 Thanks very much Doug. Can you hear me okay? Yeah, so yes, I'm Allison McKay from Hibernia College and As you can see there were five of us involved in this project and myself and Rob are here to present about it today So as it said the morning after the party we thought we'd make things a little bit interactive and some of you may have Seen a little card like this on your table If you haven't you might have a search for it there No And that will give you a login to our LMS, which is called my home. So it's my homes calm It's my higher education learning management system So we've given you a unique log in there So you can have a look at how we've used the the level up plug-in to increase Social presence through gamification on our online orientation course. So that's what we're going to be talking about this morning So if you if you if you found a little card on your table You might go to another table if you can't find one it's my homes calm and if you just log in with the details there and then click the study now button and Then go to the course increasing Social presence through gamification and that will that will take you into a few little activities Related to what we're doing today And it'll give you a chance to see if you haven't used the level of plug-in what it looks like in practice and how we implemented it So have you anybody managed to log in? Yeah, great super Okay, so just to say a little bit about hi Bernie at college Rob spoke yesterday. Some of you may have heard him. Some of you may be familiar with us We provide two masters courses in teacher education in Ireland one in primary and one in post primary and these are blended learning courses and so They're developed. They're delivered 55% face-to-face and 45% online So naturally with the blended course there are always issues around and students feeling isolated and the importance of getting students connected to each other So this is very much part of our online of our orientation program That we tried to get get get students connected to each other early on so our orientation program is Two weeks long and it starts With one week of online activities So the students get their login on a Monday at the beginning of the two-year course And they have a number of different activities that they Have to carry out in the course of that week and then on the Saturday They've got a one-day workshop with lots of interaction and Lots of exercises and then they have another week of online activities afterwards So we we had our orientation actually just last Saturday So our students are now working through the activities in week two and the activities are a mixture of presentations videos quizzes Forum posts and Things like uploading a mock assignment. So it's it's on the one hand It's to get them familiar with their learning management system to get them familiar with Processes in the college and get to know what they're going to be doing in their program But it's also very much aimed at making those connections between students really early on so that they have So that they have that peer support and they have that Right through their program for for peer learning and to build a community of inquiry and the community of inquiry Framework is very much at the heart of our pedagogical approach at hibernia college So there's a very strong emphasis on social interaction in the online orientation. However What we find is that where students will engage quite well with The exercises and the videos and so on and they are very engaged in those first two weeks There can be a reluctance to engage in the activities where they're actually reaching out to another student and connecting So those kind of activities would be say forum discussions We have a glossary exercise where they learn about each other and Blogs and so on where they're where they're expected to to make contact with each other so what we decided to do was to To create a little bit more motivation for students to actually engage in that kind of social interaction peer-to-peer interaction So we decided to try adding a gamification element So there's been a quite a bit of talk about gamification at the at the the mood so far and but just as a And as a definition and Tara Brigham defines it as the use of game Game like activities or game elements in learning. So I Would you mind putting your hands up if you're somebody who who has played video games? Okay, so I expected a fairly strong showing and So if you played video games, you'll be familiar with XP points or experience points So as you move through the game you earn points and as you earn points you move up levels and in A series of levels and we used the level of plug-in for this so How did it work will be identified a number of activities and that required students interacting with each other and we awarded points for For engaging with those activities now how exactly we did that for that part. I'm going to hand you over to my colleague Rob Thank you, Alison. Hello, everybody as Alison mentioned We chose to use the level up plug-in and for any of you who are here on day one for Mary Cooch's gamification workshop She used that and she was talking about that as well, and it's a really really great plug-in I mean there are a number of gamification plugins available and stashes another very good one But we were really drawn to level up just because of what it could do and the amount of kind of rules and conditions You can set in the plug-in to award points for a very simple set of events or a very complex set of events and There we go, and that's the block there and it's maintained by Fred Masar as well There is a plus version which gives you some additional features For for a small price, but we used the free version and we found that absolutely perfect for our needs So what exactly was involved in setting up and using the level up plug-in first of all We needed to Identify the actual events in moodle that would award points. So we didn't gamify our entire online orientation course We only gamified the elements where we wanted students to reach out and connect with one another So first things we needed to identify those moodle events or things like posting discussion forum posts Subscribing to a discussion thread Creating an entry in a glossary to tell people about each other etc We then needed to devise what the scoring system. So how many points would each of these events be worth and The plug-in Can do it automatically, but we wanted to have a kind of a bit more control over it and define the levels and the points ourselves So we just looked back at previous logs of our online orientation figured out what the average student the amount of Clicks or events they would have had on the various different activities And we worked backwards from that to identify different levels and different points that will be awarded for the different Events and then lastly we branded the block. So the block itself is It's default settings are quite colorful, but we wanted to brand it make it kind of look and feel like a hibernia college Plug-in and fit in with the overall theme of our online orientation So as you can see there those with the levels we chose five levels we Had our wonderful designer Stephanie design very nice visuals for us And we defined the points and the levels in the settings and We also then devised and the the the course rules So the the different Conditions that would award students points and here's where the plug-in can get really really powerful and you can start putting in some Very complex and sets of conditions if you want to we kept it quite simple And we just kind of chose some of the the main events