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As technology continues to improve the world has become a smaller place. Communication across the planet is instantaneous, whilst travel is getting quicker and cheaper. So if you're heading off to a foreign land you might want to learn the local tongue and what better way to do it than in virtual reality (VR), as language app Mondly has now launched MondlyVR for Google Daydream and Cardboard.

MondlyVR allows people to take part in life-like conversations with virtual characters in 30 different languages by combining voice chatbot and speech recognition.. The app offers feedback on pronunciation, suggestions to enrich learners' vocabulary, and interactive scenarios that aim to make learning languages fun and easy.

"We realised the best way to teach languages would be to create an immersive experience that replicates real life scenarios and conversations. VR gives us the best opportunity to do this," Alex Iliescu, CEO of Mondly in a statement. "From our experience, the biggest things that keep people from actually speaking and using new languages are fear and lack of life-like practice. MondlyVR overcomes these barriers and quickly gets learners comfortable and speaking in real life situations. We're filling the conversational gap of traditional language education."

There are five scenarios to tryout on MondlyVR, aiming to cover some of the basic's when travelling to a new country:

Train - Make a new friend on a train to Berlin

Restaurant - Order food in a small bistro in Beijing

Hotel Lobby - Check into a fancy hotel in Paris

Hotel Room - Converse with a hotel bellboy in Tokyo

Taxi - Give directions to a taxi driver in Barcelona

MondlyVR is available now for a discounted price of $4.99 USD to the end of September 2017, after which it'll go up to $7.99.

VRFocus will continue its coverage of Daydream, reporting back with the latest software releases.

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Learn 30+ Languages Using MondlyVR for Google Daydream

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As technology continues to improve the world has become a smaller place. Communication across the planet is instantaneous, whilst travel is getting quicker and cheaper. So if you're heading off to a foreign land you might want to learn the local tongue and what better way to do it than in virtual reality (VR), as language app Mondly has now launched MondlyVR for Google Daydream and Cardboard.

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Introducing student-paced games, a new way to play Kahoot!

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Learn about student-paced Kahoot! games, or challenges, that can be played from anywhere, any time on students' devices.

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Yu-kai Chou: Gamification & Behavioral Design

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What is Gamification?

What is Gamification? This may be an unfamiliar word for many of you. As a leading author and pioneer of the industry (since 2003), I'm here to help you grasp the promise of gamification and clear up some misconceptions in the industry.

Gamification is the craft of deriving all the fun and addicting elements found in games and applying them to real-world or productive activities. This is what I call "Human-Focused Design" as opposed to the "Function-Focused Design." It is a design process that optimizes for the human in the system, as opposed to pure efficiency of the system.

Most systems are "function-focused" designed to get the job done quickly. This is like a factory that assumes that the workers within WILL do their jobs. However, Human-Focused Design remembers that people in the system have feelings, insecurities, and reasons why they want or do not want to do things, and therefore optimizes for their feelings, motivations, and engagement.

The reason we call it gamification is because the gaming industry was the first to master human-focused design. Games have no other purpose than to please the human inside. There are "objectives" in the games, such as killing the dragon or saving the princess, but those are all excuses to simply keep the player happily entertained inside. Since games have spent decades learning how to master motivation and engagement, we are now learning from games, and that is why we call it Gamification.

Games have the amazing ability to keep people engaged for a long time, build relationships and trust between people, and develop their creative potentials.

Unfortunately, many games these days are simply focused on escapism - wasting your life away on something that doesn't improve your own life nor the life of others.

Imagine if there is a truly addicting game, where the more time you spend on it, the more productive you would be. You would be playing all day, enjoying it, and your career would be growing, you would be making more income, having better relationships with your family, creating value for your community, and solving the hardest problems in the world.

That is the goal I strive for and the potential I see that Gamification could fulfill.

What is Gamification in relationship to the Gaming Industry?

Many people think Gamification is a branch of gaming. Upon hearing the term, some people respond with, "Oh I don't play games."

That's a complete misconception on what is gamification all about.

So what is Gamification really? Gamification does not involve games. It is simply absorbing the fun elements in a game (what we call Game Mechanics or Game Design Techniques) into real-world applications. When you see the progress bar on LinkedIn, or when you Tumblr listing out a Leaderboard on the best content, do you think, "Oh I don't play games. This is not for me."? Of course not!

In essence, if you can classify something as a game, it rarely is true Gamification. (Because...how can you gamify...a game? That's like liquefying liquid.)

Isn't Gamification just about adding points and badges to the experience?

A big problem with the Gamification industry is that most people just think about Gamification as adding some points, badges and a leaderboard onto a website.

