OL 3500: Gamification in Online Teaching and Learning

This is a course about games and what it means to “gamify” your teaching. It is something of an immersive experience in order to plant you in the language and culture of gaming. The goal is for you to rethink what it would look like if you took a course you have been teaching and re-thought what it would look like if it were “gamified.” Some of these ideas might stick so well that you will want to work on them immediately. Others might seem goofy or too opaque for you to work with. Either way, if you choose to accept the journey of this course, you might not look at online teaching in quite the same way again.

At the conclusion of this course, you should be able to:

• define educational games
• define gamification
• provide rationales for inclusion of an educational game in a given educational lesson
• provide rationales for inclusion of selected gamification techniques in a given educational lesson
• demonstrate the ability to design and include gamification techniques in a given educational situation
• list basic techniques regarding assessment of game-related activities in educational settings

Games and gamification techniques can actively engage your students in course content and activities. This course will prepare you to create your own vision of how to utilize games and gamification techniques, as well as provide you with tools to assist you in realizing your vision.