PLAYING FOR LEARNING:

Gaming Addiction Disorder was the latest addition to the 11th Revision of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11) in 2018. This in itself signifies the impact of gaming in our world and life.

The easy availability of mobile phones, ipads, and 4G internet has led to a huge surge in gaming. In view of these factors, we have come up with an innovative idea to utilize this trend in a way that supplements learning and education like never been done before.

Imagine that your whole textbook was a game. Imagine if just by playing a game—you become the master of that subject.

Examples(The Storyline would be based on the chapters of the textbooks):

1. In History—When learning about World War II—Imagine your character on screen waking up on the battlefield—you need to fight the enemy soldiers of the other country and then make your way back. Then after you win the battle— you sign a treaty with the enemy country (just like it happened in reality), you also meet historical figures in the game. The outcome of this would be is that you would remember every single event that happened and thus will be able to retain information extremely efficiently.

2. In Science—When learning about Gravity—Imagine you being Newton on screen—the first task is to explore the garden—You walk over to the apple tree and interact with it and witness an apple falling. Now the second task for you is to find the three laws hidden in the garden. You have to interact with the surroundings and discover pieces of paper with the laws written on them. In the end, you would remember every single law of motion.

3. For Maths—when learning the Pythagoras theorem—imagine you controlling the character of a lady who has to travel two long roads that are at right angles to reach home—so you decide to build a new road (that would be the hypotenuse) but you don’t know how much material to buy cuz you don’t know the length. Now you see a teacher passing by so you interact with her and she teaches you the Pythagoras theorem and now you know what the length of the new road will be. Finally, your task is to go to the market and purchase materials and then build the road.

The key points here:

1 . These games will tell you WHY learning that topic is essential with practical examples.
2. These games will stimulate ACTIVE learning by first-hand exploring by the learner rather than the traditional PASSIVE teaching model.
3. The sequence of events in the lesson would be easier to remember.
4. Scores of the game could be displayed on a leaderboard to create healthy competition between peers. High scores would be awarded if a person finishes the game earlier.
5. Progress Bar in the game would indicate to the parents the child’s progress.
6. A test/exam will be in-built in the game after the level is over to make sure that the person is able to answer questions.

Our aim is to utilize the fact that people of the world play games a lot and to convert it into a productive venture. The gamification of learning will open a lot of doors for the education system. We want to ensure Learning for everyone since this encourages everyone to learn by playing—even those who haven’t had any formal education—like auto-drivers, store owners, or labourers. Remember that ANYONE will prefer to play a game even if they don’t feel sure enough to pick up a textbook.