Learning2gether Episode 432
On Wednesday December 11, 2019, Macmillan Education hosted Deborah Healey speaking in a pair of free webinars on Gamification in ELT. These were presumably the same webinar held at two different times in order to span time zones and widen the audience. Learning2gether.net attended this event but played no role in its organization.
Participants were able to register for the webinar, for free, here:
https://www.macmillanenglish.com/us/training-events/events-webinars/event/deborah-healey-gamification-2
The above link gives the following information:
“Games have long been part of language teaching methods. Gamification is something else, and teachers can benefit from learning about the elements of games that may be effective in connecting to today’s learners. Very importantly, teachers can develop a way of thinking about teaching and learning that takes a gaming approach and changes potentially passive “students” into active “players” in the classroom environment. As with anything else in education, it’s how the techniques are used that makes a difference. This webinar will give a brief introduction to gamification with some insights from research, and present how teachers might use game elements effectively in their teaching. Suggestions for technology supports will also be offered. A website will provide links to additional resources and specific examples that teachers can use in their own classrooms.”
The Macmillan moderator mentioned that Dr. Deborah had produced a “white paper” on her presentation and gave out this link to Gamifying your classroom: The basics https://drive.google.com/file/d/1VF1TmjztGQK4lJePYgjLzUqkBcjVHn6n/view
That document gives links to 14 useful reference and resource material items and lists the following Key Concepts of gamification (the 5 key concepts and final comment below are all quoted from that document)
Key concepts
- Gamification isn’t about using games; it’s about adding game elements to ordinary classroom activities to create a novel feeling and achieve goals, such as enhanced motivation and engagement
- Teachers already use some game elements. Now we need to add “game thinking” and “players”
- Counting up is more motivating for most learners than counting down (deducting from an initial A+)
- Project-based learning fits very well with gamification: quests, epic challenge, team work
- Gamification has to be done well to work. Too much focus on extrinsic rewards can reduce intrinsic motivation
Final comment: The teacher’s role is to establish the learning environment that is motivating, engaging, and linguistically rich. The teacher needs to build intrinsic motivation, not just extrinsic with points and badges. When learning is motivating, that’s intrinsic motivation. It’s where we want our learners to be. – Dr. Deborah Healey
At the top of that document there are two links. One is to
https://tinyurl.com/2019gamification
This sends us to a shared folder in Google Drive, here
https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/1Bw9Frj8Fee5Vw8beOnkKn6CuxODCyviU
Here we find three additional resource documents. The first one, #3, Healey Gamification Resources A4.pdf, is the one that we were looking at that contained the tiny URL. Here is what else you can find and download from that folder:
The other link at the top of the document mentioned above is to Dr. Deborah’s plenary presentation at the PELLTA conference in Penang in August, 2019:
https://sites.google.com/site/gamificationforelteachers/
Pasting from that link, we find a depth of background information on the topic:
Overview
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Gamification is becoming an increasingly popular concept in teaching. Today’s “digital residents” have grown up with video and computer games, and they look for excitement. The fast pace of many games fits their short attention spans. The concept of “gamification” – using game elements in non-game contexts to motivate and persuade – is moving from marketing to teaching. While games have long been part of a language teacher’s bag of tricks, teachers can benefit from learning about the elements of games that will help us appeal to today’s learners.
The page on Game Mechanics offers a description of several of the game mechanics that could be used in the classroom, while the Games and Gamified Activities page points out ways that game mechanics can be added to specific classroom actions.
The Resources page provides references and links to additional reading, including a download of my brief article on the difference between gamification and game-based learning.
August 2019 AfricaTESOL PPT in PDF format
Handouts and worksheets for April 2019 PELLTA; 2019 Penang worksheets; April 2019 PELLTA PPT (Slideshare)
Handouts and worksheets for 2018 IATEFL presentation; April 2018 IATEFL PPT in PDF format
Handout for 2017 Asia TESOL/TEFLIN presentation (PDF); July 2017 PPT in PDF format  Created by D. Healey; last updated 30 August 2019 |
Finally, here are some screen shots I made from the earlier version of the webinar:
Earlier events
Fri Nov 29 iTDi Monthly Roundup on FB Live – Getting error correction right
Tue 03 Dec 0100 am UTC VSTE Minecraft Monday – Holiday Pixel Art
The day above should be Tue (Monday in Maine) but if I change it now it will break the link. The timeanddate link below is correct
The Minecraft Monday event for Monday, December 2nd 8-9 PM Eastern time is Holiday Pixel Art
Let’s make VSTE Place festive for the season!
Meet at VSTE Place Minecraft world, and create holiday or winter pixel art.
