Week 6: Gamification

5 points if you click this picture:

...and 5 points to you if you click this: http://isleoftune.com/?id=1137097

(disclaimer: you may eventually stop feeling satisfied with getting points. But they're there if you want them.)

So in Week 6 we were introduced to Rebecca Ly, a Mus Ed graduate now doing her masters with Humbo. Her research focuses on the gamification of music education, and so she introduced us to its strengths and weaknesses.

Gamification is essentially using the aspects of games (particularly video games) that make gameplay fun, and placing them elsewhere - in this case, music learning resources. We talked a little bit about the things that are routinely used to gamify things:

• Points for doing things (that when accumulated, can be used to unlock other things)

• Badges for doing things (that when accumulated, can be used to gloat with)

• Puzzles or other literal gameplay (like Rhythm Doctor)

• Competition/ranking

Rebecca and the class quickly agreed that while points and badges could be an amusing incentive, they remain external sources of motivation, which teachers know eventually run dry. Additionally, I feel that badges in particular can end with students seeking to complete the bare minimum for the badge, instead of the minimum for their understanding of the content. This could end with students having somewhat patchy learning experiences specific to badges that may not feel transferrable or useful to them. The entire learning experience would therefore be written off as "just a game" instead of being recognised as a "fun learning experience". I feel as if students are very aware of some adults' derision towards gaming in general and might be sceptical or annoyed to find games in their classroom - "they can't bait us!", etc. For example, my students on prac made a joke out of a Kahoot because they felt they were being babied.

Puzzles and other "literal gameplay" like Guitar Hero is I think a bit easier to stomach because its game design came before the education emphasis. The developers were thinking about making something engaging, before the musical learning. I think given the low level of learning you're going to get from a gamified ed resource, you may as well just give them the actual game and use it as a class-ender that still has a weeny bit of value.

At the end of the day I think I'd prefer to use content that is engaging enough without the hallmarks of gaming but appeals to the students just as much. For example, sequencers and other fun boop-makers:

Ableton's Learning Super Cool Music Thing

Albeton has released a set of resources intended for use alongside the Ableton Push/Ableton Live, but it functions very well on its own as an introduction to sequencers in general. It provides interactive material that students can choose to follow the instructions for or to experiment with, and there aren't any real "limits" set - giving them a chance to keep themselves entertained with 200bpm beats. Even when showing pre-set examples of a drum beat for a given song, the option to play around with all of the mechanics of the drum machine still exist (you can click all the beats on and off and change the speed) even if it isn't the point of that page. This could be a valuable resource alongside something like DM1 as the skills are super duper transferrable across drum machines.

The resources go from "how to make a 4/4 drum beat" to "this is a 19 tone scale" so this is a place for all students of all walks of life to go wild and learn something new. "Where are you up to?/What are you doing?", "what the heck is that?" and "OMG, LISTEN TO THIS" will still be heard throughout the room as they use this resource, for sure.