If there’s one thing most parents worry about, it’s the extent to which technology seems to be rapidly encroaching on their children’s development. The phenomenon of ‘iPad Kids‘ has taken center stage: a term coined to describe the digital symbiosis many children have formed with smart technology, which is a potentially worrying replacement for traditional play.
As technology becomes more integrated into our daily lives, phones and tablets – and by extension, the limitless world of the internet – have become easy pacifiers for busy parents, and compounding the issue is that children lack the capacity to mediate their own time so they don’t spend too long glued to a screen.
It’s a difficult problem, and one thing’s for sure: it’s not going away. There are endless important debates taking place about what should be done about the issue, but in this article, you’ll discover how you can use smart devices for the betterment of your children’s development rather than depriving them of it altogether.
It’s through this sentiment that the world of gamified learning takes precedence – a once clunkily implemented technique now made engaging and intuitive by the very technology that’s under fire.
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What is Gamified Learning?
Gamified learning is exactly what it sounds like: the process of learning via design traditionally found in games. While this article will discuss the utility of tablets, smartphones, and computers for this purpose, traditional pen-and-paper games technically come under this category as well.
Either way, the idea is to integrate educational material with the sorts of activities children do for fun. The best educational games almost completely blur the lines between learning and gaming, with the child mostly forgetting about the learning aspect altogether.
Digital gamified learning started around the early 80s: old computer games like Math Blaster and Typo Attack represented the earliest attempts to use video games to teach. This later evolved as traditional educational companies produced software versions of their physical material.
Gamified learning in its more modern form, though, came about with companies like LeapFrog. LeapFrog has been making tablet-style devices featuring a huge plethora of educational software since the mid-1990s, so ironically, children’s initial experience with this type of platform was as a learning tool.
Of course, the web was also instrumental. As the internet grew, so did the potential for learning resources online. It wasn’t long before the first educational websites came about, and as large organizations like the BBC and major kids’ TV networks got involved, ‘edutainment’ as a concept became a mainstay.
Fast forward to the early 2010s and the inception of the smart device app, and the early versions of what we have today were born: gamified education accessible anywhere and at any time, simplified via the use of a touch screen and integrated with the internet. Both the Apple and Android app stores boast hundreds of educational apps for children and adults alike, and whatever style of game your children like, there are bound to be dozens of options.
The Best Types of Gamified Learning Available Today
With such a huge plethora of options available these days, it’s best to separate them into groups. Here are the main categories you should check into:
Language Learning Apps: One of the most famous gamified learning apps is Duolingo. In many ways, Duolingo is the poster boy for modern gamified learning: it takes the often dull and convoluted grammar and vocab textbooks associated with learning a language and instead, combines all facets of language learning into one fun package.
Duolingo is one of many language learning apps (a couple of other popular options being Memrise and Babble) that takes educational material and implements it within a framework of videogame leveling, scoreboards, and achievements to keep learners motivated to continue. This feature of unlocking the next stage and earning awards hooks users with a clever gameplay loop, holding their attention where other methods feel too much of a mental workout.
Gamified language learning has now become a mainstay, and several studies have proven its efficacy.
Interactive Stories: Interactive stories represent another facet of gamified learning that has taken off in recent years. They take the ideas surrounding educational TV and augment the concept by allowing the viewer to make choices and change elements of the story. Where a child’s attention may be more susceptible to drifting with traditional edutainment, the regular prompts to ‘act’ in these sorts of interactive narratives aims to keep the player consistently engaged.
Platforms like Smart Tales and the official Ceebeebies website have become particularly popular for this type content.
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Digital Versions of Traditional Games: Traditional games, such as tabletop, board, and card games, actually had a lot to teach your kids. Unlike many modern games your children download from the app store and get hooked on, traditional games hone strategic thinking, patience, and many other attributes.
While your kids might resist these sorts of games at first, there are plenty of options for playing them on a tablet or other smart device: this decreases the resistance involved given that they’re using a format they’re already used to. Spider Solitaire is the perfect solo game to whet their appetite, while other two-player games like chess and draughts are also great for the brain. These games are timelessly fun, and although they might not initially think so, the kids are bound to find one they enjoy.
Regular Video Games with Educational Elements: The majority of the suggestions here are for gamified educational content, but you shouldn’t completely discount regular video games. While there are plenty of mindless timewasters out there, there are also a ton of great regular games that can enrich your children’s worldview in the same way that books, films, and other media can.
Titles like Minecraft and Little Big Planet are fantastic creative outlets, offering the player the ability to design and engineer some incredible things – check out these amazing Minecraft worlds people have made and these ingenious community levels from Little Big Planet.
You’ve also got titles from the Legend of Zelda franchise and Valve’s Portal series, which alongside being considered two of the most beloved game brands of all time, showcase mind-bogglingly clever puzzles and brain teasers throughout.
Then, you have plenty of brilliant narrative adventures: the Oxenfree series is a great option for kids of ages eleven and up.
Apps That Teach Skills: There are also plenty of apps that use gamified techniques to teach even if they don’t explicitly set out to. For example, the popular program Scratch teaches kids to use rudimentary coding to create stories, games, and animations that they can share with other students.
There’s also another site called CodeCombat: this online platform has been designed from the ground up to teach the principles of computer science and coding through gamified learning. The whole thing is taught through a fantasy world setting, and they work closely with parents and teachers to integrate traditional learning frameworks.
Virtual and Augmented Reality: Last but not least, we have virtual and augmented reality. Given the expense of purchasing an HMD (head-mounted display), this comprises one of the less common opportunities for gamified learning. Nevertheless, many schools and colleges have actively invested in the technology having seen the potential.
There are a myriad of ways VR and AR can support learning, but rather than listing them all, take a look at Meta’s page on the topic to see the latest ways in which this cutting-edge tech is changing the face of education.
In regards to software you and your children can try out today, consider Google Expeditions, Labster, Tilt Brush, and ENGAGE.
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Getting Your Kids Interested in Gamified Learning
Finally, here are some tips for getting your kids to engage with gamified learning in the first place:
Choose Software Based On Topics They’re Most Interested In: Once your kids get wind that you’re trying to get them to play an educational game, you’re likely fighting an uphill battle. Rather than trying to force something brand new, consider their interests and tailor your suggestions to them.
Participate as a Family: Many of the above games and software allow for more than one player or even the whole family to play; doing more as a family is always a good idea, and your children may be more susceptible to participating if everyone else is.
Remember Their Age: When you’re trying to encourage your kids to try gamified learning, it’s important to remember what stage of development they’re in. The last thing you want to do is present them with something they consider ‘babyish’: if they’re a bit older and more resistant to many of the games above, consider suggesting some of the more mature regular video games. The fact that you’re suggesting a proper video game as a tool for learning will most certainly prick their ears up (and you never know, it might even earn you some brownie points as a ‘cool’ parent!).
Wrapping Up
Today, the world of gamified learning is vast – far larger and more in-depth than the Dorling Kindersley CDs you used to get when you bought an encyclopedia. Hopefully, this article has given you a good idea of what’s out there so that you and your kids can go exploring. Tablets and Smartphones don’t have to be the ‘Big Bad’ of the 21st century: it’s all about how you use them!
This post was submitted by Simone Devonshire.
