Im about to train to be a teacher and this idea is gold. Im going to be teaching Computer Science and i am already working on an MMO style skill tree based on the syllabus :D
Rather than awarding points or allowing all students credit for a question in exchange for outstanding achievement of a few, take advantage of those handful of students who understand the material. Since they obviously don't need as much repetitive work to understand the material, allow them to skip homework assignments in exchange for helping other students pass their in-class work before a certain time limit. I know I hated understanding math concepts early on in a class, knowing full well that there was no sense in putting effort into that class session because I'd still have to do the homework that night anyway. If I had a shot at more free time at home, I would have jumped at the chance to help someone else get it.
I'm a kung fu and tai chi instructor that is still in my own training, but will one day be running my own school and classes. I was actually thinking of this video earlier today to help start making plans for how i will conduct my classes when i first start doing it. The problem that martial arts has initially is that kids and most students want to kick ass like Ryu, but fail to realize that getting there takes tons of repetitive work that doesn't seem to kick butt. So i was thinking of experience points and stuff like that would help them have a sense of progress while working to become more profecient. I mean, in a lot of video games, you have to work on fighting skills and leveling up already so it would make a lot of sense that way
People knock on participation trophies, but I'm a nervous wreck who will basically give up and go through the motions when the 100th kick is somehow even worse than the 99th. The "exp" system tells me that even when I'm getting tired and sloppy, at least I'm still kicking
Sorry for being off topic and so incredibly cheesy.... I regularly return to this video to relive one of my most beautiful memories. So the day that episode came out still on the excapist, Flo asked me to watch it with him. Usually I was pushy to sit down and watch extra credits, this time it was him - but that was not too unusual. And once the episode finished, I started talking right away. This episode was amazing and I wanted to get it to my mom, who is a teacher, but doesn't speak english well enough and I started to elaborate, how I could maybe translate... he had to point to the screen and then I cried for 2 hours... I am grateful to the amazing people of Extra Credits (and of course my husband) for this memory. Entering the tiny room and seeing my husband's eyes light up at the reception and seeing our kid smile for the first time now accompany this proposal in the Best Memories Ever Box. This led to so many beautiful things in our lives. Sorry for being so cheesy, but right now I am tearing up again from all the joy and so grateful for the people and all the good things in my life. Thank you, Extra Credits. I'm getting Flo some flowers today!
Personally I think we should all take a page from Egoraptor's sequelitis vid for Megaman. The player, or student, doesn't want to be talked down to like they're an idiot, especially when they know a lot, if not more, about the topic at hand. When you play a game, you hate the tutorial acting like you've never played games before. It's very similar in school. The teacher doesn't need to act like I've never heard of science, they should reward me for knowing more initially.
+CrazyKirby97 Yeah, start out small at first. This doesn't mean assume that they need to be walked through everything, but make it so that they can find it out on their own, and adopt their own use for it rather than telling them what to do with it.
An idea for one of those ARGs, using a programming class as example. Say it's the first day of school. You're giving a presentation to your class on the class rules and procedures when (on purpose) the ActivBoard (we have those at my school, they usually call them Prometheans) starts glitching out. You pretend to go get the IT department and while you're out of the room, a link to a website appears on the screen (the website is the ARG). When you get back, the link disappears so you have an excuse to pretend not to know about it (this can be achieved using a phone app or something). Suppose the link leads to a homemade website that requires the student to fix code in order to unlock secrets (they can fix the code via an FTP server). Sound like a good idea?
This video speaks volumes about the value of making education more fun. I think this video has ideas that absolutely MUST be implemented into real schools, and soon. Seriously, I think I may have actually graduated High School if school had been like this (Bad life choices don't hit you right away, lesson to be learned for anyone reading this) The EXP system is an excellent start, but the achievements bit is what will really get the kids rolling. They'll learn that they need to help each other if they want to get the best possible 'scores', and in general kids will like each other more in such a system. Also, this system will encourage students who don't think they can succeed, and make them realize that "Hey, these other guys are doing so good that I can get bonus points. Maybe, just maybe if I work harder I can catch up just enough" or something like that, you know? It would be great.
This idea is not a new one, but definitely the best one for education. I remember growing up playing math games such as the JumpStart Adventures series of games (My favourite being Mystery Mountain), or logical training games such as The Zoombinis. Hell, I STILL play The Zoombinis sometimes for fun, it still holds up as a great game. The desire to make modern, eventually VR based, educational games is what has motivated me to start learning about game design, coding, art asset creation, and creative writing for storytelling.
