Gamification in the educational sector is the use of games so that learning new knowledge and skills becomes a playful and fun activity for children. In the case of the gamification engine, the games and exercises proposed on the platform, based on the adventures that some characters live, are designed to entertain the learning of programming and robotics.
The game is a tool that both children and adults alike, but it is especially related to childhood. Children have a special interest in playing and the fact of basing learning on games makes them find it much more fun and motivating, so they dedicate much more time and attention to what we teach them compared to giving them a traditional class. . That is why at Codelearn we are committed to autonomous learning or through play: the student advances through the instructions provided to solve each challenge so that the figure of the teacher is rather that of a guide or a person of support that will be there to solve your specific doubts when you need it, but will not give any master class.
On the other hand, the fact of basing learning on a game means that the concepts are progressively assimilated as the adventures progress, just like when we play a video game and have to overcome different levels of difficulty. If the student passes the challenge, she can continue advancing, but if she does not assimilate the knowledge, she will have to repeat the exercise until she understands it and passes the level.
In this way, the motivation of the students to advance is maintained, but we also make sure that they have understood well and have internalized everything they have learned so far. In fact, this motivation is precisely the tool that favours the acquisition of new knowledge, since it is easier for them to assimilate it if they are attentive and focused on the same thing, as happens when they play and have fun trying to achieve a goal.
Another advantage of gamification and specifically the use of the best gamification platform is that, although each student can learn at their own pace and individually, the game allows different team competitions to be created those foster relationships between all boys and girls of Codelearn and help them develop their social skills, for example, teamwork. This aspect has been gaining a lot of weight since the creation of the Codeathlon, the first programming and robotics league for students up to 18 years old, where students have to form teams (clans) of up to 6 people and as diverse as possible so that they can help each other, exchange different knowledge within the same group and work together to be the winning team.
Finally, gamification helps us develop computational thinking because it forces us to apply logic and teaches us to solve problems and overcome challenges. Inevitably, this also translates into an improvement in school performance, since students are increasingly quicker to relate concepts and assimilate new knowledge.
