# data[].attributes.headline
What is gamification? Difference between gamification, serious games, and games.

# data[].attributes.subject
What is gamification? Difference between gamification, serious games, and games.

# data[].attributes.body
Nowadays, learners are considered to be digital natives since they have grown up with technologies. That is why teachers are looking for new ways of teaching to adapt the teaching process to the preferences and requirements of each student. One of the main goals when trying to find new teaching methods is to implement active learning. Thus, modern pedagogical paradigms and trends in education are using new techniques to increase student's motivation and participation. Gamification is one of these new trends, which consists on including game elements and game thinking in activities that are not games.

Games have some key elements that are essential for gamification: users, challenges / tasks, points, levels, budgets and a ranking of users according to their achievements. However, although they share some common features, games and gamification are not the same. Whereas games are activities for having fun, gamification is used to get participants motivated and engaged in an activity that is not a game itself, for instance, students in the classroom. This way, in a learning environment, the purpose of using gamification is to keep students engaged and motivated in the learning process. In contrast, serious games are games that are not only designed for entertainment but also to achieve a specific goal.

Picture: © 2020 Learning Theories, All Rights Reserved.

# data[].attributes.body
There are many researchers that has stablished some of the elements of gamification. Nevertheless, the ones proposed by Werbach and Hunter (2015) are the most esteemed. These elements are the dynamics (more abstract), the components (more concretes) and between them are the mechanics.

The dynamics has not got a direct influence in the game. They are aspects which the gamificated elements take advantage of. From this, the gamer has more motivation to participate. The researchers distinguish many types of dynamics; for instance: restrictions, emotions, narrative (this one is very important, because students lead different levels to arrive to the final objective), progress and relationships among participants.

The mechanics are the elements that the students use in specific situations and they characterize the game. Werbach and Hunter (2012) establish ten mechanics. These need something that make them real, that is the components.

There are lots of elements and they are used to obtain the main objectives of the game. However, not all of these are always used; there are three that have been used mainly (points, emblem and league tables), but there are fifteen kinds of components recognised by Werbach and Hunter in 2012, such us achievements, avatars, battles, teams…

Picture: © Pyramid of Gamification Elements (Costa et al., 2017; Werbach & Hunter, 2012)

# data[].attributes.body
One of the main problem
s that teachers encounter in the classroom is the lack of engagement or participation because students find the learning process boring. However, one thing that usually helps is rewarding them when they achieve a certain result, which can be easily done by introducing gamification. The use of games in education helps increasing the levels of motivation in students.

It makes sense to use games because they follow a similar pattern as the learning process. When playing a game, the purpose is to achieve something, to win, and in the classroom, the purpose of studying is to acquire knowledge. Games in the classroom, however, should be more focused in improving collaborative skills and teamwork instead of creating a competitive environment.

As a conclusion, even though gamification is not acquiring knowledge directly, it makes it easier for the students, because they learn in an engaging and entertaining context, without being fully conscious of the process.

Picture: Copyright© ViewSonic Corporation 2000-2020.

# data[].attributes.headline
How	to	gamify?	What	 ICT	tools	are	there	available	 for	teachers	to	gamify?

# data[].attributes.subject
How	to	gamify?	What	 ICT	tools	are	there	available	 for	teachers	to	gamify?

# data[].attributes.body
Gamification is using game-like elements into business and marketing strategies. In the case of education is motivating students to learn by using video games elements. Gamification motivates students with features like point systems and badges.

A few ITC tools for teachers would be Socrative, MinecraftEdu, Duolingo etc.

Socrative is one of the most popular game based classroom platforms, it is also one of the most diverse and adaptive of all platforms as it is highly customizable. It is a question-based game.

MinecraftEdu is a special version of the popular game Minecraft designed for the classroom. Over 5,500 teachers all over the world have used MinecraftEdu to teach subjects from STEM to Language to Art.

Duolingo is one of the biggest mobile language learning application in the world with more than 80 million students around the world.