It’s time to get the party started with gamification in higher education. Maybe it’s the liberating feeling of the summer, or the fact that it is the perfect time for some educators to make improvements to their curriculums. Maybe I’m just sick of waiting for the gamification movement to bloom on its own. Regardless, it is time to take some drastic action in jumpstarting the games-in-learning movement this summer, so here are five easy things that every educator can start doing this fall to usher in a new era of interactive, engaging, and innovative education.

The Importance of Gamification to Higher Education
I have great respect and admiration for old mentor and friend Charles Reigeluth who writes in his new book, Reinventing Schools: It’s Time to Break the Mold, that dramatic change is needed in education. So dramatic in fact, that the only way to achieve it is going to be to blow up the old system and start from scratch. Reigeluth is talking about public K-12 schools, not higher education, but all of the fundamental societal shifts that he cites as reasons for change in K-12 education in the information age also apply to higher ed. They are:

The most famous line from the 1996 Cameron Crowe film Jerry Maguire – “Show me the money!” – becomes a mantra begun by Rod Tidwell (Cuba Gooding Jr.) and eventually shouted over and over by Jerry Maguire, played by Tom Cruise. The line has become a cultural marker, and would, no doubt have developed into an Internet meme if the movie had been released ten years later. It still, hopefully silently, runs through the minds of every college graduate when interviewing for their first job, “Show me the money!”

Not so fast. Show you the money? First thing’s first. You’d better be able to show prospective employers that you have what it takes to earn that money. We live in a fast-paced, hyper-connected, information and knowledge-based, global economy, where things change minute-to-minute and the skills you need to have change just as fast. More importantly, you need to be able to self-teach new skills and tools on the fly, and maybe even develop your own innovative ways to use new technology as it arrives on the scene. In short, in order to get hired, keep your job, advance in your career, and be shown the money, you are going to need a very specific set of soft skills that you may not be obtaining in your higher education classes. No worries. This post will outline the most essential 21st Century skills you need to have and suggest some ways that you can acquire them.

The Need for 21st Century Skills
The world has changed dramatically, decisively, and permanently and the things that employers are looking for in their ideal employees have changed with it. These changes are necessitated by fundamental societal shifts in the way the world works in the Information Age. The University of Melbourne proposes the following breakdown for considering what the essential competencies are for a student in the Information Age:

All things considered, these changes represent a dramatic shift in the traditional need for specific skills and experiences in new employees. Businesses have learned that they need to be flexible, adaptable, embrace diverse perspectives, and need to have people who are willing and able to incorporate the latest technologies on the fly. All of these factors create a disconnect between university education, which largely does not emphasize these skills and abilities, and the needs of students entering the workplace. Whether you are pursuing a career in retail management, real estate, hospitality management, or fashion this post will help you understand the most fundamental 21st Century skills necessary to be successful in life and your career, and guide you in acquiring them.

21st Century Skills Inventory & How to Get Them
So what exactly are the essential skills for success in the 21st Century? I have compiled the following list from a wide variety of sources such as the ATC21S list of skills, Charles Reigeluth’s book Reinventing Schools, and my own experience as an adult educator and 21st Century cyber worker. Here is a checklist of the key competencies and definitions of each.

__ Systemic Thinking: The Information Age is characterized by increasingly complex interrelationships between the various systems (economic, political, social, technical, educational, etc.) that form the structure of our society. In such a complicated and connected world, it is essential to understand how an action taken within or upon one system will affect the others. Thinking through all of the factors that will affect any decision helps to ensure that the best course of action is taken.

How to get it: Unfortunately, outside of specialized departments in higher education, likeIndiana University’s Instructional Systems Technology Department, there are very few places to gain an explicit knowledge of this field. This page from Pegasus Communications provides a broad overview of the concept, but for a more detailed understanding you are going to have to do some independent reading.  For starters, Bela Banathy is the father of the field, so reading any of his books would be an outstanding place to begin. Alvin Toffler’s Future Shockor The Third Wave will also give you enough insight into systems dynamics to get you started understanding this important but underrepresented field.

The world we live in has become increasingly complex. New choices abound for learning and, with traditional college students joined by a flood of veterans, recession-displaced workers, and others seeking answers in a slow job market, higher education still remains one of the most valuable things you can do to help secure a bright future.  For those considering a return to college or even high school seniors on the fence about committing to pursuing a degree, one thing to consider is how you are going to balance that commitment with everything else you need to do in your life.

Weighing Your Commitments
Like many of you, I completed all of my graduate school education after I was married and working full-time. Sometimes this meant putting in well over 40 hours a week in retail management, while easily surpassing that number in class time, studying, and collaborative work with classmates. While I did not have the option of doing much of my coursework online, I did take a couple of classes via the Internet (and taught some as well) and can say that the flexibility that they offered is one significant way that technology can help those trying to juggle multiple commitments and  their education. This post provides several additional ways in which technology can help you balance heavy commitments to work, family, and other activities, with the stress of completing a degree.

The first step in solving any problem is understanding it and gathering enough information to make an informed attempt at a solution. When talking about trying to balance the major commitments in life such as work, family, hobbies, and education, the dispassionate disposition of technology can actually be a great help in taking a more objective look at the factors involved. As the saying goes, the numbers don’t lie.

For starters, you are going to want to create a master schedule of your current life to determine where your education can fit in with your current responsibilities. There are several time tracking options available to let you get a picture of your life. If you are already using something like Google Calendar, you may have much of the data you already need. Simply start using the calendar to keep track of all your daily commitments in one place for at least a week, though a month will give you a better picture. Track every minute of your day starting when you wake up, shower, eat breakfast, how long your drive to work is, the hours that you work, free time during your work day, driving home, cooking dinner, playing with the kids, and of course, any free time you have during all of that. The color coding feature of Google Calendar will allow you to see how your days, weeks, and months are divided up.

For those who want even more data (think charts and graphs), taking advantage of a free trial of a program like OfficeTime or Clockodo can allow minute time tracking and provide you with data presented in tables and graphs that may help you better visualize and quantify your priorities.

I recently had the opportunity to spend a day at the Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, New York. While it was certainly fun and provided a very enjoyable nostalgic trip for me, the museum also proved to be an amazing resource for educators or anyone interested in play, its role in society, and its power as an educational medium. Having spent the day reading the information provided about the science of play and soaking in quotes from prominent educators, psychologists, historians, sociologists, and other great thinkers, I came to the very clear realization that we are educating wrong at the most fundamental level.

Here is some of the most important information I learned at the Museum of Play, my reflections on what each piece means, and why I think it all adds up to the fact that we are doing our children a disservice by not basing our educational systems on play.