Subject: A Web App to Implement Gamification in the Classroom

Authors: David Smith, Adam Smith, and James Smith

Recipient: Y Combinator or K20
Date: April 2, 2016

Summary
Many, if not all, of the students in every stage of the educational system grew up surrounded by
video games. These students have shown that they are willing to spend hours a day playing
games for virtual rewards that have no value in reality. On the other hand, adolescents are not
devoting sufficient time to their own learning - a reward that will eventually result in economic
sustainability. This document does not attempt to address the reasons that motivate a person to
allocate a great portion of his or her time to something devoid of real benefit and ignore the
tasks which are paramount to viability in modern society. To exploit the attractiveness of virtual
games and motivate students to vigorously pursue their studies, the research and voices of
many educators advocate gamification. This document presents a web app that allows
educators to implement gamification in their classrooms.

Background
What are games?
To understand gamification, we must understand games. To understand games, we must define
them. Sadly, no single definition of games fully captures their essence. To keep things, lets say
that games are activities that people willfully do because they are entertaining. This definition
definitely does not apply to every single game, but it is useful because it capture two relevant
details of games:
1. Games are entertaining and people want to do them
2. Games involve willful interaction
Games come in many shapes and sizes. Games can generally be classified into 3 categories:
video games, physical games, and games by name. Video games are games that are simulated
in video devices, like TV screens or computer monitors. Physical games are games that involve
physical things like boards or puzzles. Games by name are activities that we call games mostly
because they are entertaining, i.e. tag. Knowing that games come in many forms is important
because shows us that gamification can be used in many different ways. This gives us the tools
to adjust gamification application to maximize the benefit.

What is gamification?
Gamification is the application of turning undesirable activities into games.
Because games are inherently entertaining, people will want to do them. We can therefore use
gamification to get people to things that they would otherwise not want to do. The most obvious

example is in schools. Never has there been a majority of students that have enjoyed school.
Sadly, this is the world we live in and it is something that we just have to deal with. Gamification,
however, allows us to turn that majority in a minority, by getting kids to do schoolwork under the
mask of games.
Because games involve willful interaction, the encourage future interaction. Gamification cannot
be a long-term solution. At some point, people just have to be professional and do what needs
to be done. But starting this process can be very difficult. Gamification helps us ease people into
this process by allowing people to do it under a more harmless setting. In essence, gamification
is a tutorial that eases people into various settings. Over time, gamification elements can be
stripped away as people learn to do the corresponding activity without thinking much about it. In
the best scenarios, people retain the joy of doing the activity without any gamification elements.

Applications of gamification
The ability of video games to captivate the attention of its audience has been noticed and used
in a variety of fields. The attempt to emulate this retentiveness of users results in gamification enriching products, services, and information systems with game-design elements in order to
positively influence motivation, productivity, and behavior of users (Blohm and Leimeister 203,
p. 1). Most notably in recent years, fitness apps like FitBit track steps and create competitions
between friends. These programs award virtual awards or trophies when one reaches certain
goals. Not only are these approaches innovative, but also extremely effective. NikeFuel made
two million users burn more than 68 bn. calories (Blohm and Leimeister 203, p. 1). However,
The effectiveness of gamification is not limited to fitness app. It has great potential and indeed
has already shown its value in educational environments. Richard Landers, a professor at Old
Dominion University used a gamification system called GradeCraft in his classroom and found
that across those approximately 400 students, 113 (28%!) willingly chose to take optional
multiple choice quizzes (Landers 2010). Gamification is an effective way to keep students
engaged in the material. It is important to note that gamification describes added a game-like
structure around the existing elements of the classroom, as opposed to moving all the teaching
into a game, or Game-based learning.

Project Description
Our gamification website will be an flexible application that meets the educators needs. The site
will support teachers customizing their own classroom to have a variety of features from
economies, perks, quest, and student accounts. A key component to web application will be the
fact that we want this to be open source.

