For Activity 4, I joined a MOOC from Coursera about bringing gamification into the elementary classroom through an application called Genially. By choosing this MOOC, I aimed to focus on my goals of exploring techniques and online tools that promote learner engagement and how to design activities that promote participation and learning and to maintain an open pedagogy and to bring new techniques and tools into my teaching practice. This activity opened possibilities to learn new skills in simple and self-directed ways.

Topic: Gamification Learning with Genially through Coursera
This MOOC, allows teachers to bring gamification into the classroom by providing learning experiences through Genially. Genially is “the tool that brings content to life.” When students learn through gamification, they are naturally engaged in the content by inherently responding to the prompts.

Learning Objectives:
Learn more about Genially as a learning tool.
Use Genially to create engaging gamification learning experiences.

How The Course Is Organized: 

  1. Project Overview (10 min of reading) 
  2. Gamification Learning with Genially (36 min guided project)  
    Guided Tasks: 
    Task 1: Use the key features of Genially.
    Task 2: Use the templates gallery.
    Task 3: Create a gamification activity.
    Task 4: Complete your gamification activity.
    Task 5: Use your gamification activity with students. 
  3. Assess your knowledge (5 question quiz: Due date 11 days after you start the course) 
  4. Feedback survey on the course

This course compared well to ‘traditional’ courses. I feel that the course surpassed ‘traditional’ courses by the autonomy that I felt as a learner. I could either follow along and do exactly what the instructor was teaching or learn more authentically and create something that I will use in my own practice. However, I feel that it lacked connection. Everything was pre recorded so there was no direct interaction with the instructor and there were no fellow students that were taking the course with you. Additionally, while there was significant learning achieved, the assessment was lacking and quite basic. It did not evaluate the end result of the practice product but instead had a quick, 5 questioned quiz that was very simple and did not truly test the learning that was achieved upon completion (in my opinion). Due to these attributes, I believe that this is a cMOOC course as learners are meant to be autonomous in their learning and expected to grow, create and share through artifact creation.

This course as a whole is not “open”. It is set, not designed for the learner, and it does not account for UDL practices. However, the activity itself is “open” as the learner can apply the skills taught in a flexible way to create an ‘artifact’ of their choosing.

If you’re interested and want to check out my first practice escape game, find it in the link below:
https://view.genial.ly/6489d0fef69468001902baff/interactive-content-education-escape-room