Gamification

One of my friends from high school was lamenting the fact that she was going to be taking a six week online course while in the midst of some significant business travel and a minor surgery. Sounds like every other middle aged professional trying to get ahead, except that the whole course was on gamification.

Gamification is taking a rather mundane business transaction and sprucing it up while offering some form of gameplay to entice people to return and keep high levels of of traffic to a web site.   I know I'm a willing participant in Get Glue's data mining every time I tell them I'm watching a show.  If I watch the right show, *boom*, a special electronic sticker appears in my "collection."  I admit that I have been known to submit the GetGlue acknowledgement before I turn the DVR on Saturday nights to watch Doctor Who, just to see what the silly picture is.

But this.... link, this is pure evil genius.  You have to love D&D terminolgy creeping into academia, but to introduce gaming concepts on a post-graduate level either shows how effective the technique is, or how the ADD society has destroyed the ability for even smartest members of society to learn for learning's sake.  Sure there are going to be courses that are not fun, but if those enthusiastic about a subject must turn to this, how do the rest of us peons have a chance?   There's using the new version of  "My Very Eager Mother..." to learn the planets, but congugating advanced Latin grammar?  At least they're not playing Candy Crush Saga in class.