Internet Learning Volume 3, Number 2, Fall 2014 | Page 52

Internet Learning
Video 1. Jane McGonigal’s TED Talk: The game that can give you 10 extra years of life.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfBpsV1Hwqs
Translating Gamification to an Educational
Arena
Perils
As stated above, when schools got
a hold of the concept of using entertainment
to educate, the idea of
edutainment was born and has since received
mixed reviews (Layne, 2011; Schell,
2010; Zichermann, 2011). In part, this is
because some of the worst elements were
the ones that the developers of edutainment
focused most on--teaching of discrete skills
without using proper game mechanics to
make the idea engaging. In a sense, edutainment
became the digitizing of worksheets.
Gamification has the risk of heading down
that path if the focus continues to remain
on the "worst" part of games, that being the
point system and leaderboard (Schell, 2010).
Additionally, because of the point system, it
has been argued that the motivation to participate
will remain extrinsic and intrinsic
motivation will cease to exist due to it never
having been properly developed (Zichermann,
2011).
Additionally, in a recent 2012 survey
conducted by the Pew Internet & American
Life Project on the future of gamification,
experts surveyed brought to the forefront
the insidious nature of gamification when
it is employed as a means to pit individuals
against one another, and suggested that individuals
will learn how to game the system
in order to get the external rewards for their
effort. Other experts pointed out that often,
in gamified systems, individuals who are
playing the game do not realize that information
on their psychological state of play is
being collected as back end data that can later
be used to manipulate them through marketing
schemes and other arenas that serve
to benefit the industry over the consumer.
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