associated with forums and and glossaries and so on And then as I say this was the the branding with that with that we did so the default settings are already quite colorful And quite interesting, but we wanted them to fit our own theme and our own look and feel Some of the things we did we activated the cheat guard in the plug-in and so this Prevents students from I suppose a cheating in the sense of just say refreshing the page over and over again to Earn more and more points, so we only wanted genuine players in this game And then we also made a decision to turn off the leaderboard so Some some some proponents of gamification like the leaderboard and like the competitive element We were concerned that perhaps a leaderboard would demotivate students and particularly this is the start of their program for most of them the very first time learning online so instead of Using the leaderboard we had our student support officer send out motivational blurbs to Different students who are at different kind of stages of the game And this is an example of some of the motivational blurbs we sent out So these so for the people who were who were kind of top of the leaderboard They they they got a motivational blurb telling them to keep up the good work finding one around the middle of the range We kind of just prompted them to maybe continue what they were doing and just telling them where they were in the game Then the kind of the low and the non-earners got kind of a bit more robust motivation and and and and where you know They were they were encouraged to reach out for help if they needed it if they were having any difficulty And and we kind of we linked to the on-site orientation day as well And then the blurb for the non-earners was was was quite similar as well. So and you're back over to Allison Thanks very much Rob. So after the orientation we We did some analysis then of How the impact of the tools so we did Quantitative and qualitative analysis So in our our programs we have two intakes per year. We have a spring intake and an autumn intake so we had a look at the engagement with those activities where where there was peer-to-peer interaction and in the the September 18 which was just past where we did it and and with previous cohorts and as you can see there There was about a 50% increase in engagement in those activities, which which was very positive You'll see that April 18 is a bit of a blip it went down quite quite a lot And that was because the orientation program was released late to students So we're hoping that will be a one-off and as our students are just about to finish up We'll be going back now and looking at the spring 19 and seeing and how they How they got on with it and and and how the trend developed but certainly very encouraging initially so looking at the the qualitative data So we put two new questions We survey our students every year before and after the orientation and the questions stay the same Every cohort so it allows us to get a good sense of of development, but we added two questions this time specifically related to the gamification to and the first was it was a Likert scale question presence of the connect earn and learn Connect learn and earn Block so we called it the the theme for the orientation was connect and learn So we made a connect learn and earn and that's one of the questions there if you have logged in So don't listen to me. Look at what's on the slide if you're if you're answering the quiz question around that So as you can see People agreed with that was about eighty four percent as strongly agreed or agreed that is that it motivated them We also put in an open question. What are your thoughts on the on the block and and that was was Overwhelmingly positive that the main sentiment that arose was motivation You kind of see if you look there we get motivated motivating motivate So there was a lot of talk about motivation And so it was it was largely very positive the feedback and I'd just like to give you a couple of examples So I found it to be a good motivational tool and as both shy and mature student I felt it aided me in pushing me out of my comfort zone And that was exactly what it was that we were trying to achieve and this student says and It gave a sense of achievement and And helped helps them to interact with the fellow students and this last one as well I thought was quite interesting where and they say it encouraged me to communicate with people before the or onsite orientation Day, which I probably would not otherwise have done This helped me to make friends on the day as I had already communicated with them So that we were very very happy with with these results So there was a small minority and that we're not as positive about it They felt maybe that was a little bit childish. So here's just an example I didn't particularly enjoy it as I felt I was being forced to respond to someone just to earn points or go up a level I'm not one for responding to things or getting involved in a discussion unless I feel I have something important to say Which I thought was quite an interesting point There was talking a little bit Yesterday about them lurkers. I think was Steven Bruce was talking about lurkers and I think you know Sometimes there's there's a there's a there's a motivation behind somebody not actually wanting to to contribute that it is reasoned So where do we go from here? The What we will be looking at next is our April 19 intake And also what we're going to do this time around is we want to look a little bit deeper into why it motivated students So we're going to have some focus groups with our with our April 19 students to to dig a little bit deeper into that So that's it Rob has been looking at at the results to see who's been engaging and yeah Yeah, we have so we have we have quite a few people up at level two level three level four But our top three earners in today's session are log in 27 whoever that is With 575 points at log in 25 with 950 points whoever that is but the person in top place with the with the hopping 1700 points is log in 19 who is well exceeded level five. So congratulations. Whoever's using log in 19 So you may if you if you complete that you'll also be able to see how we set up that leaderboard just now for For this particular demo. So that's it if if there are any questions I Mean just how you're going to accommodate those who don't particularly like that sort of approach I mean, I suppose you're saying it's more most students are positive about it, but I think it's interesting how we tailor sort of that to those who Don't really want to participate Yeah, well, it is entirely voluntary. So yeah, there isn't any there isn't any penalty for not getting involved yet Just wondered whether you thought it worked particularly well for the students you're working with with them being Educators and finding an interest in to see different tools or whether you think it would work quite universally for anybody working at that sort of level Yeah, I think I think that could have been a contributing factor possibly I mean these were coming on board to start training as primary and post primary teacher So they may have had an interest anyway in these kinds of tools and and this way of learning I think that's certainly possible. Yeah, and I suppose anything that we introduced We're always introducing it with an eye to modeling best practice and you know letting them see what's out there as possibilities for educators Yeah, I think using it as a tool to get them to engage peer-to-peer is fantastic. It's such a great idea. So yeah, thank you Thanks. Any more questions Okay, well, thank you very much to you