As good as this system sounds on paper, I’ve seen it tried, and failed miserably because the teacher simply did not understand the culture of the school she was working at. My junior year chemistry teacher, “Mrs B.” tried to implement a gamification method in her class... and almost immediately the students revolted, pestering her endlessly about “What’s my grade???” There were also lots of students who felt patronized by the gamification system, as if they were bad students for needing their learning to be fun. The system collapsed within the first three weeks and returned to the standard grading scale. Now, my school is pretty unique. It’s an incredibly high performing public prep school that regularly churns out some of the best students in the state. The pressure to do well and get good grades is enormous. And in junior year this pressure is even higher. We were too engrained in this system to be able to comprehend something so fundamentally different. On top of that, the timing was simply awful. Junior year is the year colleges look at for acceptance. We were not willing to risk our not getting into the colleges we wanted for the experimental grading system of a new teacher. The fact that she was new, and female, was also a factor. Our administrators have a history of hiring lots of young, female teachers that end up being very poor teachers. Female teachers can be great and awesome, we have those too, but there was such a history of new teachers coming in and teaching below the rigors of the school that we were automatically suspicious of any new teacher coming in, and most especially female ones. So if you want to implement gamification in schools, here’s what I’d suggest: • Start early. Do it in elementary school or middle school, at the latest freshman year of high school. Students will be more receptive to new methods at that point in time, and they will be more willing to accept risk. On that... • Do not jeopardize your students’ future with your experiments. In other words, Do Not Tangle With Juniors, or whatever the year of “Holy shit, this is the year that decides my future!!” is for you. They’re under huge levels of stress. Don’t add more with a new system that doesn’t perfectly sync up with what colleges will be looking for. • Don’t begin your experiment in your first year. It makes you look like you think Our Way is shit and Your Way is so much better, while you haven’t even tried to learn Our Way. Learn the way things are done before you try changing it. • Don’t patronize your students with your new system. This is hard to avoid, but, know your students, and adjust accordingly. Feed off of their hatred of the system, because they definitely have it, but don’t ever make them feel as if they’re inadequate for the ordinary system.
A leader board. General rule about leader boards: As more players (i.e. students) are added to it, the players rank become increasingly immutable. This can often lead to frustration for players with a lower ranks. Their self value becomes invested in how they compare to others, which can lead to some serious emotional issues. Instead of saying, "This is what you've accomplished so far." It literally says, "These people are better than you." or, "Your better than everyone else."
Jumping between links to find confections as an actual exercise would almost be something to dream of. Seeing how we often in school did things like that when we didn't feel like working.
I've literally started to introduce technology-literacy into the classroom and I'm formulating ways to make the English language more attainable to students of the techno-era and this video has answered so many of my questions as well as made my creative juices flow... I hope that I can create something that is cross-curricular. So thanks for the tips.
This is so encouraging! I started learning to make games for this purpose. Thanks for shining light on this. I hope to make a dent in this area and change the way we teach
Use the Skyrim/WOW/COD-like leveling system for school rewards . There is general XP and there is skill specific XP. Children need to be able to understand that what they do and master counts in certain ways and areas and is not applicable in others. That way they still hone the skills they are inherintly good at and wish to expand their arsenal of skills in order to extract more joy out of life rather than resent their shortcomings and give up completely. For example, on my first playthrough on Skyrim I did the classic "shield and sword, kill all my problems gameplay" because it was easiest for me, trying to play as a mage or thief got me killed a lot because it wasn't my style. Later, when my health and equipment was substantially greater I started experimenting again and could always fall back on my sword and shield when I messed up. That's why you'll sometimes see Healing Tanks in WOW start new charaters investing more skills in Damage roles, or COD players who start with Assault Rifles classes swop to Sniping once they've prestiged. It's because they feel like they've achieved something already, so even if they fail initially they know they're already a master at something. An art student who collected all the art achievements for his Grade or is on a sure track to getting them all might feel that investing his time in a seperate field like accounting would be more rewarding because he has maxed out his vertical achievement and must expand horizontally. That way a passing interest in a different field becomes a passion, because there is a purpose. Like when MMO players reach a level cap and switch factions or races to grow they're knowledge or experince while waitin for the latest expansion. Thoughts?
