In my last blog post, I talked about game-based learning and how to bring it to classrooms at scale. This time I wanted to differentiate gamification and game-based learning, and focus a little more deeply on why they are valuable in education.

In Part I of this post, I talked about the lessons we learned as we brought gamified learning to classrooms at scale, providing support for teachers and making it easier for them to use games in class. This time I’ll cover the other half of what we learned in doing this: the many interesting and fun ways to engage learners.

Research is discovering the impacts of game-based learning on learner outcomes, and finding correlating benefits. Teachers who have employed games in some capacity in their classrooms have seen how engaged and excited the learners are. The love of learning emerges. And of course, one of the core attributes of their learners – Generation Z, who are all digital natives – is that gaming is core.

Have you ever had a great meal at a restaurant, but the service was so horrible that your entire experience was poor? This simple example illustrates the importance of end to end user experiences. It is not enough to create an excellent product; companies must strive for excellence everywhere users interact with them.

We’ve all experienced, even relished, those times when we were working on something and we were so consumed with what we were doing that we were not even aware of the time, or how much has passed. We were fully absorbed. We were at the top of our game. Things seemed effortless. And we were happy.

This is the second in a series of posts from Andy Cargile, Senior Director, User Experience at SMART. Andy leads a team of user experience designers and researchers who spend hundreds of hours in classrooms every year, delving into teaching, learning, and how technology can enhance them. In this series, Andy shares some of the key insights his team has uncovered, and what they mean for education. Find his first post here. 

This is the first in a series of posts from Andy Cargile, Senior Director, User Experience at SMART. Andy leads a team of user experience designers and researchers who spend hundreds of hours in classrooms every year, delving into teaching, learning, and how technology can enhance them. In this series, Andy shares some of the key insights his team has uncovered, and what they mean for education.

I’ve been noodling something since I recently undertook an unschooling trip with my family to Costa Rica and started working for SMART Technologies. It’s an intriguing insight on unschooling, and a telling insight about our digital native children.