That's just like how in the old days of Social Media (and even today), many people thought social media marketing was just creating a Twitter profile and Facebook page.

While badges and leaderboards are part of Gamification, it doesn't capture the core essence of Gamification. Gamification is using Game Mechanics and Techniques to engage and motivate people through their Core Drives.
I'm sure you've seen websites that have some type of leaderboard, but no one actually cares about it. Its just there as a gimmick and it does not speak to our Core Drives.
What is Gamification really about? True Gamification starts with the Core Drives, starts with "Why?" and "How?" instead of "What?" and truly drives behaviors and motivates people.
At the end of the day, all games have "game elements" in them, but most games suck, while only a handful of games are actually winners.
Just because you have wings doesn't mean you can fly. Just because you have badges doesn't mean you are appeal to the Core Drives and are actually gamified. What is Gamification if you can't actually motivate your users?

Can Gamification really motivate people?

Yes.

Consider this: Many people feel that kids these days have bad work ethics - they don't want to do their home works, they don't have any discipline, and they don't have any persistence when they encounter challenges.

However, when it comes to playing games, kids have AMAZING work ethics. Many kids wake up secretly behind their parents' back 3AM in the morning, just to play a game and level up their fictional characters.

If you've played RPGs (Role-Playing Games) before, you would know that a lot about leveling up is simply killing the same monsters over and over at the same place for HOURS.

In the "real world," this is often defined as Grunt Work. No one likes to do grunt work. But these kids who have no discipline are sacrificing sleep and risking being grounded to do it.

Why? Because they are excited about bringing their character from level 18 to level 19. Because they want to get that extra +5 strength, and perhaps be able to beat that boss once they reach level 20.

They do it because they see the big picture of WHY they are doing it, and they like the sense of Development and Accomplishment and Pride, as well as Progression and Self Actualization that leveling up gives them. They want something enough that anything that stands in the way, be it grunt work or not, is worth doing, and doing quickly.

So what is Gamification's true potential? Imagine if a company advised their employees not to work late at night, but the work is so interesting and engaging that they all WANT to work late without getting paid more. Wouldn't that be something.

If most gamification techniques are done incorrectly, how can people implement Good Gamification?

In 2012 I published my Gamification Framework called Octalysis, which is an analysis based on an Octagon shape. The premise of it is that, instead of starting gamification off with "game elements" and "game mechanics," one should always start with how she wants her users to "feel."

Octalysis breaks down motivation into 8 Core Drives, including things like Epic Meaning & Calling, Empowerment of Creativity & Feedback, Scarcity & Impatience, etc., and it allows anyone to really create something that is more engaging.

The framework also factors in White Hat vs Black Hat Gamification, Right Brain vs Left Brain Core Drives, as well as the Four Experience Phases of a Player's Journey and Bartle's Four Player Types. If you want to learn what is Gamification really about, this is an extremely helpful tool.

Is Gamification an underground niche phrase, or is there an established industry around it?

While the application of Gamification has been around for decades, the actual term has only come about for a few years. Nevertheless, there are many companies that are built around this theme. Since 2015, my company Octalysis Group have seen a tremendous uptake in companies around the world investing in large amounts to learn about or implement gamification designs. Finally, there are a group of individuals like me, Andrzej Marczeski, and Joris Beerda are passionate about what is gamification and its true essence.

In short, Gamification was relatively niche, but has seen massive growth throughout the world in every industry, much like the term Social Media in the old days.

What is Gamification role in Yu-kai Chou's life?

Due to a recent setback in my life (I can write a separate post about that if there is interest), I started examining what I'm doing with my life, why I work, and what am I passionate about.

I realized, out of all the things that I have some expertise in, I had the most passion and experience in Gamification.

Why? Because growing up, I used to be a heavy gamer. I used to spend a huge amount of my time mastering a game, leveling up, conquering difficult quests, and find allies.

But then in 2003, I quit because I realized none of it was helpful for my real life. It was simply unproductive.

And for the next 10 years, I've been devoting my career into applying the fun of gaming principals into productive things and learning the essentials of what is gamification.

I started a company that helped students play games to develop their professional skills as well as enable companies to recruit better talent through gaming I also personally coached hundreds of professionals and students to turn their life into a game where they are their own Role-Playing characters and their goal is to get experience, level up, find allies, become the strongest player on their server and solve a large problem in this world.

To that effect, I started my Gamification career before the term Gamification became established. As a pioneer in the craft, I am completely passionate in helping companies and individuals make their tasks fun and exciting.

