Gamification Lite in Schoology

It's easy go get into a routine in both physical and digital classrooms, but sometimes all that you need to increase the energy and engagement in the class is just to rethink how you frame a lesson. Recently, I did a gamification of a lesson in Schoology. Gamification means that you are doing something during the learning process - for a student or PD - that has components of games. It can be points and badging or choosing your own adventure. Sometimes the commit to create or implement these lessons is a bit to much. So how can you use some gamification when you either don't have the time or want to just test out the waters?

It's all about framing the lesson. We were in the midst of a Photoshop unit with my students the week before Thanksgiving. Students had been asking me how they could remove things from photos the weeks before so I decided to incorporate those skills with a Thanksgiving theme and frame it in such a way there were gamification qualities. Students were given a mission: save turkeys by camouflaging photos of turkeys with patch and stamp tools. I created a mission, a social component where fellow students "hunted" for the camouflaged birds, and then a vote at the end on who was the best at camouflaging turkeys. Students even earned a gif badge named "Turkey-tastic!" with a roving turkey. The ridiculousness of a turkey gif was a huge hit with my 7th graders.

The set up of a mission takes maybe 1-2 minutes extra of what would be the normal directions:

The Schoology magic in this case really came from my ability to unpublish the folder that had all the images of the turkeys (Step 2) after students had downloaded their assigned image. When it is a game, people want to win and even when playing a video game people use cheat codes or leaked walkthroughs.

I also disabled the Step 5 turkey hunt until the majority of students had uploaded. Again, to keep anyone from trying to be tricky. I LOVE how easy it was to toggle these things on and off for each class. I spent maybe 1-2 minutes turning them off each period so a grand total of 10-15 minutes maybe?

Don't forget your badge! It seems so simple but the kids really do love it. It took me maybe all of 2 minutes to make and assign.



So there you have it, add in some gamification elements into your course in under 20 minutes and watch the students forget they are learning.