I’ve been fortunate to, after years of following people on Twitter who got to attend cool conferences and meet face-to-face with virtual friends, to have been able to go to the Northwest Council for Computer Education (NCCE) for the past two years at Seattle and Portland! So last spring, I took a risk. I was so inspired by the great presenters that I got to see at the conference that I submitted a proposal to present! I was so scared thinking that if my idea didn’t get selected, even though I’d be crushed, I wouldn’t have to present but at least I wold know that I tried. Well, they accepted my proposal!
This coming Wednesday, Feb 24, 2016, I will be presenting a workshop called, Gamify Your Course with 3D GameLab! I’m so excited to share this wonderful that has made gamifying my classes SO much easier. With 3D GameLab I can focus on content and delivery and no longer have to worry about gamification elements like XP, badges, leaderboards, and leveling up! It’s all done for me by 3D GameLab. What I have to do is organize my content and make it engaging for my students.
This past summer I got to present this topic as a gamification session. The workshop was a four-day Innovation conference that I got to co-present with two amazing educators. It was presented as one way to innovate and wasn’t a topic that the participants had selected. I think that’s why some of the participants found gamification interesting but not something they were going to pursue. I think only one of them tried 3D GameLab for themselves.
I submitted that proposal to the Washington Science Teachers Association (WSTA) because they had a Science Conference and my proposal was accepted there too! I was scheduled to present at the last day, a Sunday, during the afternoon. I had seven participants and they at least chose to be there so they were interested in gamification and found 3D GameLab useful and exciting.
Because of that I’m expecting this workshop at NCCE to be something people want to learn more about. I mean, they chose to sign up for it based on the description, which was as follows:
Come to a hands-on workshop where you will not only learn how to gamify ANY course using the gamification LMS called 3D GameLab, but you will also participate in the course as a student using 3D GameLab! The topic of the 3D GameLab course you will be playing is none other than Gamification. If you are knowledgeable about gamification or whether you know very little about it, you will gain something in this session! Besides learning more about gamification you will learn how to use 3D GameLab along with your favorite blogging and/or online discussion forum to blend whatever you teach to kids of all ages!
So far 37 seats out of the 45 are filled! This makes me so excited! To share something that has worked so well for me with like-minded people is so darn cool.
Here’s the updated presentation, slightly different from the WSTA one because this time I’m not selling people on gamification, I’m assuming they are already sold on that so that we can focus on using 3D GameLab as a tool to gamify any course for any grade level.
If you’re going to be at this year’s NCCE Conference give me a shoutout on Twitter or leave me a comment. Maybe we say hi face-to-face. 🙂