Later on, I became a Regular Lecturer at Stanford University about topics like what is gamification, Octalysis, and Human-Focused. I was also rated a Top 5 Gamification Guru by Leaderboarded.

Octalysis Prime: the ultimate Learning Journey in Gamification

Besides writing my Gamification Book, In 2016, I launched a Kickstarter for the ultimate gamified learning journey called Octalysis Prime. It has over hundreds of gamification learning videos, in a gamified structure.

It's a monthly subscription plan (I have other free vieos elsewhere), but I strongly recommend you checking it out!

Q&A: What is Gamification

If you have other questions about what is gamification and how to use it effectively for your company, feel free to ask in the comment section below. Look forward to talking to you!

For a video walk-through, check out: What is Gamification?
For a more detailed approach to gamification and human-focused design, try Octalysis Prime, the gamified mentorship journey.

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What is Gamification? This may be an unfamiliar word for many of you. As a leading author and pioneer of the industry (since 2003), I'm here to help you grasp the promise of gamification and clear up some misconceptions in the industry.

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Fun is the Future: Mastering Gamification

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Fun is the Future: Mastering Gamification

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Fun is the Future: Mastering Gamification

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Using gamification to learn CPR

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10 objections we always get

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Knewton- Gamification

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ACE, an accounting quiz game built by Singapore Management University(SMU) It's free on Android and iOS

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Accounting Challenge - ACE | School of Accountancy (SMU)

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ACE is a mobile learning app developed by the School of Accountancy. Students enhance their accounting knowledge in a fun way through fast-paced questions and answers.

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Create fun and engaging gamification through kahoot

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what is gamification?

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Gamification for corporate learning

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This is the first in a series of articles about gamification written by Karl Kapp exclusively for Learnnovators. The series starts with a definition of gamification, and further defines two types of gamification. Then it discusses the engagement aspects of gamification, the possibilities of gamification, and some mistakes often made by organizations attempting gamification for the first time.

To understand the potential impact of gamification on the learning and development side of an organization, it's important to establish some definitions. A common language is key to conveying to heads of business units and others how you would like to leverage gamification for learner success.

First, let's look at the definition. For our purposes, the term "gamification" captures the idea that elements of games can be infused into instructional situations within corporate and government environments to provide a positive learning outcome without having to create a full blown learning game.

Gamification has been defined as the "process of using game thinking and mechanics to engage audiences and solve problems" (Zichermann, 2010), "using game techniques to make activities more engaging and fun" (Kim, 2011), and "the use of game design elements in non-game contexts" (Deterding et al., 2011, p. 1). From an instructional context, the most relevant definition is one that combines elements from these definitions and defines gamification as "using game-based mechanics, aesthetics and game thinking to engage people, motivate action, promote learning, and solve problems" (Kapp, 2012, p. 10).

"Gamification" is a broad term that can be further refined into two types, structural gamification and content gamification.
STRUCTURAL GAMIFICATION
"Structural gamification is the application of game-elements to propel a learner through content with no alteration or changes to the content" (Kapp, Blair, & Mesch, 2013, p. 224). The content does not become game-like; only the structure around the content does. A common implementation of this type of gamification adopts the scoring elements of video games, such as points, levels, badges, leaderboards, and achievements, and applies them to an educational context (Nicholson, 2012).

Structural gamification's continual, real-time assessment of progress provides important information to both the learners within the organization and the trainers or supervisors as learners complete portions of content, take quizzes to gauge knowledge acquisition, and move toward prescribed training goals. The continual assessment of progress helps identify strengths and weaknesses.

For example, a corporation employs structural gamification when a learner is assigned content to be learned through a daily quiz-type game for two weeks via email or a mobile app. If the learner answers correctly, they earn points and progress toward earning a digital badge. If the learner answers incorrectly, they are immediately presented with a short instructional piece specifically addressing the question's topic. Questions are repeated at various intervals until the employee demonstrates mastery of the topic. The quiz and instruction process takes 30 to 90 seconds each day, at either the beginning of the day or the end of the day, based on the employee's or employer's decision.

