TECH game-based learning

For this section I choose to look at a couple of Macro games.

The first one that I looked at was called Fitocracy. This games links gaming with fitness. The mission of the creators was to make fitness more fun, and a more addictive experience. I choose to look at this game in depth and so i did set up an account. When signing up for an account, it asks you to give your weight. The reason for this is so that different quests and achievements can be created just for you. Don't worry, they are not going to post this. It also asks you do check what your inteseted in the fitness for such as cardio, weight loss, strength, or group training. It even gives the option of adding friends so you can encourage one another, or even compete against each other. There is also the option to join various groups that allow you to make new friends and discover new workouts, for instance i joined three groups, swimmers, couch to 5K, and Nah, I'll take the stairs. Finally, it gives you the ability to follow expert  on fitocrats that will keep you motivated in your workouts.
The point of the game is that you workout in order to level up. You input workouts, for instance, i did a work out at the pool today that I was able to input and i earned 227 points. I also input my workout for monday at the pool. The website is designed to be very encouraging. You also have the ability to schedule a workout. Simply choose the date you want to schedual your work out for, so i want to schedule a workout for tomorrow, so I would go to Wednesday July 18 and schedule a work out. The site then sends you an email with the details of your work out. The site allows users to see who on the site has the most points. You can even challenge your friends or people in groups, and interact with people in your groups to talk about your successes and even learn new workouts.
This game would be great for a PE class, as it adds the gaming experience and the competition that some students may find lacking when dong typical workouts. There is obviously a certain amount of honesty that has to go into it, but if you can keep your kids hones this is a great game. It is also available to get on your smartphone, so the students can take it with them everywhere.
This is a game that I will continue to use.

The second game I looked into was not as in depth. I looked at chore wars. Chore wars lets users earn points for household chores. This gets kids motivated to do usually mundane chores such as taking out the trash, or washing dishes. Only the Dungeon master, or the person who set up the account to create chores, others can only claim them. While this game is obviously most useful for the home environment it could also be used in classrooms.  Students do various things like clean their desk, pick up papers, pass out paper, take out the recycling, etc. in order to gain points. The teacher could then set in place a reward system for students as they earn points. Chores that are urgent can be put up as quests. Quests double that XP and gold of a normal adventure. This game is a great way to make anybody, kids and adults, more excited to do chores.