Game-based learning and the library
The 2012 Horizon Report, self defined as a comprehensive research venture that identifies and describes emerging technologies likely to have a large impact over the coming five years in education around the globe, fixes in two or three years the adoption of the game-based learning.
Gamification is not just a hot topic in libraries or higher education. The idea of using games to encourage people to engage in some desired behaviors is a much bigger society-wide trend. Available data from gamified websites like Facebook, that has in some way became a game layer built on top of the social relationships, is used to show potential improvements in areas like user engagement, ROI or data quality.
Playing has always been a great facilitator of learning; we are all curious by nature and we like new challenges and situations in which we can demonstrate our abilities to ourselves and to others as we have a psychological predisposition to engage in gaming. The gamificación applied to learning can help students to enjoy most of the proposed activities, and exercise skills and abilities in a more practical way, helping to increase intrinsic motivation. The game enhances learning motivation in carrying out any task, and motivation plays a key role as it boosts directs and keeps the action.
Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire. –William Butler Yeats
And here the question raises. How the game dynamics can be applied to library services? Some blog posts and articles can shed light on this and inspire us to improve the learning experience from our point of view.
The library game is up and running, don’t miss the chance to be a part of it.
About this post
This post was first published on LibTechNotes, a blog from the Library team at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya to share our everyday findings, solutions and inspirations.
