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Gamification in E-Learning: How It Can Benefit Your Application
Sometimes it is hard to engage users, especially when it comes to learning. The process of learning something is often associated with boredom, dullness, and repetitiveness. To acquire new knowledge or skill, a learner has to be strongly disciplined, patient, and perseverant; and let’s be honest, many lack these qualities.
But what if we turn the learning process into something engaging and fun? What if we make it feel like a game?
That is what gamification in e-Learning is all about. By introducing game elements to your educational app, you will make the learning experience more interactive and exciting while significantly enhancing user retention.
As a company that specializes in e-Learning software development, AnyforSoft wants to elaborate more on the importance of gamification in the e-Learning industry. Keep reading to:
learn what gamification in e-Learning is;
see examples of applications that use gamified elements;
explore the benefits of gamification;
discover best gamification practices, and more.
Without further ado, let’s get started.
What is gamification in e-Learning?
In simple terms, gamification in online learning is adding game-like elements and gaming mechanics to online learning platforms. These game-based elements include:
Achievement badges. Achievement badges are virtual rewards that learners receive for completing specific tasks, milestones, or achievements within your learning system. These gaming elements serve as a visual representation of the learner’s progress, motivating them to finish their online course.
Leadership boards. Introducing leaderboards is a perfect way to gamify e-learning and enhance the learning experience. Leaderboards are game elements that display the rankings of learners based on different metrics (points earned, levels completed, quiz scores, etc.). They introduce healthy competition to your platform, motivating learners to study harder in order to outperform their fellows.
Points. Points are effective game mechanics that increase student engagement and improve the learning experience. Points are awarded to learners for completing activities, answering questions correctly, or achieving specific goals within the e-learning platform. They offer immediate feedback on performance, helping learners analyze their mistakes and improve.
Progress indicators. Progress indicators are interactive elements that display the learner’s progress through training programs, courses, and modules. They give the users a sense of achievement, encouraging them to keep going and finish what they’ve started.
Mini-games. The term “mini-games” is self-explanatory. These interactive activities offer learners a break from traditional e-learning programs while still reinforcing learning objectives. In the “Examples Of Gamification In E-Learning” part, we explain this in more detail.
Quizzes. Quizzes are assessments presented in the form of questions or exercises that test learners' understanding of the course material. This gamified e-learning element helps learners better memorize the material by applying their knowledge. Quizzes also provide feedback on comprehension and identify areas for further improvement.
The primary goal behind eLearning gamification is to make the learning journey more interactive, appealing, and engaging, thus increasing user retention rates.
Gamification of e-Learning has nothing to do with creating an entire video game alongside your online courses. As noted above, it is about introducing game mechanics to your application to turn rather boring learning activities into fun and engaging experiences.
For example, by creating leadership boards, you will introduce healthy competition to your e-Learning course. That will motivate learners to study harder in order to outperform their fellows. You can also add awarding badges to provide learners with a sense of achievement and incentivize hard work.
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