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Gamification is about games, as its name suggests, but that’s not all there is to it. It happens to also be used as an educational tool and, over the last few years, it’s been on the rise as a popular training and learning method.
Gamification is the use of games in eLearning (usually in an LMS) to make training more fun and effective. For example, the game Diner Dash can help restaurant employees build their multitasking abilities.
However, gamification sometimes doesn’t involve playing games at all. It is more accurate to be defined asthe concept of applying game-design thinking to non-game applications.
Therefore, gamification is an eLearning trendbecause it offers a wide range of advantages for learners which help to make the overall eLearning experience more enjoyable and engaging.
Gamification enhances learning because it’s influential, motivational, and practical. It evokes friendly competition and provides an engaging learner experience. Moreover, it encourages learners to progress through the content with the motivation to finish it and win, and finally providing them with a sense of achievement when finishing successfully.
Gamification in eLearning helps create learning experiences that fully engage learners. This way of fun learning gets (and maintains) their attention and motivates them to reach their goal knowing they are going to be rewarded for their efforts. And since they feel positive about the way they’re learning, they are able to effectively absorb that information and memorize it more easily.
Learning goals and objectives are most effectively achieved if your learners are excited about what they are learning. Gamification in eLearning makes learning not only informative but exciting, too. And since it’s not traditional pen-and-paper learning, it is also interactive full of visuals, sound, and colors. In mLearningit’s hard to get bored while finishing a course.
We know the odds are greater for us to remember better something that we’ve done as opposed to something that we’ve read or seen. Well, games enable learning by doing, which gives these eLearners the great benefit of improving their knowledge absorption and boosting their knowledge retention. Gamification does this by blending endorphins and the awareness of real-world benefits.
Gamification-based online courses have a real-life story/narrative throughout the learning journey. They are able to see first-hand how their choices within the game result in either consequences or rewards. Therefore, this journey has challenges, rewards, feedback, and an environment to learn and practice.
This way, they have the chance to explore a topic at length and get a firm grasp on how they might put that knowledge to good use in professional or personal settings.
Regardless of age, adult or child learners, gamification makes the overall eLearning experience much more effective. If learners are having fun and are getting excited about learning, then they are more likely to actually acquire information.
Even complicated subject matters can be absorbed more easily when they are visualized and the learners are actually enjoying the learning process and are actively participating. Sometimes they can learn something new without even knowing. It comes off as a byproduct for which they don’t give much effort to gain. This is often when real learning takes place; when they are focused on doing something they enjoy and stressing over learning something by heart.
Happy gaming & learning!
Dafina Zymeri is passionate about ongoing, self-motivated and self-paced learning. She writes for Kiwi LMS, which is a Learning Management Platform that aims to help restaurant owners train their staff in an easier and more effective way. Moreover, they offer online training courses for different Restaurant services.
