Gamification of learning is not a surrender to indolence

It is almost a consensus in the e-learning industry that at least some kind of gamification learning should be included in any online, digitalised or so-called "intelligent" or "smart" learning products and platforms. Generally, gamification is recognised as an enhancer of engagement and learning outcomes for students, or trainees in a non-school setting.

Some key elements of gamification are immediate feedback (telling you about your latest achievement right now, rather than a week later after quiz), progress design and randomised rewards (a diversity of medals, badges, cumulative points, etc.), and a lot of others to make the learning experience more of fun than pain. They are the behaviour controlling (or nudging, to be softer) methods that are proved to be effective in improving students' engagement to learning activities, and the passing rate and grade.

Not surprisingly, gamification in learning is still doubted or resisted by a fair part of school teachers, not only because it sounds like playing games, but also due to a deep worry that an essential part of education could be missed: Education is not only learning skill points, passing exams and gaining higher marks. Education also addresses that people should learn to overcome difficulties while gaining some resilience and persistence, which form good parts of a better oneself for everybody.

As e-learning designers and developers, we must respect this perspective from school teachers. Personally I totally agree that education is not only for better grade, but also for a better oneself. Is resilience or persistence an essential part of a good personal character? Well maybe not everyone agrees, but I would accept it, with 70-80% of my confidence.

In fact, if you ever played games on computer or smart phone, you cannot forget the hard times when you get stuck at a stage, or defeated by a boss again and again, and the times when you finally made the breakthroughs. You may be in a bad mood for a while, and even worse, you get "addicted" being frustrated by the little devils in the electronic box, but eventually you find you unique way to get through, or get out. That is good or bad depending on how the game is designed to affect you, but a good story from which you gain some experience coping with difficulties.

Likewise, during the gamification of learning, we don't even need to deliberately design the hard times for students. They will make their struggles when they get there. What they need is the fair amount of help: not too little to stop them making effort, and not too fostering to make things too easy. Unlike the bad games, we don't want to break a student's heart, we want to place good support there. That's one of the areas where we must cooperate closely with school teachers in the development of the learning products. And again, a really good e-learning product or platform is one that helps and empowers teachers, not one trying to replace them.

Another issue addressed by school teachers is "discipline".  Personally I would rather call it "reliability". Keeping good behaviors in class is discipline, while refraining from interrupting the learning activities is reliability. Ultimately it is reliability that's a demanded personality. Can we implement the training of reliability in gamification of learning as well? Or do we just design a tool that helps teachers to do the job? They remain open options.