Rewards can manifest itself to students and players in a variety of ways. Badges, achievements, experience points, and even items on certain task completions. With this, players get a feeling of accomplishment and receive type of immediate feedback that induces positive emotions that motivate students to want to progress and master content. However, players are also expected to fail and are also expected to feel anxiety, Gee (2010) liked to call these moments pleasantly frustrating. With each failure, players learn from their mistakes and with each mistake, players gradually master to content that their own pace. As players obtain more and more rewards in any shape or form, new game mechanics and higher complexity present themselves as new challenging hurdles. As players progress through the game and overcome these increasingly difficult obstacles, rewards have a profound effect on players social status and this increase in social status promotes a scenario where they are always being motivated to move to the next level.

For more information, see Domínguez, Adrián et al. (2013) Gamifying learning experiences: Practical implications and outcomes

Games provide a relatively safe environment that allows for the experimentation and exploration of any subject. Due to this safe environment of players experiencing less anxiety and lower affective filers, acquisition of knowledge can better be facilitated (Krashen, 1982). With this in mind, videogames can be viewed as an ideal learning environment because failures within the virtual world have little negative consequences or impact in the real world. Without these social inhibitors, players are free to practice, try new things, make mistakes, and remedy mistakes.


For more information, see Hitosugi et al. Digital game–based learning (DGBL) in the L2 classroom: The impact of the UN’s off-the-shelf videogame, Food Force, on learner affect and vocabulary retention

Games with a central theme can be introduced to students as a gateway into another world allowing for exploration and interaction. Historical game such as Civilization series exposes players to major historical figures, re-enactments of key battles, roleplays, and negotiations. Findings have shown that this type of media has the ability to engage students that exceeds traditional teaching methods and is an effective tool for developing content knowledge and increasing retention.  


For more information, see Steinkuehler & Squire. Videogames and Learning

It has been found that providing students with choice can increase self-efficacy, enjoyment, intrinsic motivation, control, and task persistence. Games can be viewed as systems where meaning only emerges from the experiences of the players as they make choices within a game. It could be possible that opportunities to exercise control may be required to foster self0efficacy beliefs. With opportunities for choice, players can adapt the in game character to better reflect their own beliefs projecting their real life self into their virtual avatar creating a much more immersive world. Which choice, plays will also be able to see the outcomes of their own choice and how it affects the world and characters that exist within the game. Choice can also give players a chance to experience the world in someone else’s shoes gaining insight of different perspectives and being able to weigh these views against their own beliefs.


For more information, see Turkay et al. (2015) Toward Understanding the Potential of Games for Learning: Learning Theory, Game Design Characteristics, and Situating Video Games in Classrooms

In World of Warcraft, players take on the role of heroes, choosing characters such as elves, dwarves and orcs, as they fight against enemies, forge alliances through guilds to coordinate attacks, and foray throughout the world of Azeroth. The players advance to higher levels by earning experience points by killing monsters, exploring new places and completing quests. Adopting this popular MMORPG in the “World of Classroom”, instead of earning grades, students earn experience points. Instead of doing assignments, they go on quests. Instead of using paper, they use Moodle. The students move at their own pace through the learning modules, and each student's experience points overall and by assignment are recorded and used for assessment.

MinecraftEdu is “a school-ready remix of the original smash hit game Minecraft” (MinecraftEdu, 2015). Minecraft Education Edition - Bring Minecraft to the Classroom! MinecraftEdu has a simple goal– students create structures in a 3D environment (think of it as virtual Lego). Minecraft differs from other video games not only in its simple, pixilated appearance (the graphics are not particularly flashy), but because the objective is to design and construct things, rather than destroy things. What makes Minecraft particularly suited to educational use is its open environment – it’s a “sandbox” or “free-roam” game. It can be used as a tool to engage and teach numerous skills, including building, designing, communicating and programming, and across a range of subjects, such as history (The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World - recreating in Minecraft), math, biology and physics. The (Minecraft) sky’s the limit!