I think that the leveling idea is along the right track, the addition of personalized targets and examples of famous individuals for each level may help students better equate what they think would be the right level for them, such as Frank Lampard or Julia Gillard. Great video :)
I love this video, I really do, and there's so much to comment about it, I have a few friends working at a social project that has the bare bones of a gamefied schooling, teaching kids how to speak english (I'm from Brazil) and how to dance and play instruments, and this? this is exactly the kind of thing we need, complexity on a subtle level that makes each student want to strive to be better and bring others up with them since when everyone is doing great, each indivudual also gets rewards. I'll link this to them right now and if it interests anyone who happens to read it I'll come back to it to tell you how it goes. Btw the marriege proposal at the end was adorable
the struggle is to keep the state required curriculum on track while following the proposed plan in the video and even then there will be a disparity. looking at education like it is its own issue removes the fact that every thing we do in life is connected. not every one has the same interest and not every one has the same home life circumstances. if they are too distracted by other things no matter what you do you still have the same problem. parents and guardians are the primary educators. they are the one that the children have the most contact with and they are the ones raising the children. (every circumstance is diffrent so there is no universal solution) getting the parents involved in the education process will go a long way in to improving the situation in schools. a loose class structure will work for a well behaved class, but a class with no discipline will abuse the loose structure and discipline does not start in the classroom, it starts at home. I learned some things at home that were never touched on at school. I learned how to cook, to safely handle a knife and a fire arm and the list goes on. there is not enough time in the year or in the years of school for school to be effective in teaching everything that children will need to learn to be successful. the parents and guardians need to do their job in raising their children not pass the job off to the schools.
Computer science and games are the easiest to combine. I once took a class where the final assignment was "Make a Blackjack game." No graphics of course, because we were learning FORTRAN. That was in 1981, and we were using mainframes and teletypewruters to do it. GRIND!
My science teacher (Coolest guy alive) has a sort of experience going. Everyone starts out at level 0. If you get over 80% on a test you get to skip a question or get a hint on the next test, it gives incentive to getting good marks
we came into school and it said HELP in big letters on the field. the teachers told us that there were suspicions of an alien landing in the forest near by. the different classes did different things so I don't know everything that happened but we went to the forest and found a piece of paper with a weird language on it and we had to decode it.
Just to be clear, a kid has to learn motivation by having enough agency that it feels like it matters in their life. Do not forget that video games are also a tool for the escapist that just can't face their actual life anymore, it's the goto for some of the ones that run away. But that just makes me a naysayer, right? Crap.
+noddwyd Your agruments are contradicting your own point. You basically say that children with no agency, will turn to gaming to get said agency. Using parts of game design (gamifiying) in education, gives kids the agency they get from gaming, in school. That's one of the main points why gamifying education is a great way to go.
+noddwyd It's possible that rather than escaping a from a life where they feel a lack of agency, they are attempting to find a life in which they do have that agency. I don't think that the people who "run away" to video games do so out of a genuine preference for the virtual over the real but are simply seeking that which they feel they lack in the real world. But you do point out that a vital part of the implementation of this idea would be the translation of the agency that kids felt in games to a feeling of agency in life.
+noddwyd I really need motivation, no matter what I do or what I want my fate will always be decided by someone else (more likely the ones in power now)
wow really like what you guys doing, I got a new degree and am about to start teaching and I was thinking "man the grading system needs to be changed badly, will try my best to change it" this video gave me a huge leap forward, keep it up guys ;)
I remember learning about the choose your route game on a forum. Some poster told everyone to go to the Wikipedia home page, click the random article button, and then see how quickly we could get from our starting point to the article on Jesus Christ. I think my record was three intermediate links.
This is wiki. Anyone can edit it. Just before class, after everyone else has got their link paths, go edit wiki to have a direct link from start to finish or which greatly shortens the path (just make sure it is still in context)
The most important thing, is not to throw points or hoops at students to jump through, but to make education, not only accessible, but something to value that will become rewarding on a personal level. Gamification may work on a gaming minority who are willing to be patronized, but not on people who simply see no value in confronting a system that they don't feel will reward them long term. We need more people who provide education to value education instead of just points.
I remember having First in Math when I was younger. It was engaging to me and fun. I went from pretty average to understanding integers in third grade. It was just like a video game as I was able to try without the fear of failure and learn from the game's mechanics. In a sense, this reality could be closer than we think.
Some good points. I firmly believe a child needs to discover they are in charge of their education, and the teacher a facilitator. Bottom line though is intrinsic not extrinsic motivation is essential. Also, no matter how well a child does in school, if they do not have the skills to succeed in life (job, family, etc.), education has failed them.
