This book is a field guide on how to implement game-based learning and «gamification» techniques to everyday teaching. It is a survey of best practices aggregated from interviews with experts in the field. Much of the book draws on the author's experiences implementing games with his middle school students.

In this lively and practical book, seasoned educator Jonathan Cassie shines a spotlight on gamification, an instructional approach that’s revolutionizing K–12 education. Games are well known for their ability to inspire persistence. The best ones feature meaningful choices that have lasting consequences, reward experimentation, provide a like-minded community of players, and gently punish failure and encourage risk-taking behavior. Players feel challenged, but not overwhelmed. A gamified lesson bears these same hallmarks. It is explicitly gamelike in its design and fosters perseverance, creativity, and resilience. Students build knowledge through experimentation and then apply what they’ve learned to fuel further exploration at higher levels of understanding. In this book, Cassie covers * What happens to student learning when it is gamified. * Why you might want to gamify instruction for your students. * The process for gamifying both your classroom and your lessons. If you want to see your students engaged, motivated, and excited about learning, join Jonathan Cassie on a journey that will add a powerful new set of ideas and practices to your teaching toolkit. The gamified classroom—an exciting new frontier of 21st century learning—awaits you and your students. Will you answer the call?

Textbooks are symbols of centuries-old education. They're often outdated as soon as they hit students' desks. Acting "by the textbook" implies compliance and a lack of creativity. It's time to ditch those textbooks--and those textbook assumptions about learning In Ditch That Textbook, teacher and blogger Matt Miller encourages educators to throw out meaningless, pedestrian teaching and learning practices. He empowers them to evolve and improve on old, standard, teaching methods. Ditch That Textbook is a support system, toolbox, and manifesto to help educators free their teaching and revolutionize their classrooms.

Go beyond gamification’s badges and leaderboards with the new edition of the book, first published in 2011, that helped transform education. Going far beyond the first edition of The Multiplayer Classroom, forthrightly examining what worked and what didn’t over years of development, here are the tools to design any structured learning experience as a game to engage your students, raise their grades, and ensure their attendance. Suitable for use in the classroom or the boardroom, this book features a reader-friendly style that introduces game concepts and vocabulary in a logical way. Also included are case studies, both past and present, from others teaching in their own multiplayer classrooms around the world. You don't need any experience making games or even playing games to use this book. You don’t even need a computer. Yet, you will join many hundreds of educators who have learned how to create multiplayer games for any age on any subject. Lee Sheldon began his writing career in television as a writer-producer, eventually writing more than 200 shows ranging from Charlie’s Angels (writer) to Edge of Night (head writer) to Star Trek: The Next Generation (writer-producer). Having written and designed more than 40 commercial and applied video games, Lee spearheaded the first full writing for games concentration in North America at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and the second writing concentration at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, where he is now a professor of practice. Lee is a regular lecturer and consultant on game design and writing in the United States and abroad. His most recent commercial game, the award-winning The Lion’s Song, is currently on Steam.

What if going to school captured the thrills and excitement of a theme park? Just imagine what your classroom would be like if the activities inside elicited the same sense of fun and exhilaration as a roller coaster! How much more engaged would your students be if your curriculum were filled with the same mystery and mastery they found in an escape room full of puzzles and surprising twists? School should be fun! In EDrenaline Rush, John Meehan pulls back the curtain on what it takes to create thrilling learning experiences in your classroom. Packed with lesson planning tips, instructional design ideas, and plug-and-play teaching resources, EDrenaline Rush will challenge you to think differently and equip you to push your pedagogy to incredible limits. Create classrooms where students willingly step outside of their comfort zones and boldly dare to attempt the impossible. "Packed with practical tips and great writing that will have you coming back for more of his dynamic, rigorous approach to classroom teaching." --Alexis Wiggins, teacher and author of The Best Class You Never Taught "This is a must-buy and should be a must-implement for anyone who wants to create positive change in their schools." --Michael Matera, teacher and author of eXPlore Like a Pirate "Every classroom can be filled with 'student-centered edrenaline, ' and after reading EDrenaline Rush you will be motivated to make it happen." --Scott Rocco, EdD, Hamilton Township (NJ) School District Superintendent and co-author of 140 Twitter Tips for Educators and Hacking Google for Education "EDrenaline Rush is the ultimate surprise and delight!" --Monica Cornetti, CEO of Sententia Gamification, GamiCon Gamemaster

In Make Learning MAGICAL, educator Tisha Richmond pulls back the curtain to reveal strategies you can use to transform your classroom. Laughter, fun, and gamified experiences can make school a place where students are inspired, empowered, and immersed in learning. The techniques Tisha shares will equip you to put your students center stage.