Classcraft is an online role-playing game that transforms any classroom into a role-playing game (gamification of a classroom).  Students pick a 'role' or 'class'  from one of three choices - Warriors, Mages and Healers, and they level up through good classroom behavior. As they level up they gain awesome powers like being able to eat in class, leaving the classroom for two minutes and bring notes during an exam. This can be customized by the teacher, however the end goal is that through the game play the students can gain these abilities that normally they wouldn’t be allowed to get in real life. Therefore they become “superheroes in real life”. The flip side to this is that students can lose points and “die” in the game if they do poorly or disrupt the class, which translate to horribly consequences such as Saturday morning detention. These powers are not gained or lost individually, but as a team, meaning that misbehaving kids hurt the whole group. Students have to work as a team and their teammates must help and heal each other, thereby learning teamwork while getting good grades etc.

The use of 3-D virtual worlds in education has increased in recent years. In particular, the virtual world of Second Life, which launched in 2003, has increasingly been used by educators to teach students, conduct class, and to explore the unique opportunities virtual worlds may present for teaching and learning.Second Life is an online, three-dimensional virtual environment in which users take on the form of an avatar, a representation of the user, and then interact with other users in the synthetic environment. Users are encouraged to truly live a second life by purchasing clothing, constructing buildings and other items such as cars and landscape, and by meeting and visiting new people. Second Life is not a game; there are no objectives to achieve or levels to complete. Instead, it is a virtual world accessible through the Internet which presents a 3D, virtual platform in which individuals and groups can meet to create and collaborate.  Educators have been drawn to 3D virtual worlds for a number of reasons. As 3D immersive worlds provide opportunities for synchronous communication and collaboration, a prevailing reason to investigate 3D worlds is their use as a tool for distance learning. Educators are also looking to virtual worlds for their potential to foster experiential and constructivist learning. Constructivist learning holds that knowledge is constructed by learners rather than transmitted and that discussion encourages negotiation and collaboration among learners. Research indicated that 3D virtual environments could potentially provide safe environments whereby students could learn by doing.

Class Dojo is an online classroom-management platform that helps teachers record and track their students' behaviors in real time while also giving students instant feedback. With one touch of a smartphone or computer button, teachers can instantly award (or take away) points and badges based on student’s behavior or participation; it gives students and parents access to a profile page that is updated in real-time to display how the student is doing in class, and what badges/points she/he earned in class (e.g., for helping other students, for showing great creativity). During class, Class Dojo’s reward system provides instant visual notifications for students to see (‘Well done Ash! +1 for helping others!’). This tool is based on a whole host of game mechanics: think level-ups, badges and achievements to unlock, in-classroom games, avatars (cute and customizable!) and leaderboards. These “game-like” notifications make students aware of their achievement, recognize the correct choices they made, and reinforce their understanding of the behaviors/skills necessary to succeed in class. The neurological response that a student gets from successfully meeting challenges in class, makes it all the more likely that he will develop the intrinsic motivation to persevere in future situations.

In World of Warcraft, players take on the role of heroes, choosing characters such as elves, dwarves and orcs, as they fight against enemies, forge alliances through guilds to coordinate attacks, and foray throughout the world of Azeroth. The players advance to higher levels by earning experience points by killing monsters, exploring new places and completing quests. Adopting this popular MMORPG in the “World of Classroom”, instead of earning grades, students earn experience points. Instead of doing assignments, they go on quests. Instead of using paper, they use Moodle. The students move at their own pace through the learning modules, and each student's experience points overall and by assignment are recorded and used for assessment.

MinecraftEdu is “a school-ready remix of the original smash hit game Minecraft” (MinecraftEdu, 2015). Minecraft Education Edition - Bring Minecraft to the Classroom! MinecraftEdu has a simple goal– students create structures in a 3D environment (think of it as virtual Lego). Minecraft differs from other video games not only in its simple, pixilated appearance (the graphics are not particularly flashy), but because the objective is to design and construct things, rather than destroy things. What makes Minecraft particularly suited to educational use is its open environment – it’s a “sandbox” or “free-roam” game. It can be used as a tool to engage and teach numerous skills, including building, designing, communicating and programming, and across a range of subjects, such as history (The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World - recreating in Minecraft), math, biology and physics. The (Minecraft) sky’s the limit!

