Week 10 Play Activity

I would design a gamification system based on encouraging children to read more fiction. It would be based on the type of reading competitions I used to do at school, although I would go further than just offering rewards based on who read the most books as that could get dull very easily and gamification must be interesting for people to continue to participate.

I would maintain interest through the use of  badges. For example awarding badges for reaching a certain number of books read on a given topic; a student could win the "Space Cadet" badge for reading a number of science fiction stories or a "Historian" badge for reading history books. This would maintain interest as instead of competing for a number of books read in a given week there is a tangible and lasting reward. By maintaining a collection, a student can feel more satisfaction from what they have achieved. This also promotes self satisfaction for a child as they are working towards a goal that does not revolve around competing with other children that may just be faster readers than them. I personally think that working towards personal goals promotes self esteem more than competition.

Overall I think by steering the game away from mere competition to something individual you are allowing a student to feel satisfaction by what they have achieved at their own pace. There will obviously be children that will compete on number of badges, but if that is not the point of the game, then instances of this should be minimised.

Week 10 Reflect Activity

The type of organisation I hope to work in after graduation is a public library. I think that the best idea for gamification would be a form of treasure hunt. It would be easy to incorporate a system of hiding information throughout the library, with QR codes attached. The QR codes would link to text providing educational information based on a theme regarding the local area and then a clue as to where to find the next bit of information. The library staff could also be involved by having it necessary that participants in the game ask staff certain questions. I think that this would provide an engaging and attractive system to encourage people to learn more about where they live. It could also be expanded to more location neutral topics such as science.

The main issue with this of course is that not everyone has a smartphone that will be able to read QR codes. The obvious answer is to have the library provide devices that are able to do this. While this would be an extra cost there would be the added benefit of introducing many people to newer technologies, particularly the elderly community who have not taken to new technology as readily.

From personal experience I do know that gamification can work when done correctly. Valve Corporation recently introduced a gamification system for their Steam software; an online digital distribution software for video games. This system rewards you for playing games that you have bought with virtual trading cards. I got quite caught up in this and collected a large number of cards and I know others who have also done this. While this was done to promote profits for a business it is easy to see the concept does work and could be easily adapted to educating people in a library.

As the role of a library is to provide access to information for the local community, this would help immensely in encouraging people to use these services; particularly if tangible rewards are offered e.g. a prize donated from a local business.

Week 9 Play Activity

For this week we were tasked with creating a QR code and inserting into the about page. I could not work out how to do this with Blogger so I have uploaded it here:

Week 7 Play Activity

I only managed to do three photos for the week and it ended up with an unintended theme of guitars. The photos can be found below:

Week 7 Reflect Activity

I see myself using online photo sharing more in my professional life than my personal life. While I have been enjoying this week’s play activity, it ultimately does not really serve a purpose to me. I feel as though if what I was taking pictures of would be interesting to my friends and family, I would just prefer to talk to them about it rather than upload for anyone to see, as most of them would not care. It may serve a purpose for the people who are interested but is largely irritating for those who aren’t.

However in my professional life I think image sharing is a great way to promote yourself and what your organisation is doing. As people tend to follow companies they are interested in they are more likely to appreciate the news of what is happening within that company.  Also as a picture with a small caption can convey a large amount of information very easily and quickly there is less of an issue with information overload. It will allow people who are interested to investigate further while letting people who are not interested simply skip over it with little effort. It is also very easy to create for a smartphone user as the instagram app simply works with your phone's camera. This is already an advantage of the twitter service as whole, but I think pictures can be even more effective than 140 characters; which is why I love how easy it is to integrate an Instagram photo with both twitter and Facebook.

As I hope to work in a library I think something like Instagram would be effective for creating awareness of an upcoming event or even documenting one that has already happened. Not only is this an excellent way to engage with the community it can help to let people know exactly what the library is doing for the community, as I have found there is still a misunderstanding with people in that they think a library is just a place to get books.

Week 6 Reflect Activity

I do have a Google+ account but that is only so I can follow a class group for a subject I am doing. Aside from the people in my class I know only one person who uses Google+ regularly. In my experience it will not be a Facebook killer.

While Myspace was very popular amongst younger people, it never caught on with the older generations, whereas almost everybody seems to have a Facebook today; Myspace never had the sheer numbers that Facebook does. Having said that though, I do not think that Facebook will last forever. There are a large number of early teens that are not interested in Facebook. It seems that beyond the fact that kids don't like the idea that their parents are on Facebook, they are choosing not to participate due to the most complained about aspects of Facebook; inane status updates and people trying to create unnecessary online drama. Regardless of whether another social media site will replace Facebook or not remains to be seen, but I think we are already starting to see the beginning of the end for Facebook.

I personally believe that Twitter will come out even more popular than before. Even though Twitter can have it's share of inane posting, it does not seem to attract the same kind of drama that Facebook often does. Also if you are wanting to post pictures through instagram you don't have to worry about people tagging you, which was a concern voiced in the previously linked article. Twitter also seems a lot safer for people that are worried about their online privacy as less information is divulged in a Twitter profile.

One reason I personally still use Facebook is because it allows me to follow what is happening with movies or bands that I like; Twitter also allows this. For me at least I think Twitter will be the next big thing for social media. Judging from what is happening with Facebook already, I think that will be the same a for a lot of people as well.