Game Based Learning – The New Approach to eLearning

Sep 22, 2015

Playing comes naturally to humans especially during childhood and young age. Education scientists have found out that teaching through games can be an excellent method of ensuring high learning outcomes among young pupils.

In light of this understanding, many digital learning developers are developing games that are able to convey specific learning outcomes. This technique proves especially useful in case of young audience profiles. The cost and time involved in its development is typically high.

So what can be the optimum solution in case of matured audiences and advanced educational content? The solution is gamification. There are distinct factors that make gamification different from game-based learning.

  • The gaming element can be added to an existing eLearning module in the form of a set of rules and reward points.
  • It is usually easier and cheaper compared to game-based learning.
  • May not require changes in content while game-features can be applied to the LMS itself.

Any quality digital learning solution contains 2D/3D animations with amazing imagery and an English voice over to help pupils learn easily. Yet there are times when it can get too technical and less engaging. In such scenarios, gamification can be an excellent means of ensuring learner interest and engagement.

Gamification is about adding gaming principles to an existing learning context. These can be in the form of new rules, reward points and achievement levels. The benefits range from higher engagement levels and improved retention to better application and practice of skills. The key advantage of gamification is that it can be applied to all genres of eLearning even including technical content such as engineering education.

There are certain parameters that define a successful gamification eLearning strategy:

Simplistic approach: The rules and policies applied via LMS should not be so stringent that they take away the key learning objective. The explanation and overall strategy must be kept simple.

Focus on learning outcome: It must be kept in mind that gamification is just an enhancement to ensure that leaner is able to acquire the intended skill. Therefore all its dynamics must tie to the overall learning outcomes your learner intends to achieve.

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