How to Keep Young Learners Engaged with eLearning?

Interactive Content

In recent years and across different levels of schooling, we have lost the importance of making learning fun. Instead, it has become a chore to kids. In our fast-changing digital world, educational content has also revolutionized. Educators seek to reinstate the fun in learning with the help of professionally created apps or with the gamification, which is poised to augment the way kids learn at home or at school.

What is “gamification”? Most of us think of it as a way of implementing games in content. It is sometimes dismissed as a medium to merely entertain the learner with creative images and animations. So, does gamification involve adding creative templates in eBooks? No!

Gamification is designed to motivate kids to learn and attempt new concepts. Consequently, it promotes performance-based learning among kids, while its primary intent is always motivation. As a concept, gamification presents an exciting challenge for content authors, as they have to create tasks that look like games but are not really and help the learner understand the concept without adding bulk animations. The integration of badges, animations, and points in content helps form a popular and exciting content creation approach for kids that can keep them engaged and motivated to learn more.

Elements that Engage

Gamification elements include personalized profiles and avatars so that learners can create their own lesson versions. Other essential features include chapters that divide concepts, to build learners’ interest and help with retention. Furthermore, specific incentive points, such as earning badges, accumulating points, and meeting deadlines, can also encourage further involvement. Such elements offer a way to earn rewards that can be tangible—which can be carried over outside the course.

The below-mentioned points represent certain elements of gamification that content authors can implement to boost learning and engage learners.

Progression

Usefulness – Learners get motivation and satisfaction from level achievement. Every game task fosters skill development as well. The sense of achievement encourages continued effort and motivates learners to pursue learning. Its examples are:

Points
Certificates
Leveling
Progression bars
Badges

Rewards

Usefulness – Popular game mechanics are fixed and offer variable rewards. Content authors can set rewards at regular sets of intervals or after completion of a task. Such rewards reflect recognition of a learner’s effort, time, and use of skills. Its examples are:

Bonuses
Collectibles
Top-up

Storyline

Usefulness – Various settings can pique a learner’s interest—going on an adventure, winning a competition, etc. This way, content authors can weave the learning experience within a narrative to make the experience rewarding for learners. Its examples are:

Build a narrative
Assessments

Microactivities

Usefulness – A hover animation, screen narration, sound effects—games can provide satisfying moments for the learners. Content authors and publishers should ensure a nuanced environment for learners through subtle animation and a user-friendly screen/navigation experience. Its examples are:

Toggle
SFX
Animated collectibles

How does Gamification change the way kids learn?

Fosters retention: Research has shown that the engagement and retention levels increase for learners if their lessons incorporate gamification techniques. Learners have been known to engage more actively in academic content, which leads to positive learning, which subsequently leads to improved student productivity and skill development. MPS collaborates with publishers and content authors to provide publishing solutions that make content creation easy. These solutions allow publishers and content authors to manage their applications with the help of customizable solutions.
Increases motivation for kids: Kids are generally interested in games, and their motivation is to compete and win. Content authors and publishers should prepare content for curriculum development for kids in an interesting manner that harnesses learners’ interest to foster a positive learning attitude. The gaming environment allows learners to take intellectual risks and adapt to the game. Because the game provides learners with the freedom to fail, they want to try again and again until they succeed. Therefore, the overall result is improved learning outcomes for learners.
Encourages better participation: Learners have to participate in the game-based modules. With gamification, learners can create avatars and take on new roles to move onto different modules or tasks. This flexibility allows for dedicated participation, which enables learners to interact more intensely with the subject matter.
Provides a sense of accomplishment: Learners feel a sense of accomplishment after completing every level of the module, particularly when they are rewarded with various elements of gamification, such as badges, points, and levels. This kind of instant feedback helps learners understand what they should do and how should they proceed, which in turn helps with their engagement and retention.

By incorporating gamification aspects into their lessons, publishers and content authors can make learning fun and engaging for kids. When content authors include unique elements in their content, they provide content enrichment services to kids. The main aim of gamification is to capture the interest of the learners and, at the same time, entertain them while teaching academic concepts.