Topic: Gamification – Dr. Richard Van Eck
Presentation
By the end of this year, more than 70% of Forbes Global 200 organizations will have at least one gamified application. We also know that gamification can increase employee engagement by 60%, which is good, because research shows only 13% of them are engaged right now! But what do we really know about how it works? What do instructional designers and trainers need to know in order to use gamification? This presentation will provide an overview of gamification, present some examples of its use, and provide research-driven advice for how trainers can make the best use of it (and when not to!).
About Dr. Van Eck:
Richard Van Eck is a Professor of Instructional Design & Technology at the University of North Dakota (idt.und.edu). He has a PhD in Instructional Design and Development from the University of South Alabama (USA), an MA in English from the University of North Dakota, and a BA in English and Psychology from the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. He has been studying games and learning since 1995 when he entered the PhD program at USA. He worked as an instructional design or developer on several learning games there, including Adventures in Problem Solving (Texas Interactive Media Award, 1999) and Ribbit’s Big Splash (Gulf Guardian Award, 2002). Since then, he has been a researcher and designer on several other STEM games, including PlatinuMath (mathematics game for preservice teacher education), Project NEO (science game for preservice teachers), Project Blackfeather (programming game for middle school students), Contemporary Studies of the Zombie Apocalypse (mathematics game for middle school students), and Far Plane (leadership game for high school students and adults). He is a frequent keynote speaker nationally and internationally on the educational potential of video games and his publications in this area include two edited books, ten book chapters, fifteen refereed publications, six invited publications, and more than seventy-five presentations on games and learning, including talks at TEDx and South By Southwest. In addition to his work in serious games, he has also published and presented on intelligent tutoring systems, pedagogical agents, authoring tools, and gender and technology.
