Gamification, data and learning

Abstract

Based on his award-winning gamification project 'Strengthening students’ reading comprehension ability (both Chinese and English) through developing children’s literature e-quiz bank on cloud (May. 2013 – June 2016); Quality Education Fund (USD $364,872)', the speaker will illustrate how he made use of the various kinds of data collected in the e-quiz platform to help students learn. Reading is the basis for learning. However, many students have not developed an interest and ability in reading. As a result, they suffer in courses and assignments that require good comprehension ability. Through applying various game mechanics (points, e-badges, levels) into the design of an e-quiz platform called 'Reading Battle', many primary and kindergarten students in Hong Kong, Taiwan, mainland China and the US have been motivated to read a lot and to take many e-quizzes about the books they have read. Many of these students have improved their reading abilities quickly and enjoyably. The top 6 students have read and answered over 300 books (with one read over 400 books) and achieved an average score of 82-97 out of 100. The e-quiz system has essentially helped produced many 'young scholars'. 'Reading Battle' was released in Feb 2014. Over 5,000 students in 48 schools/libraries have used it. Those who have used it a lot have improved not only in their reading ability, but also in their writing ability. The speaker will share how he has made use of data from the system to fine-tune the system design to excite the students and to help them learn effectively. Since 'Reading Battle' has successfully helped many students in various countries/regions to improve their reading ability, the speaker recently obtained a Knowledge Exchange Award from his university. In this talk, the speaker will share his “secret of success” in designing and managing this highly effective learning system for students.