Slash Career that involve gamification

A school teacher who writes textbook approached me through WhatsApp, asking me about the career prospect in the field of gamification.

To explain, I created the spectrum between GBL and gamification in education. 

Those who said that they practice gamification, they should have aligned at least one component of learning to one component of gamification. As explained in my book, herewith six structural elements of a game:

1) game goal

2) game rules

3) game challenge

4) game interaction

5) game feedback

6) game narrative 

7) game space  

However, if a completed game was used instead of specific game elements, then it is no longer a form gamification. Instead, such use of game in education is called "game-based learning" or GBL. However, there are two prongs of GBL, one is teaching and learning (T&L) through game playing; while another is T&S through making game. In this sense, gamification can be seen as a form of learning through game making. 

Gamification was originally used in marketing commercial products. But now the idea and practice of gamification have been spread to other fields, including education, healthcare, military and business.

To me, the opportunity afforded by the gamification trend now is actually motivating young generation to venture into the game industry (not the field of gamification). Thus, the career prospect in the game industry now can be used in working on gamification tasks, including game designers, programmers, game graphic artists, game testers, etc. 

For teachers who are interested to make the T&L in the classroom game-like, they may:

1) gamify the T&L themselves by aligning learning standards with game components

2) hire game designers and other experts in the game industry to produce serious game for their T&L practice

3) cooperate with game designers and other experts to practice gamification together. 

Whatever the case, both parties should professionally communicate to each other to avoid misunderstanding, particularly in matters related to content knowledge and pedagogy.

Nowadays, career in the 21st century is rather uncertain. For example, the rise of gamification was not planned in the education blueprint that was set a few years ago. Thus we should educate our students to think flexible, i.e. not only venturing into existing career in the job market, but also be ready for new and emerging fields, or be creative in creating new career path for themselves. 

One recent phenomena is the emergence of slash lifestyle, in which we no longer focus on one job in our life. Like me, apart from being an associate professor in UPSI, I am also: 2017/2018 Humphrey Fellow | Game-based Learning Specialist | Educationalist | Columnist | IJGBL Assoc Editor, as shown in my LinkedIn Profile.  

In this sense, teacher is no longer limited to teaching in school alone. A teacher who are well-verse in using games in teaching and like to write books can be: Teacher | Game-based Learning Specialist | Author.