Technology has increasingly become utilized in classroom settings in order to allow students to enhance their experiences and understanding. Among such technologies that are being implemented into course work are game-based learning programs. Introducing game-based learning into the classroom can help to improve students’ communication and teamwork skills and build more meaningful connections to the subject matter. While this growing field has numerous benefits for education at all levels, it is important to understand and acknowledge the current best practices of gamification and game-based learning and better learn how they are correctly implemented in all areas of education. The Research Anthology on Developments in Gamification and Game-Based Learning is a comprehensive reference source that considers all aspects of gamification and game-based learning in an educational context including the benefits, difficulties, opportunities, and future directions. Covering a wide range of topics including game concepts, mobile learning, educational games, and learning processes, it is an ideal resource for academicians, researchers, curricula developers, instructional designers, technologists, IT specialists, education professionals, administrators, software designers, students, and stakeholders in all levels of education.

Organizations are facing an engagement crisis. Regardless if they are customers, employees, patients, students, citizens, stakeholders, organizations struggle to meaningfully engage their key constituent groups who have a precious and limited resource: their time. Not surprisingly, these stakeholders have developed deflector shields to protect themselves. Only a privileged few organizations are allowed to penetrate the shield, and even less will meaningfully engage. To penetrate the shield, and engage the audience, organizations need an edge. Gamification has emerged as a way to gain that edge and organizations are beginning to see it as a key tool in their digital engagement strategy. While gamification has tremendous potential to break through, most companies will get it wrong. Gartner predicts that by 2014, 80% of current gamified applications will fail to meet business objectives primarily due to poor design. As a trend, gamification is at the peak of the hype cycle; it has been oversold and it is broadly misunderstood. We are heading for the inevitable fall. Too many organizations have been led to believe that gamification is a magic elixir for indoctrinating the masses and manipulating them to do their bidding. These organizations are mistaking people for puppets, and these transparently cynical efforts are doomed to fail. This book goes beyond the hype and focuses on the 20% that are getting it right. We have spoken to hundreds of leaders in organizations around the world about their gamification strategies and we have seen some spectacular successes. The book examines some of these successes and identifies the common characteristics of these initiatives to define the solution space for success. It is a guide written for leaders of gamification initiatives to help them avoid the pitfalls and employ the best practices, to ensure they join the 20% that gets it right. Gamify shows gamification in action: as a powerful approach to engaging and motivating people to achieving their goals, while at the same time achieving organizational objectives. It can be used to motivate people to change behaviors, develop skills, and drive innovation. The sweet spot for gamification objectives is the space where the business objectives and player objectives are aligned. Like two sides of the same coin, player and business goals may outwardly appear different, but they are often the same thing, expressed different ways. The key to gamification success is to engage people on an emotional level and motivating them to achieve their goals.

Learn to design learning experiences that leverage gameplay to increase motivation and engagement, while building classroom community. By the time Lindsey Blass and Cate Tolnai’s paths crossed, both had taken a path from teacher to coach to central/county office roles focused on innovative learning design, all while noticing three trends that extended beyond their classrooms: students who weren’t able to own and connect to their learning experience became disengaged; students and teachers alike had a general fear of failure; and teachers were perplexed at how to design learning experiences that fostered student choice and celebrated failure as an opportunity for iteration. Together, they began to ask … what if? What if we designed learning experiences that leveraged the power of gameplay to create more motivated learners? What if we modeled this type of learning with educators so they could experience the impact firsthand and spread the excitement and innovation in their classrooms? What if learning was fun for both students and teachers? This book: • Includes visual elements that model the theme of engaging in a game with tips, hints and suggestions sprinkled throughout the chapters. • Features a downloadable full-color game board that can be used in tandem with the book. • Provides access to an accompanying website that offers dynamic elements and book study questions. • Features the voices of experts and innovators in the fields of gamification and game-based learning. With a uniquely fun and inviting format, Power Up Your Classroom helps educators implement gamification and game-based learning in their classes to drive student engagement and learning.

"This book is an innovative reference source for the latest academic material on the different approaches and issues faced in integrating games within curriculums to achieve successful and enjoyable learning activities. Highlighting a range of topics such as learning through play, virtual worlds, and educational computer games"--