Links and Ladders 1

Gamified practice is at the heart of what this community of learners is about and every day there are more and more sources of wisdom to help us, inspire us and give us something new to think about.

A recent article published at ISTE makes a case for five different kinds of virtual worlds that you might use to engage your students. I am a big fan of digital social spaces for all sorts of reasons. The best use, I think, for some of these virtual worlds is to establish and nurture a 24/7 environment for your classroom. Having said that, this is something you'd have to actually want. Moreover, it would have to be in the interests of your students, your curriculum and your longer-term learning objectives. Virtual worlds in-and-of themselves are great as game-like spaces, but I don't know how helpful they are for learning.

On his personal blog, Mark Danger Chen discusses tools that you can use to actually make digital games in your classroom. He writes: "Games are about two things: agency and empathy." He's an engaging writer and the resources he's offering here are brilliant!

My argument is that gamification is more important than games themselves. Maybe you've had the experience of trying a game in class and it didn't quite work? Perhaps all you need to do is remix that game! Here's some tools to make that work with some old school classics.

What are you going to play this weekend?