Gamification: Mobile Reading Challenge
Design Pattern Tags : Active learning, Connected learning, Personalisation
Gamification: Mobile Reading Challenge March 2016
The Mobile Reading Challenge encourages students to read the weekly readings and announcements in Blackboard Mobile Learning which can be downloaded onto devices running iOS 6+ operating systems (smartphone or tablet) for free from the Apple Store.
Rationale The Mobile Reading Challenge gives students the opportunity to engage and keep up with reading requirements.
Learners/Context The Mobile Reading Challenge is deployed to encourage first year undergraduate students to engage and keep up with their reading requirements.
Alignment This activity encourages students to read their weekly readings and announcements in Blackboard Mobile Learning.
Instructions/Processes
Prior to Semester:
Develop a weekly reading list
Develop challenging quizzes; forum discussions or blog posts in Blackboard. By default, a Blackboard test will include a grade in the Grade Center calculations. To allow students to take tests as self assessment without impacting on the Grade Center calculations, you need to select Hide Results for this Test
Develop a Google Sheet for students to download and call it “Quest”
In the Google sheet, create column headings to reflect the weekly readings, the weekly activities and announcements
Assign grades or badges for each weekly activity and announcement
In Blackboard, create a Smart View from the Full Grade Centre that contains the score for the latest challenge, the running total and the studentID. After each challenge is completed the Smart View can be downloaded as a spreadsheet and then uploaded to a content area in the BlackBoard course space that is accessible to the students. It could also be imported to a linked Google spreadsheet document that students can view
Decide when to reward students. The threshold for the reward should be set to be attainable by all students. Multiple reward resources could be made available at stages/levels or a single reward resource for reaching a final threshold/level
Rewards could, for instance, include access to past exam papers, practice exams, expert assignment guidance, pre-deadline or assignment appraisal. Students may even be offered a choice of resources from which to select their own reward.
At the beginning of the Semester:
Explain to students the concept of gamification is to encourage them to gain the most points or badges by a certain date in the course
Explain the rewards and how they will enhance student learning and how their knowledge will be scaffold in the course and program for their future employability and lifelong learning
Explain to students that these activities are not graded towards their final mark; however, student completions are added to a class spreadsheet to show individual status and progress and there are rewards for these activities
Ask students to download the Google spreadsheet to collate their rewards
During the Semester
Each week, release an announcement and a weekly reading with a challenging activity with appropriate marks or a badge
Unlock the rewards as each student reaches the threshold (number of points/levels)
Reward students with appropriate marks or badges at various stages of the course
At the end of Semester
Announce the winners and emphasise their achievements towards lifelong learning Conditions/Critical Success Factors Knowledge of required readings
Knowledge of Blackboard Mobile Learning
Knowledge of Blackboard
Knowledge of Gamification
Resources/ Technology Related Patterns
