Creating an incentive can be really difficult–it’s hard to know exactly what will make students interested in paying attention and caring more deeply about their classes and assignments. The motivation can be different for every student, and some students aren’t interested in motivating themselves at all. There are a lot of activities and avenues outside of school that have figured out how to motivate kids to spend their time in a particular manner. One such example is video games and MMORPGs (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games). Classcraft ties the two together and gives students the interactive component of online gaming that they so frequently love while also enforcing student interaction and requires assignment completion.
The game itself is sort of ingenious; students are put into teams and have to complete assignments, participate in class, and reach goals with their team in order to advance. The competition isn’t serious, but students rely on one another to make sure that their team is advancing. This creates a team bond and encourages student interaction. There are also choose-your-own-adventure quests throughout the game that adapt as students progress and test on current topics. Quests can either be created by the educator using Classcraft, can be adapted from quests made by other educators, or educators can simply use quests made by the developers of Classcraft as well as other education companies.
There are a lot of other features available in Classcraft–boss battles that function as assessments, a volume meter that works during class time and takes and gives points depending on the noise level in the classroom, a grade converter to translate grades into points, and much more. There are parent features as well, which can be helpful for showing parents the progress that students are making every day. Pricing for a school or district is not available on the website, but there are free and premium ($8 a month) versions, which should be adequate for most classrooms. The major advantage of the school plan is the technology and security support that comes along with the license. If there are no IT personnel on staff in the district or school, having that extra support could be a major plus. Overall, this tool can be a really helpful motivating factor for students. They can have fun while just going about their normal day at school, which is always a positive outcome.
Library Studies 