🗑 20 ways to gamify your class

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📚 NEW BOOK UPDATE 📚

📋 Chapter outlines for my new book, AI Literacy in Any Class

It’s getting close! Last night, I just told my wife and kids: “I finally can see the light at the end of the tunnel for this book.”

My upcoming book — AI Literacy in Any Class — will be my seventh book. It’s a practical guide for regular classroom teachers who want to prepare students for a future full of AI (whether they like it or not).

It empowers anyone — even if you aren’t techy or don’t understand AI yet — to have constructive conversations with students to build their AI literacy. And the bonus: These AI literacy activities will actually help students learn your class content and curriculum.

In my free AI for Admins email newsletter yesterday, I shared summaries for all 12 chapters of the book!

You can see the full list — and read some of my journey in writing the book — right here. (Hit the subscribe button while you’re there!)

Here are a few of my favorite chapters:

• Chapter 2: Making the case. In this conversational back-and-forth with a hypothetical teacher, I make the case for AI literacy: why it’s important, how it relates to today’s schools, how it can actually help teachers teacher their lessons in their everyday classes.

• Chapter 5: Embedding AI into day-to-day conversations. The more that you understand AI and its implications in work and life, the more you start to see little connections with the things you teach about and talk about with students. I like to use these “by the way” lessons to teach students these quick little nuggets of AI literacy.

• Chapter 10: Academic integrity. Lots of teachers are wrestling with this concept in classwork, student writing, assessments, and more. What’s fair and OK? Does AI have a responsible place in learning? How do we know when to use it or not? How do we enforce it? These classwork conversations can teach students big-picture lessons about the place of AI in daily life.

Interested??? Stay tuned for a few things …

1. I’ll announce the publication fo the book right here — and a link to purchase it — as soon as it’s available.

2. I’ll be sharing the core message of the book — and some snippets from different chapters — in my presentation at the Ditch Summit, our free online conference for teachers from Dec. 15 to Jan. 11. (FYI: If you’re getting this newsletter, don’t worry … you’re already signed up for the summit!)

💡 THE BIG IDEA 💡

🎮 20 ways to gamify your class

“Let’s play a game.”

Say that to practically anyone and it’ll at least get a raised eyebrow — if not excited cheers and jumping!

There’s something to games that draws us in.

• There’s the unknown — how will it end?

• There’s the competition — how will we stack up?

• There are unexpected twists and turns.

• There’s a skill that you can improve upon over time.

• And there are the reactions to all of the unexpected … it’s fun to see how others react!

When we start to pull in features of games into learning, it can transform the whole experience.

Teachers use gamification in a variety of ways, from little subtle game-like elements in learning all the way to making class a yearlong ongoing game.

If you’re looking for tips and ideas to make learning more game-like in class, you’re in the right place!

Here are some of our best ideas and resources …

Turn a new unit introduction into a scavenger hunt

From educator Laura Steinbrink: A fun way to introduce a new unit is by having students explore resources and complete challenges instead of sitting through uninspired direct instruction. They can submit photos or answers for points.

In our post — 20 ways to gamify your class — you’ll find a “create your own customized scavenger hunt” AI prompt you can copy and paste into ChatGPT, Google Gemini, or others.

Use board games to reinforce concepts

Recreate Scrabble, Trivia, or Connect 4 in Google Slides or PowerPoint to make classic games work for learning goals. Ask students to rewrite the rules and point systems to infuse your content. Don't have a lot of board games laying around? Use digital versions like this Sorry template from Ryan The Game Show Guy. Find tons of tutorials and links to templates on his YouTube channel.

Our post — 20 ways to gamify your class — has 10 practical ways to gamify your class plus 10 tips for making gamification not only possible but also meaningful in your classroom.

🚀 Next level: Turn class into a yearlong game

Track progress and rewards with badges

Badges are like online stickers that serve as tangible proof of your achievements. Use a badge and leader board template like the ones created by Alice Keeler to track student growth visually. Note: You'll need to allow access to the scripts to make the template work properly.

More ideas to gamify learning …

This one isn’t for the faint of heart — and it isn’t for everyone. But it might be for you!

Middle school social studies teacher Matt Armstrong turned his classes into yearlong games. He says:

“I currently have a year-long game that I developed to match my 7th grade World History curriculum, called Legacy.”

“I have a game that I created to match my 8th grade American History, called Become the President, (it runs ¾ of the year), and a game that the students help design that they play during the 4th Quarter in 8th grade.”

If you want to try this, Matt gives suggestions for creating a theme, developing levels, offering rewards, making side missions, and overall tips for getting started.

👋 How we can help

There are even more ways I can support you in the important work you do in education:

1. Read one of my six books about meaningful teaching with tech.

2. Take one of our online courses about practical and popular topics in education.

3. Bring me to your school, district or event to speak. I love working with educators!