Brilliantly done, and awesome ideas there. If I ever find myself teaching a classroom, I'll definitely assimilate some of it. :) Definitely one of the largest diamonds in this sack of gems called Extra Credit, keep it up! :)
I remember i great quote, i cant remember who its by, but it goes a little something like this: "The very fact students are cheating means they value grades more than learning" This pins my education experience perfectly, a lot of paper work and pretending you know to get a grade. In the end, grades aren't worth the paper their printed on, but like printed money, people place belief and thus value into a system and is essentially worthless.
My school is actually doing something like that level system. Basically, if the class does good enough, we'll eventually get an award, like a field trip or something.
In britain there is a school quality control board called ofsted which has league tables of schools. These league tables could be influenced by the average amount of XP per student in that school. This would help parents to decide which school is best for their children.
when i was in year 5 England years for English we all played a game called mist everybody had a computer and every time you went to a new place you had to describe it in a paragraph its a great exercise for younger children.
Hi I'm Currently studying to become a primary school teacher and the concepts that are stated here are intriguing but I feel they are exaggerated to the affect they will have on students. take for example your grading system whilst it creates a new system for children to aspire to it is none the less still a grading system that students will shift the mindset from one system to another; it may have a positive effect in areas such as learned helplessness the feedback being of a different and more positive nature. However, to have a constant, in a sense score of the entire class will actually reinforce this concept, reinforcing how poorly the student is doing. Rather than having a student do poorly in one assessment and, you are now reinforcing this negative score to the entire class. The student would then also become reliant on the scores and bonuses of the other students in order to increase their own scores rather than doing the work. and by doing this you have redirected their intrinsic motivation to extrinsic, causing a negative impact on further studies. The study stated in the video was done with at a university level, where the motivation has moved to intrinsic as it is their own choice (as a majority) and without conclusive studies of the matter at a lower level of education it is not possible to justify such a plan in the way you have presented.
I love learning code in Codecademy because of the level up system, also I started learning german and french using Duolingo... This is the future of education!!
By showing him the "minimum level" he needs to beat the "boss" of the final test. I've had professors that already do this in college. Perfect homework score can make failing test scores into a passing grade. (or vice-versa if you are me and awesome at tests but homework takes impossibly long to complete) It works.
What I find hilarious about this is at the end of this video, the segment about how information is linked to other information, that's is exactly how my ADHD brain works most of the time! That's why I appear to switch topics on a whim in a conversation!
@ Denny Myers. I also have have ADHD and I to believe this to be true. Take one group of my friends from college. We were talking about Driving sim's.And when I would see a branch point in the main topic to chat about and they would not see it and instead take the next 2-3 minutes making fun of me just because I could see this branch point and they could not. Plus then I would take a moment to explain this branch point and as to why we should talk about it and then go back to our main topic. The teasing would only be worse and longer than it needs to be. In closing Denny. I agree with you wholeheartedly. P.S. Sorry about all the grammar miss steps. English is my worst topic.
Christopher Mills I know what you mean! It's why we are so good at tangents, right? One topic leads to another leads to another leads to another. I actually started analyzing my own thoughts so at least I can usually explain how I arrived at talking about this amazing cat video I saw once when the previous topic was politics. Politics-Political Cat Joke-Funny Cat Video, lol, it's just how my brain works. I loose people sometimes because I make those jumps so quickly in my mind that I forget to fill my audience in on it. It's kind of like driving in multi-lane traffic and forgetting to use my turn signal when switching lanes. I did drive from lane 1 to lane 4, I didn't teleport between the two, I just forgot to let everyone else know that's what I was doing, haha.
finally, definite rewards should be given to kids for getting high levels, maybe if you level up fast enough you don't have to do the rest of the homework for the level you just left, but would get bonus points for doing so. To allow smarter kids to move faster perhaps giving out pretests that if a student did well enough on they would get a giant boost to their exp in that level. (oh and I think that each level should be devoted to a certain concept like exponential equations or fractions.
that is amazing.... now imagine a the role completely detached as an entrepreneur instructing as many students as they chose .... in a 1860s kind of way... only instead of town it could be a benefit of working a company or any niche group
exactly. as a german, when i was around 14, i started to notice how bad south park is in german (later example, but the fish sticks joke makes no sense whatsoever when used with the german "fischstäbchen"). at first, it was tough to follow, but after only a few seasons i didn't need to translate in my head anymore, i simply understood
What an inspirational video, I wish it will look archaic in ten years time :) A personal request - I'd like to share it with my son's teacher, unfortunately, he is French (as most people in France :), how about adding subtitles?