- Find a design online or create your own on graph paper before the meeting. This is much easier than cross stitch!
- If you can share your pattern with a friend, you might get help with your creation!
Basic directions to join VSTE Place, VSTE’s Minecraft world
You must have a computer Minecraft account from https://minecraft.net/en/ to join. There is a one time fee of $26.95.
- Download and install the software.
- Choose multiplayer and add a server: Name VSTE Place IP 69.175.17.26:25565
- Our server is protected. You will need to be whitelisted to enter.
Email Kim Harrison at K4sons@gmail.com from an educational email address with your real name and Minecraft account name.
VOIP in Discord
Discord is a voice and screen sharing application that will run on your computer or mobile device.
- Download and install it for free from https://discordapp.com/
- Create an account. Many of us use the same name for our Discord account as our Minecraft account to keep things simple.
- Our channel is https://discord.gg/nDX4mZv
- It helps us to be able to play Minecraft in one screen and listen via Discord with earbuds or headphones.
Tue 3 Dec 1200 UTC iTDi Teachers’ Room Open Mic session
International Teacher Development Institute (iTDi) posted
Feel free to join us in The Teachers’ Room in December, hosted by Steven Herder & Philip Shigeo Brown 
🙂 🙂
Dec 3rd (Tue) 1200-1300 GMT – What’s on your mind? Open mic session
Link to The Teachers’ Room: https://zoom.us/s/867202173
(Zoom Meeting ID: 867202173)
Find out more: https://itdi.pro/itdihome/the-teachers-room/
Check out previous sessions: https://tinyurl.com/utvjan8
Tue 03 Dec 1600 UTC – Online Students – Who they are? What they look for? What is online learning satisfaction?
TESOL’s Teacher Educator Interest Section (TEIS) is continuing its live webinar series. We begin the series this season on students in online education.
Credentialled TESOL members can download a ppt associated with this presentation here (but I presume the webinar, in Zoom, is free)
A recent Babson Survey Research Group reports that about 33 percent of college students are taking at least one course online. More than 2500 U.S. colleges and universities are offering courses online and Indiana University (IU) is one of them. It has seen a significant upswing in enrollment (130%) between 2013 and 2019. The IU EFL/ESL teaching certificate program has seen a similar spike.
Given the high interest in online education and the increasing number of TESOL online programs, TESOL’s Teacher Educator Interest Section (TEIS) is organizing a webinar on who are the online students, what they are looking for and what gives the students the most satisfaction?
The webinar features as speakers, IU Associate Vice-President and Director of the Office of Online Education, Chris Foley and Associate Director, Sharon Wavle. The webinar will be moderated by Faridah Pawan, TEIS Chair Elect, Professor of EFL/ESL Teacher Education at Indiana University
The details are as follows:
Date and Time: December 3, from 11-12pm EST (same time as New York City)
Location: https://iu.zoom.us/my/fpawan
Recording:
In the recorded TEIS webinar below that took place on Tuesday, Dec. 3, IU Associate Vice-President and Director of the Office of Online Education, Chris Foley and Associate Director, Sharon Wavle discussed and shared information on who online students are; what they look for; and what online learning satisfaction is for them. The webinar was moderated by Faridah Pawan, Professor of EFL/ESL Teacher Education and TEIS Chair Elect.
https://iu.box.com/s/xcwwux2l6y9r6mjhz8w9gmb10oawa6e9
Coming next: In January 2020, the second webinar in the series will feature Venessa Dennen & Jiyae Bong from Florida State University on Cross-Cultural Dialogues and Cultural Differences in Online Conversations.
by Faridah Pawan, TEIS Chair Elect
Indiana University, Bloomington, IN
Sat Dec 7 1500 UK IATEFL Monthly Webinar hosts Maha Hassan – Are you a fair tester
Find out more about Maha’s webinar and register at: www.iatefl.org/events/37
Mon 09 Dec 1200 UTC EVOMC20 Planning and a Minecraft Field Trip
This was announced in our EVO Minecraft Facebook Group
https://www.facebook.com/events/1355052791341411/
Where?
Meet in Discord on the Party-planners channel and OliveTree will guide us
https://discordapp.com/channels/516656532499464202/522783195024850945
We are meeting to plan for our EVOmc session starting around a month from now.
1- A brief tour of two Spawn areas on two public, family friendly Minecraft servers.
2- Decide what needs to be updated and who can help with it.
3- Advertising and invitations.
4- Main Discussion area(s).
5- Any other issued that you have in mind.
If we need to meet again we can agree tentative dates and times.
Learning2gether 