Goals

Create an environment that encourages students to do schoolwork

Relieve strain of encouragement from teachers
Promote long-term interest in students in the subject area
Create an adjustable system that teachers can change for their own needs

Create a firm foundation that can be built upon and can evolve and be worked on by others.

Other Goals

Free to educators
Open Source

Development
During development, we want to bring on educators who use gamification within their
classroom. Our ears will be open to the education world and address the features they are
missing in their current solutions. We also want to perform many usability tests as to make the
system as easy to use by educators as possible.

Interview
We interviewed Scott Hasselwood (@TeachFromHere - https://twitter.com/TeachFromHere). He
is an math teacher who uses gamification in his classroom. He is a Phd. student at the
Oklahoma State University. Scott started by building his own gamification setup through using
google forms and sheets. This worked for a simple solution yet there was low automation and a
large amount of upkeep. Google allowed him to have a free solution that did what he needed.
His second solution was to use rezzly. This had quest and did some more automation for
handing out achievements/badges. Rezzly did not however handle the economy. An underlying
issue we realized that these gamification websites are lacking in design and organization. There
were upsides to rezzly. We talked about how his high school students received the gamification
change. Our discussion lead to good examples of gamification.
Separate from Scotts interview, we have posted a form online to receive feedback from other
educators to better inform our decisions and proposal.

Interview Transcript - Skype

First Solution - Google
Google Forms
Google Spreadsheet
Points
HMWK 1 Points
Youtube Video 3 Points
1 hour week tops
Shortened url (Google Shortened)
Webaddress easy to enter
Phone, iPad, Computer (Students Use)
Problem
Asked, Buy Perks (Struggled)
Second Solution - Rezzly
1 year - Dr. Stansberry
Rezzly.com
Paysite, Some Free Stuff

Kid Account, create accounts

Quests
Requirements
Points
Average Time
Rating
When its due
Category
Sharable
Copy Back in Forth Between Educators
High school Student
Freedom over how they chose to learn
Figured out the economy system
Give economy to buy a perk
No economy
Disabled scheduling
Controlled Behavior
Organize the classroom
Resources
Class craft
Class dojo
Ideas
Google Sign with School
Habitca
Edmodo
Google Classroom
Fitbit platform

References
Says gamification is the wrong response. At least that it is lauded too much
http://chronicle.com.ezproxy.lib.ou.edu/article/The-Looming-Gamification-of/233992
GradeCraft in use at University of Michigan, got $1.88 million grant
http://chronicle.com.ezproxy.lib.ou.edu/blogs/wiredcampus/want-to-make-your-course-gamefula-michigan-professors-tool-could-help/56649
Overview of benefits of gamification
http://chronicle.com.ezproxy.lib.ou.edu/blogs/profhacker/games-in-the-classroom-part-1/35596
Professor got an NSF grant for gamification and made his own website
http://neoacademic.com/2010/10/14/call-for-participants-in-nsf-proposal-to-integrate-socialmedia-in-undergrad-education/
Research Paper on Gamification in learning environments
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com.ezproxy.lib.ou.edu/doi/10.1002/jaal.426/full

Research Paper: definition of gamification and exploration of its applications

Blohm and Leimeister
http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.lib.ou.edu/docview/1412812105/fulltextPDF/4C92F6A5FD9
4468FPQ/1?accountid=12964
Book with 34 articles
http://download.springer.com.ezproxy.lib.ou.edu/static/pdf/666/bok%253A978-3-319-102085.pdf?originUrl=http%3A%2F%2Flink.springer.com%2Fbook%2F10.1007%2F978-3-319-102085&token2=exp=1459638504~acl=%2Fstatic%2Fpdf%2F666%2Fbok%25253A978-3-31910208-5.pdf%3ForiginUrl%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Flink.springer.com%252Fbook
%252F10.1007%252F978-3-319-102085*~hmac=dab6980f66b90759421e26882a1dcb81e61647ebaa7c456cb7f7bf5a6ec58a51