Keeping learners attentive is one of the most significant challenges that teachers face. Many learners would rather be anywhere else other than the classroom. The ongoing switch to online learning, owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, means that teachers will have a more difficult task keeping students engaged.
Virtual learning makes it difficult for teachers to monitor their students. There is nothing much they can do to force learners to engage or do their assignments actively. However, they can coerce them by using e-learning games!
Games & Learning?
Yes! Games and learning make for a perfect match when used well. E-learning is an ideal platform for integrating educational games. The virtual world’s versatile nature makes it possible to bring the most creative e-learning games ideas to life. It also comes with many benefits, including:
- Improving interaction and encouraging teamwork among students
- Improving interaction between teachers and students
- Improving critical thinking skills in students
- Boosting students’ creativity
Most of the studies exploring the effects of educational games on learning to conclude that the positive benefits outweigh the shortcomings. This is a milestone to those who have implemented Koji templates and codes into virtual lessons.
Integrating Games into E-learning
So, how do you go about integrating games into your virtual lessons? It is a simple process if you are working with the right gaming solutions platform, such as Koji who understands how it works. Here’s how to go about it:
· Make it Fun and Relevant!
Most kids feel that learning is boring. They prefer doing something fun instead. Making learning a fun affair is guaranteed to change their minds in a heartbeat and make them more interested in what you have to teach.
Be creative when designing the game to make it fun and engaging. The students should be drawn to the game without much persuasion. The game should also be challenging and competitive for motivation. It should be so fun that the students should be interested in playing even when class is not ongoing!
The game should also be relevant to what you are teaching. For instance, you should consider designing realistic characters to look like historical figures if you are teaching history. Making the game relevant will help the students relate to the lesson, thus making it easier to remember what they learned when playing.
Note: Designing the game is the most important part of the process. All relevant parties should have their input. This means that teachers should work closely with the kids to ensure that everyone is on board.
· Is It Working?
So, what is your game’s objective? Is it working? You should have a way to measure the game’s effects on the students’ levels of engagement and learning.
The best way to tell whether the game is working is by assessing the students. This means giving them random tests based on whatever they learn through the game and comparing their results with previous results.
Find a way to make the tests just as fun as the new lessons — be creative so that the kids don’t realize that they are under evaluation so that they will not feel compelled to cheat. Also, take notes on how you can improve your new teaching style.
· Don’t Go Off Course!
The students will be thrilled to hear that they can play ‘video games’ in class. They may become so caught up that they ignore the lesson. Don’t let this happen!
Make it clear that the game is just another learning tool. Control when the students can play when class is in. Make sure that everyone is on the same page to prevent some students from drifting away. Make everything about the game relevant to the lesson and always remind the students that learning is the main goal.
There is no doubt about the benefits of integrating games into teaching. Everyone gets it easier, and the lessons become livelier and more engaging.
Great for Coding!
Coding is the language of the future. The world is becoming increasingly digitized, and children should learn how to navigate it early. Before they go off developing the ultimate AI system, however, they can (and should) start with simple games.
Platforms such as Koji have templates that enable young kids to customize existing games. It makes an ideal platform for integrating games into e-learning.
Case Example: E-Learning with Koji
Kids learn fast. However, it wouldn’t do good to overwhelm them with programming jargon. They need something easy and fun — as long as it brings their creativity out. Koji makes for the ideal platform for budding talent.
Koji has numerous templates for games that are popular with kids. These templates allow kids to remix their favorite games as they see fit. It is easy — all it takes is some creativity. Kids can transform many aspects of the game.
So, how does it help? Benefits include:
- It is fun
- It brings out the kids’ creativity
- It inspires new ideas for games and other programs
- It makes it easier for kids to learn sophisticated programming in the future
Koji makes it easy to customize templates (images, sounds, text, etc.). The code is also available to play with inside of these templates. The platform is also promising more, bigger, and better offers, which means more resources for your lessons and more benefits to your students.
Go for It!
Learning should not stop — not when e-learning can fill the gap. E-learning should be just as effective as the classroom-learning setting. You can get your students on board your virtual lessons by incorporating the use of educational games. You cannot go wrong with this guide!
Koji makes the ideal platform for integrating games with e-learning. Teachers can integrate educational games into their virtual lessons in minutes. Kids can also bring their imagination to life by remixing their favorite games.
There are thousands of game templates on Koji, so you are guaranteed to find a game that meets your needs. Everything is automated, so just login and start having fun teaching and learning various subjects!