d provide some notes on three of the best ways to implement gamification into your training or online classroom.

Experience Points

In role playing games (RPGs) experience points are used to track a players progress throughout the game. Same thing applies when this concept is used in online courses or training modules. There, leaderboards are used where everyone’s progress is shown to one another, so every participant can see and know how they’re doing in comparison to others. This increases competition and makes learning more fun for everyone involved.

Badges

Badges are virtual awards or recognitions, and to get them participants need to reach a certain level of the class or training module. Players can either use virtual currency to buy things from the virtual store or flaunt the number of badges they own to losers that are trailing behind publicly or privately. They are meant to showcase a users achievement or progress and encourage them to keep going.

Feedback Mechanics

Feedback mechanics are what makes the techniques such as the ones mentioned above so successful, as a user of any given online course or training module. Imagine logging in and being greeted by someone congratulating you on a job well done, or awarding you with a badge for achieving a certain level. Those are the types of things that keep participants coming back to the online courses and training.

So as you can see there are numerous ways to implement gamification into your training modules or classrooms. These are just a few. Please let us know if you see anything missing in the comment box below.

*https://sheqafrica.com/using-gamification-to-train-millennials/?platform=hootsuite