Add this to the emotional state of students from mid, to high school (friggin puberty) along with basic human nature, and you start to see envy and hatred towards those who rank high. The game basically becomes an fps free for all match instead of co-op play. Players start to actively peruse making each other loose and the environment consequentially becomes hostile. I'm pretty sure hostility is not something we want incorporated into education.
Extra Credits Interesting video! I'm currently applying for PhD programs in Education (with a research focus in technology education) and your video brings up some interesting questions to look at (Didn't know James did some research on the side haha). Thanks for the video!
I think it would be really cool to make a game wherein you earn "info links" that relate to things in the curriculum and each one gives you different bonuses
There are a lot of good ideas here. But I don't think the experience system would work unless you change the actual grading system. Students are smart enough to know that not gaining a full 100 XP on a quiz is the same as losing points. The reason this system in games is so motivating is that there is no time limit or "final" score - you can keep on grinding forever. If classes were more like this - just keep practicing until you get it - then it would make a difference.
As a student, I tended to think of my grades two ways - building from the bottom, and having a falling cap. Eventually at the end of the class, they would meet. The problem is that it can be demotivational: "I'm most of the way through the Semester, and I haven't even guaranteed passing yet." and/or "Well, there's no way I can make an A at this point." In this system, you could relearn an area you are having problems with by doing a 'quest' aka extra credit/retake. That would hopefully be encouraging you to spend the time to learn the lesson.
This is totally a way to make nerds popular, make their knowledge benefit everyone in the classroom, everyone would want to be like the nerds so they too can help others get better grades which is the way it should be. Nerd power!
The problem with the 1st topic is grade inflation. What happens to the students who do worse? They can rest easy because they will be leveling up through other people's hard work. A way to prevent this is by providing those bonus's you mentioned to all students who are working instead of everyone in order to promote hard working in the class or else we will have slackers taking advantage of the system.
It still doesn't avoid the main issue of trying to use a numerical grading system. Kids feel judged. They are made to feel inadequate. It is drilled into their heads from a very young age that you are either perfect, or not good enough--with most of them being in the latter category. Honestly, it should either be Pass or Incomplete. Having an Excellent category might be okay too, but an F tells kids that they are failures. Incomplete means they just lack that skill for now.
A horror game like that would be verrry subjective.Some people might not even get scared at all. For a more effective horror game, begin with a bright, inviting place, then try to add subtle hints of something being wrong with the place. Use the Uncanny Valley to great effect here, making the models look kinda like humasn, but not fully like humans. That can spark disturbance that can snowball into paranoia.
TY Greene So true. I'm fairly sure i have no agency involving most things in my life but i never got a mark lower than 78% on my report card. The logic is true though how no motivation = worse grades.
Thanks for the input, i really believe gamification is the solution to many issues that our life encounters, many fields are still needed to be explored, not only in educational, what about office or even architecture itself?
How about monopoly as a tool to get people learning? Properties could be countries/historical figures, and to buy that property you have to do a class presentation. Instead of chance/community chest cards that penalize you in game, you can have the option to make a poster about one of the planets in the solar system. The child who wins the game can have a pizza party or something.
at least in germany kids seem to be much more paced than i was. just hanging around with friends doing nothing gets rarer and rarer - a lot more meaning - sports, orchestra (found also study about that...) they watch TV but look on tablett while being availabe 24/7 but do not even look for that specific chapter in their school book without being told to do so
When I'm doing work, I give myself 10 points every page I write, and start at 100 points per level. This goes up by 10% each time, making me take more notes and work on my maths, because I'm pretty bad at percentages and fractions.
or you could encourage them to have MORE links, by awarding points for bigger amount of links, that need to be explained in a spoken presentation without written notes, that they have to internalize the information, and try to see how many links' information they can learn. so it has like a built in limit of links depending on how much each student remembers. =)
I think the biggest problem with educational games is to make them engaging so that more than just games where you win by giving "correct" answers. In one of my games, I managed to bypass this by designing the gameplay so that it fits the game's "center" (investing in deposits). But it's educational value in itself is problematic..
I agree with all your points, but then again that's not what I was disputing. The 'XP' system can't replace grades. Helping your classmates, or being in an intelligent class won't directly help you get a higher grade, or more 'XP'. As such, there's no way for kids to know what grade they're going to get.
the only problem is when you introduce this to most schools or teaches they will turn it down because it has something to do with videogames which makes me vary mad.
