Best Gamification Tools for Teachers

Gamification is a cross-disciplinary concept that has been adopted in several sectors including marketing, healthcare, professional development trainings, politics, among others. By definition, gamification is “the incorporation of game elements into non-game settings” ¹ . 

In education, the concept of gamification has especially gained traction during the last decade or so due mainly to the advance of web technologies and mobile applications. Gamification of education, therefore,  refers to ” a developing approach for increasing learners’ motivation and engagement by incorporating game design elements in educational environments” ² .

Gamified teaching is all about incorporating the educational power of games into instructional practice. Generally speaking, games, given their built-in mechanics which draw on incentivization and reward system, tend to drive motivation and motivation drives engagement. Using games with your students will not only enhance their motivation and increase their participation but will also boost their overall learning. 

The purpose of today’s post is to share with you some of the best tools to help you gamify your teaching. These are all platforms that have enjoyed and are still enjoying a growing popularity among the education community. Using them will enable you to easily incorporate the ethos of gamified education allowing you to create gameful learning experiences in class. 

1. Kahoot

Your kahoots can embed various types of questions and answers. They can include media materials such as videos and images, and many more.  Kahoots can be hosted live in class (Teach mode) or be assigned as self-paced learning challenges that students can play at their own pace (Assign mode). After kahoots are completed, teachers can access insights and stats on students performance and  identify learning difficulties.

2. Gimkit

Gimkit games support both individual and team mode and boost engagement by providing students with incentives in the form of virtual money they earn for correct answers. Students can use the earned currency to buy power-ups and in-game items. As students complete the kits, Gimkit automatically grades their submissions and provides teachers with detailed reports on the performance of both the whole class and individual students.

3. Quiziz

Alternatively, you can use Quizizz library to search thousands of ready-made quizzes and lessons spanning several subjects and grades. You can adapt these quizzes to your teaching needs, edit them the way you want, import questions right into your quizzes and share them with your students. 

Quizizz provides you with a powerful grading system that generates instantaneous performance reports providing you with a treasure trove of analytic data to use to prepare for remedial interventions and to help you in your lesson planning. With a single click, you can share these reports with parents to keep them in the know of their kids learning progress.

4. Blooket

Students are not required to register to play the games. However,  having a student’s account allows students to “track their stats, place in global leaderboard rankings, buy and sell Blooks, and participate in upcoming community-wide events!” 

The way Blooket works is simple. Teachers host live games with unique game mode on their screen and students join the play using generated game IDs. Teachers also have the option to assign learning games as homework so that students can work on them at their own pace.

5. Quizlet

6. Quizalize

These reports are especially useful in formative assessment providing teachers with key data to help them plan effective interventions, provide differentiated learning opportunities for students, and inform their lesson planning and teaching strategies.

7. Pear Deck

You can also use Pear Deck’s pre-made templates to  design interactive presentations. Once your presentation is ready, you can present it to the whole class. Students can join the session from any device with a web browser using a unique access code. Or, you can assign it as homework assignment for students to work on at their own pace. 

8. Riddle

Riddle offers different sharing options including embedding quizzes in your website or blog or sharing them via email. As the audience takes your quizzes, Riddle generates detailed analytic reports allowing you to access data about your quiz views, shares, completion rates, and many more.  

9. Baamboozle

10. Sporcle

Sporcle also enables you to create your own quizzes to share with others or to embed on your class blog or website. You can make your quiz private in which case it will not be shown in search or on your profile. You can still share the link of your private quiz with friends, play it, and see results. You also have the option to create playlists on Sporcle and save your quizzes in a single place. 

11. AhaSlides

AhaSlides works both online and offline and is also integrated with third party tools such as Zoom and PowerPoint. AhaSlides is simple and easy to use. Choose from various available slide types to build your presentation, share the unique code of your presentation with your participants and lead them through your slides as they interact live with them. 

12. PlayPosit

You can create a class on PlayPosit and invite students to join. You can assign bulbs and monitor students progress. PlayPosit also allows you to host live bulbs for the whole class to watch and interact with.

13. Edpuzzle

Using Edpuzzle Gradebook, teachers can grade students answers, save their scores, and plan for future video lessons. Using the live mode, teachers can also project their video lessons live in class while students provide real-time responses which is helpful in remote learning settings.

14. Digipuzzle

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