Classcraft is an online role-playing game that transforms any classroom into a role-playing game (gamification of a classroom).  Students pick a 'role' or 'class'  from one of three choices - Warriors, Mages and Healers, and they level up through good classroom behavior. As they level up they gain awesome powers like being able to eat in class, leaving the classroom for two minutes and bring notes during an exam. This can be customized by the teacher, however the end goal is that through the game play the students can gain these abilities that normally they wouldn’t be allowed to get in real life. Therefore they become “superheroes in real life”. The flip side to this is that students can lose points and “die” in the game if they do poorly or disrupt the class, which translate to horribly consequences such as Saturday morning detention. These powers are not gained or lost individually, but as a team, meaning that misbehaving kids hurt the whole group. Students have to work as a team and their teammates must help and heal each other, thereby learning teamwork while getting good grades etc.

Classcraft is an online role-playing game that transforms any classroom into a role-playing game (gamification of a classroom).  Students pick a 'role' or 'class'  from one of three choices - Warriors, Mages and Healers, and they level up through good classroom behavior. As they level up they gain awesome powers like being able to eat in class, leaving the classroom for two minutes and bring notes during an exam. This can be customized by the teacher, however the end goal is that through the game play the students can gain these abilities that normally they wouldn’t be allowed to get in real life. Therefore they become “superheroes in real life”. The flip side to this is that students can lose points and “die” in the game if they do poorly or disrupt the class, which translate to horribly consequences such as Saturday morning detention. These powers are not gained or lost individually, but as a team, meaning that misbehaving kids hurt the whole group. Students have to work as a team and their teammates must help and heal each other, thereby learning teamwork while getting good grades etc.

In World of Warcraft, players take on the role of heroes, choosing characters such as elves, dwarves and orcs, as they fight against enemies, forge alliances through guilds to coordinate attacks, and foray throughout the world of Azeroth. The players advance to higher levels by earning experience points by killing monsters, exploring new places and completing quests. Adopting this popular MMORPG in the “World of Classroom”, instead of earning grades, students earn experience points. Instead of doing assignments, they go on quests. Instead of using paper, they use Moodle. The students move at their own pace through the learning modules, and each student's experience points overall and by assignment are recorded and used for assessment.

MinecraftEdu is “a school-ready remix of the original smash hit game Minecraft” (MinecraftEdu, 2015). Minecraft Education Edition - Bring Minecraft to the Classroom! MinecraftEdu has a simple goal– students create structures in a 3D environment (think of it as virtual Lego). Minecraft differs from other video games not only in its simple, pixilated appearance (the graphics are not particularly flashy), but because the objective is to design and construct things, rather than destroy things. What makes Minecraft particularly suited to educational use is its open environment – it’s a “sandbox” or “free-roam” game. It can be used as a tool to engage and teach numerous skills, including building, designing, communicating and programming, and across a range of subjects, such as history (The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World - recreating in Minecraft), math, biology and physics. The (Minecraft) sky’s the limit!

Classcraft is an online role-playing game that transforms any classroom into a role-playing game (gamification of a classroom).  Students pick a 'role' or 'class'  from one of three choices - Warriors, Mages and Healers, and they level up through good classroom behavior. As they level up they gain awesome powers like being able to eat in class, leaving the classroom for two minutes and bring notes during an exam. This can be customized by the teacher, however the end goal is that through the game play the students can gain these abilities that normally they wouldn’t be allowed to get in real life. Therefore they become “superheroes in real life”. The flip side to this is that students can lose points and “die” in the game if they do poorly or disrupt the class, which translate to horribly consequences such as Saturday morning detention. These powers are not gained or lost individually, but as a team, meaning that misbehaving kids hurt the whole group. Students have to work as a team and their teammates must help and heal each other, thereby learning teamwork while getting good grades etc.

Classcraft is an online role-playing game that transforms any classroom into a role-playing game (gamification of a classroom).  Students pick a 'role' or 'class'  from one of three choices - Warriors, Mages and Healers, and they level up through good classroom behavior. As they level up they gain awesome powers like being able to eat in class, leaving the classroom for two minutes and bring notes during an exam. This can be customized by the teacher, however the end goal is that through the game play the students can gain these abilities that normally they wouldn’t be allowed to get in real life. Therefore they become “superheroes in real life”. The flip side to this is that students can lose points and “die” in the game if they do poorly or disrupt the class, which translate to horribly consequences such as Saturday morning detention. These powers are not gained or lost individually, but as a team, meaning that misbehaving kids hurt the whole group. Students have to work as a team and their teammates must help and heal each other, thereby learning teamwork while getting good grades etc.