Gamification is gaining an increasing interest, also in the field of instruction and training, thanks to its promise of engaging and motivating users. In a few day from now, I will present at the IEEE iCalt conference in Bejing (http://www.ask4research.info/icalt/2013/), the experience of a gamified short course on promotion of entrepreneurship that we (UniGe ELIOS Lab and CNR-ITD) have designed and executed for Electronic Engineering students (a similar course, with different target students, has been organized also at ESADE Barcelona and at TU Delft).
The short course relied on an extensive use of serious games for business and featured a team competition rewarding students’ gaming and written/oral reporting activities, assigning a cumulative score to define the team ranking for the final day playoff matches.
The course experience was positive, and able to meet the goals in terms of engagement, learning and promotion of interest towards entrepreneurship. The presence of teachers was very important, introducing and explaining topics and giving indications and discussing the experience with students. It is important to balance extrinsic motivation with development of intrinsic motivation, in view of promoting real education.
You can find more details here: F. Bellotti, R. Berta, A. De Gloria, E. Lavagnino, A. Antonaci, F. Dagnino, M. Ott, “A Gamified Short Course for Promoting Entrepreneurship among ICT Engineering Students”, Proceedings of IEEE International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies (ICALT) 2013, Bejing, China, July, 2013.