The ''Go from one wikipedia website to the other'' could be based on a game called ''Six degrees of Hitler'' which theorized that you could go from ANY page on wikipedia to the page about Hitler in less than 6 clicks.
I mean, usually above a certain grade, parents stopped hovering. Usually... //still had classmates as a HS senior whose parents would still call the teacher and complain over their kid's failing grade. =/ Higher grade levels (and definitely college) would have an easier time implementing this, at least until something like this is standard and parents are used to it.
Bionic Major - Bionic Commando spin-off. Platforming rts. Jump around, use mechanical arm to put troopers behind cover or on higher platforms. I like that idea.
it's not a video game, but I'm currently in the process of trying to help my drama teacher incorporate Dungeons and Dragons into her classes to help teaching improvisation and acting as the character would.
it doesn't help that instead of being 20 per grade (F=20,D=40,C=60,B=80,A=100)... add that with the thought of school being a game and that would be great.
i am a 12 year old who is a indie game developer who uses c# and when they tried to gamify it it ended up making kids think gamedeveloping is like drawing, they said it is all about being creative when they are very wrong it is more than that if it was you guys would have 1 video.
hmmmmm incredibly interesting topic that I personally haven't really taken interest in if it wasn't for you and CPGGrey. Overall, I think I agree with you on the basic points, because, seriously, almost all educational systems in the world(btw im german) are pretty much dusted in and could reeeaally need an upgrade. Athough, I do not think the EXP would massively increase the motivation. Sure in the beginning they would work, but as soon as people get used to it, it will be pretty much the same.
I appreciate every discussion about how to improve education, but I'm pretty skeptical about some ideas in this video. Numbers do not tell, how students could improve. It is just another ranking system. And everything I didn't need to know for later in school and/or didn't interest me, I forgot about it now. In games, players just accept the world and the rules there, it is fun and doesn't affect my life much. But grades determine how "smart" I am for the society and if I can go to university. In this video it became also very clear, that it is important to motivate and let the students themselves discover things. All the great ideas of science where just put in front of me and I had to accept them, even though I didn't always understand them. That is NOT learning or UNDERSTANDING school subjects, it is copy things into your brain and write then down for the TEACHER. I had some very few amazing teachers, who explained well and took their time, but overall it was always some things the teachers liked and you had to answer how they wanted. So school for me was more about pleasing the teachers and no great discoveries. Well, indirectly it taught you, that you will have to please your boss too, even if he wasn't up to the task or just an idiot. So no real solution to the real problem in this video, but some good ideas in the right direction.
Perhaps make a ladder, but have students cooperating get extra points. Or let groups have a points average, then make random groups and have them progress on the ladder. It would force the smarter students to help the weaker ones because otherwise they'll go down on the ladder. In my experience, cooperation works, but works better when there's some reason to cooperate.
Also: Is there a platform that allows you to set up your own gamification system for your class? For a teacher, things have to be simple, because they got enough things on their mind. Some would spend the time to get into things, others sinply won't but many just don't have the time.
On the subject of grading, the point system alone is fairly pointless. I've experienced it first-hand, and what I've noticed is that it breeds helplessness just like traditional grading, but later in the course. If you know how many points is an A, B, etc., then you know when you can no longer reach that amount of points. When you're nearing the end, you may feel somewhat confident until you realize that you literally cannot get enough points for a B. It's really discouraging.
Wait a minute... I JUST HAD THE GREATEST IDEA FOR A HORROR GAME No cheap scares, no hamfisted darkness and violence. One thing: Simulating a biology exam. Holy fucking shit. I'd shit myself 10 times over.
found a study that says - fear of loss is more motvation than only joy of win. think that gambling is so addictive because choices have much meaning because you really lose what you have earned by working 8 hours a day ok - I predict: a kid from the first or second row gets the most experience points (summarized to an A) teachers here surely know how different pupils are sometimes to grad. it s very difficult to do that as much objective as possible - compare a silent shy girl who never ever answers questions without being asked directly - than the answer is right, on other kid cannot wait till his turn, answers wrong but he knows what is happening in class ... ... PROBLEM: deviding behavior into proper aspects - A/1500 XP does not matter!
By the way, if you are interested in the topic, go read up on Alfie Khon's "From Degrading to De-Grading." It's quite enlightening for those who are unfamiliar with the facts surrounding the subject, and (I'll admit) a little frustrating for those of us who are familiar. Either way, I think everyone should have a go at it at least once.
You introduce it teacher by teacher not by whole schools. If a few teachers work it out then others will try it and the system will spread. Just as the use of certain textbook publishers is spread.
