Login to Your Account

Hi,
My name is Eric Nelson. I have been a teacher for almost 25 years, 15 of those have been as a MS/HS science teacher at some of the premier international schools of Asia. The PD at many of them was intensive, as were the opportunities to explore new pedagogy. I had read Daniel Pink’s book Drive and was struggling on how I could create a safe space within my classroom “curriculum” so that I could try out some ideas on agency I now had. By happenstance I was sent a video on “gamification” by my brother. The video was put out by video game design consultants and asked “how come educators were not using this methodology?” So I asked my colleague who led PD about what she knew about “gamification.” She did not know anything other than she had “heard of it.” 2 weeks later the first of many books on this topic appeared on my desk with my name in it. I read those books and more. Gamification would become my pedagogical “safe space” in which to try new things. I found I could design game based solutions to “problems” that I and my colleagues sometimes had with accommodating (within our existing class) changes in content standards, assessment practices, differentiation, and related pedagogical insights. The pace of new ideas sometimes led to “Innovation Fatigue” in many. Gamification allowed me to “play” with new ideas.