The importance of gamified learning in recent times

“The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot

learn, unlearn, and relearn.”

Sounds prophetic, right? This is not a 21 st century stuff blurted out by someone who has a strange

sounding name and young and a billionaire. Alvin Toffler, the great thinker and writer wrote this in his

famous book, “Future Shock” in 1971.

In this 21 st year of the 21 st century, with Covid-19 pandemic continuing to wreak havoc throughout the

country, we have started observing the significant impact it is having on our students. Now that

schools are nonfunctional for almost a year, many students are at a high risk of regressing and

beginning next school year at a deficit. When the lockdown started, the students, teachers and even

the school administrators heaved a sigh of relief. But when it started getting longer and longer with no

end in sight, everyone started worrying. And at this point of time, ‘Online classes’ dawned over India

with its full vigour.

Online classes are not new to India. In fact, India showed the path, way back in 1975, through SITE

(Satellite Instructional Television Experiment) program. This was through NASA lending their most

advanced satellite (Application Technology Satellite-6- ATS-6) till date to India for a year. After this

one-year experiment, only sporadic attempts like the educational programs on local TV stations and

the launch of EDUSAT in 2004 were attempted by the government. But the private players flooded the

ever-growing market. These ‘EdTech’ companies offered courses on Zoom, on You Tube and on

several offline platforms. Apart from the basic animations, video lectures and quizzes, what is the

‘Technology’ offered while imparting ‘Education’ is a debatable question. But the thing is, this type of

learning involves a student passively watching a teacher lecture, practicing rote memorization, and

then taking a test. This method not only fails to engage students, but it also makes it very difficult for

them to make the connections that build the new neural pathways that are vital for sustained memory

and instant recall.

What’s the way out? Well, as Alvin Toffler said, we have to unlearn and relearn. But then what to

unlearn? Unlearn what M.A. Stodart’s poem says and which is engraved in our minds since ages. It

says:

“Work while you work

Play while you play.

One thing each time,

That is the way.

All that you do….. “

and so on.

Shatter the age-old belief that one has to (only) work while working, that is, only study, while studying.

If we want to keep the students actively engaged, especially during these stressful times, adoption of

a new method of learning-a gamified learning – is a foregone conclusion. In this, elements of play and

entertainment can lengthen students’ attention spans and help them learn faster.

The gamified learning has many forms and is still evolving. Primarily, a game is an interactive way to

get involved in any activity. It has its own rules, goals, reward structure and levels. And a good game

would be an addictive one. An educational game should have all these and more. A clear aim or goal,

interaction controls and easy to see the results are some important parameters apart from the reward

structure based upon quizzes. A good UI/UX will make the educational game addictive too. Like a true

computer game, the educational games should be intuitively played, that is without a thick instruction

manual. Consider this, more power and creativity are given into the hands of the students (and of

teachers too) when the interactive science experiments appeared on the scene. IIT Mumbai (IITB)

came out with Project OSCAR (Open-Source Courseware Animations Repository:

http://oscar.iitb.ac.in). Here, a student is able to change a parameter or two in an experiment and

observe the results instantly, on the computer screen. University of Colorado, USA has a similar thing

in PhET simulations (https://phet.colorado.edu). Learning STEM online had suddenly a new meaning,

new fun with the gamification.

Now, permit me to talk about an important development happening in this space. The development,

whose time has come. ‘Interactive Stereoscopic 3D visualization & simulation’ is the name of the

game. This has changed the way a student learns a subject. Especially, one of the STEM subjects.

The interactive stereoscopic gamified educational content has opened up the possibilities hitherto

unavailable.

Talking about the ‘Interactive stereoscopic 3D visualization & simulation’, the system allows the user

to interact, to play with the real life like stereoscopic models ‘dancing’ between them and the

computer screen and visualize the exact working, dissect them, change some of the parameters and

see the effect instantly. Imagine you are able to see a complex molecular structure and its bonds,

rotate it, add some other ‘impurity’ in a pure material and see the effect. Mesmerised? Then also

imagine launching a rocket, coming towards you at a lightning speed, albeit in cyberspace, so you are

safe. Vary the terminal velocity of that rocket and see what way the satellite ejected from it will orbit

the earth. Or will it reach the moon? The possibilities are endless. These simulations are actual,

mathematically modelled simulations, not mere animations. So, everything is quantifiable, easing the

reward structure. Genius 3D learning from SARAS-3D Inc is now available in India which offers these

and many more things.

In the summary, let me quote Alvin Toffler again. He said, “The future comes too fast and always in

the wrong order”. Who had imagined that it will be a pandemic of this magnitude and duration which

will trigger revolutionary developments in the field of education? It can be said that gamification in the

learning process opens up new vistas with control in the hands of the ever-inquisitive students. With

schools closed for another foreseeable time, this gamified SFH-Study from Home- seems to be only

fail proof alternative. Change is the only constant, they say. And sooner we adopt this change in the

way we study or teach, better it is.

The writer is Kashyap Mankad, Founding Member and Technical Director, Saras-3D, Inc