The Mysterious Power of Gamification
[Applause]
i’d like to start this speech off
with a story when i was in elementary
school
i used to hate cleaning my room probably
like a lot of you
i would let my stuff pile up so high
that when i was finally told to clean it
it would be a monumental task that would
take little eight-year-old me
the entire day it was admittedly
really frustrating until i discovered a
trick
to motivate myself i would divide my
room into sections
and each time i cleaned one of those
sections i would give myself 10 minutes
to do whatever i wanted pretty soon i
started cleaning my room more and more
often
all just to relish those 10 minutes of
doing absolutely nothing
and dare i say it it maybe even became
just
just a little bit fun i’m sure many of
you have similar stories to mine
putting chocolate bars between the pages
of a textbook getting an allowance for
doing chores
or even treating yourself with some tv
time after a long essay
well i’m here to tell you that in this
new decade filled with technology and
buzzwords
that concept has a name now it’s called
gamification
and here is how it can turn your life
around
many sources define gamification as the
addition of game elements
to a non-game context but i prefer to
think of it in a different way
to me gamification is at its core
the addition of broken down tasks and
plentiful rewards
to motivate someone to do a task i mean
wouldn’t you be more willing to do your
homework
if you knew that you were going to get
ice cream after every page
that’s an oversimplification of course
if only
right but it does exemplify some of the
basic principles of gamification so
let’s go over the first one
broken down tasks in a video game
you’re not set into the world and told
to immediately defeat the final boss
why is this because you would feel
overwhelmed at the sheer amount of work
that that would take and you definitely
wouldn’t want to play the game
instead games break this daunting task
of beating the game
down into smaller tasks like collect
this item or defeat this mini boss
gamification works in a similar way you
take a big daunting task
and you break it into smaller less
intimidating tasks
the reason why this works is because
each time you complete one of those
smaller tasks
your brain gets just a hint of
satisfaction it lets you keep going to
complete the bigger task
the second reason why video games are so
addictive and why gamification works
is the reward system in a video game as
you play more
you unlock more money which translates
to more power
more status more dopamine more equipment
etc
gamification works in a similar way
again
each time you complete a task you give
yourself some
money now this money isn’t real money of
course
but it could be anything you love to do
for example did you remember to walk the
dog today congratulations
you’ve earned yourself some money or in
this case
10 minutes of tv time i think we are
starting to understand the basic
principles the gamification is built on
but you might be sitting there and
wondering well how can i apply this to
the youth of today
because after all the theme of this
event is the power of education
and of knowledge so sit with me
close your eyes and picture this
imagine a world in which kids
wanted to learn a crazy concept i know
but just think about how that could
change the world there would be no more
dreading getting up into
uh there would be no more dreading
getting up and going to school in the
morning
there’d be no more complaints about this
information is useless or when are we
going to use this
instead kids would want to learn just
for the sake of learning
think about how that could change the
world there’d be scientific
breakthroughs
brilliant innovations charismatic
leaders collaborating on global problems
it sounds like an unrealistic dream i’ll
admit but with gamification
i believe that we can make this world a
reality i mean think about it
kids already play a lot of video games
an average of seven hours per week in
2019
so why not combine what they love with
what they need
programs using gamification incorporate
this kind of learning
into mundane classroom subjects like
foreign languages
history math science coding and pretty
much anything else you can think of
and if you want an example of how
successful this can be
take a look at duolingo duolingo is a
popular app that teaches its users
foreign languages using gamification
does anybody know how many active users
duolingo has
300 million that is over twice the
population
of russia for another example
take a look at i civics i civics is a
popular website
that uses gamification to teach its
users politics and civic responsibility
which are two subjects that are often
overlooked in core classroom curriculums
and it was founded by the former supreme
court justice
sandra day o’connor even minecraft
the biggest best-selling video game of
all time
has released an education edition with
users in over 115
countries because this is the future of
motivation
and of learning i’d like to take a
moment and ask if there are any teachers
educators administrators the like in the
audience today which
of course i’m sure there are see you
over there
uh for those of you i would recommend
implementing some of the things that
i’ve talked about
today if you’re about to assign a
massive assignment
maybe break it down into some smaller
ones over a longer period of time
and give your students little rewards at
the end of each one
i guarantee that they will be feeling
more motivated in no time
but even if you don’t teach kids on the
daily you can still benefit from what
i’m telling you today
the next time that you’re confronted
with a massive overwhelming list of
chores
try breaking some down and giving
yourself a little bit of relaxing time
at the end of each one i guarantee that
you
will be feeling more motivated even
though i just delivered a 10-minute
speech with a lot of statistics
and a lot of science all i’m asking for
is two simple things broken down tasks
and plentiful rewards i’m not advocating
for an entire overhaul of the
educational system
it’s just two simple things that you yes
you in the audience right now can
implement
into your lives to help future
generations so please
do your part and help me make learning
fun
again thank you for coming to my tedx
talk
[Applause]
you