As the employee progresses through the content, the number of questions they have answered correctly is indicated on a leaderboard for the entire company or division to view, enabling them to assess their progress relative to other individuals, or an overall team-based score is made available.
CONTENT GAMIFICATION
"Content gamification is the application of game elements, game mechanics and game thinking to alter content to make it more game-like" (Kapp et al., 2013, p. 237). A common implementation of this type of gamification adds elements, such as story, mystery, and characters, to content to engage the learner. For example, content gamification can be realized by embedding a series of accounting terms and problem into a fantasy narrative or by starting a dialogue with a verbal challenge such as "what do you do if you suspect your manager of embezzling money" instead of a list of objectives.
LEVERAGING TECHNOLOGY FOR GAMIFICATION
The fundamental elements of the two types of gamification, structural or content, are not new to instruction. For example, learners commonly earn "points" for correctly answering a multiple choice compliance test correctly or need to obtain a certain score on a quiz before they can earn a certificate for the e-learning module. While not traditionally called "gamification," the exchange of performance for points, a certificate or an award can certainly be classified as a game-like element. Points are not a "natural" part of learning; they are added to the learning of compliance concepts as a method of motivation and assessment. Points are used to measure learner progress in e-learning and compliance assessments, just as points are used to measure progress in games. Similarly, challenges, stories, and mysteries are routinely used by many trainers and instructional designers to engage learners and provoke their thinking.

What is new is technology's capability to expand and enhance gamification, especially to personalize and track individual learner performance and to provide immediate, actionable feedback. Technology can present students with an immediate response to a question or inquiry, and can provide teachers with data useful in diagnosing student progress. Technology also allows multiple attempts at learning without the social stigma of failure because gamification can be experienced one-on-one between the learning and the gamified environment (if a leaderboard is not present).

A well designed gamification experience can even provide hints, and eventually answers, providing appropriate scaffolding so failure is temporary and fleeting. Gamification can be personalized, so that learners compete against the computer or themselves rather than against fellow employees. When designed properly, "gamification can shorten feedback cycles, give learners low-stakes ways to assess their own capabilities." (Lee & Hammer, 2011, pp. 3-4).
CONCLUSION
Gamification is in its infancy as far as its use within organizations is concerned. The application and use of the concepts of gamification is still relatively new, but already forward thinking organizations are reaping the benefits of both structural and content gamification. Understanding the various types of gamification and the role that technology plays in a successful gamification implementation can go a long way toward helping an organization leverage the benefits of gamification for increased learning and productivity.
REFERENCES
Deterding, S., Khaled, R., Nacke, L. E., & Dixon, D. (2011, May). Gamification: Toward a definition. In Proceedings of CHI 2011 Gamification Workshop, (pp. 1-4). Vancouver, BC, Canada.

Kapp, K. M. (2012). The gamification of learning and instruction: Case-based methods and strategies for training and education. New York, NY: Pfeiffer.

Kapp, K. M., Blair, L., &Mesch, R. (2013). The gamification of learning and instruction fieldbook: Theory into practice. New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons.

Kim, A. J. (2011, March 23). Gamification 101: Designing the player journey [Video file]. Retrieved from Smart Gamification: Designing the Player Journey.

Lee, J. J., & Hammer, J. (2011). Gamification in education: What, how, why bother? Academic Exchange Quarterly,15(2), 1.

Nicholson, S. (2012, June). A user-centered theoretical framework for meaningful gamification. Paper presented at Games+Learning+Society 8.0, Madison, WI.

Zichermann, G. (2010, October 26). Fun is the future: Mastering gamification [Video file]. Retrieved from Fun is the Future: Mastering Gamification.

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GAMIFICATION FOR CORPORATE LEARNING - Learnnovators

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This is the first post of the GAMIFICATION blog series by Karl Kapp for Learnnovators. The series starts with a definition of gamification, and further defines two types of gamification. Then it discusses the engagement aspects of gamification, the possibilities of gamification, and some mistakes often made by organizations attempting gamification for the first time.

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Adopting spinning wheelies for a good ice breaker

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TED VIDEO Jane McGonigal - Gaming can make a better world

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TED VIDEO Jane McGonigal - Gaming can make a better world

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Gaming can make a better world | Jane McGonigal

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interactive historical game gets learners taking on the role of detective to solve a historical mystery.

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Gamification to improve our world: Yu-kai Chou at TEDxLausanne

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Gamification to improve our world: Yu-kai Chou at TEDxLausanne

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Gamification to improve our world: Yu-kai Chou at TEDxLausanne

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Can you get school teachers to adopt an innovation

Try strategies, and see what happens. How many adopters can you get?

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Diffusion Simulation Game: Welcome and Login: Instructional Systems Technology, School of Education, Indiana University Bloomington

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Diffusion Simulation Game was created in the Department of Instructional Systems Technology at Indiana University Bloomington. This Web version was led by Dr. Ted Frick with designers Barbara Ludwig, K. J. Kim and Rui Huang. The DSG is based on a board game originally developed by Dr. Michael Molenda and Patricia Young, and is based on research on diffusion and adoptions of innovations.