Gamification?

The first time I heard about Gamification I got seduced and saved immediately. So smart. So brilliant. So awesome. And so easy. Unfortunately it wasn't that easy as I thought. Not at all.

My first idea of Gamification.
You have a game which you play and at the same time you benefit lots of skills. Skills and subjects that you have struggled with for years. 

For example, my english.
It's been such a nightmare! 
To pass courses in my youth I had to take private lessons and still didn't get it. I had to do the courses again when I got older, slightly improving. But the day I discovered the MMOPRG game "Dark Age of Camelot" it changed everything. I started to search clues from wikis, collaborate with my new guild mates from all over the world, participated in game forum and more.

But this is not Gamification.
But I saw the light, the potential.
I had to re-think and evaluate once more.
The more I read about gamification, the more I understand I have a long way to go to make it right. I guess I'm not even there yet, but I have a will to see what I can do with gamification.

My second idea of Gamification.
This is were I am at the moment. 
OK, so I have to improve my opinion. 
What if I use a game as a digital tool in my education? What goals can it make/help me to achieve? So I've tried with Minecraft. Awesome tool!
But again, it was much more easy to get my 5yo daughter involved and benefit the way of learning than my students between 16-19. But using a tool as Minecraft you can learn
  • Physics, maths, ICT, language and more
  • Programming: Lua
  • 3D Building Information Modelling, use it as a non-professional tool.
My daughter has been struggling with "left" and "right" for half a year. It took two hours with Minecraft before she understood what's the difference...

My third idea and upcoming step.
I'm not there quite yet. But when I take that step, I guess I'm pretty close to the real gamification. When I start to apply the gaming thinking in my education, when I start to use the game thinking and game mechanics in non-game contexts to engage users in solving problems.

Gamification is used in applications and processes to improve user engagement, return on investment, data quality, timeliness, and learning, and with taking this step I guess I will come pretty close to the goal.

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