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So we slowly encouraged him to participate in creating content around games. He began writing game reviews and learned how to build new levels for games. He started creating a real community around games and contributing to that knowledge space. He was blogging about games but also challenged himself to become a better writer. He was part of a group of gamers that decided they wanted to design and build a prototype game controller, and by working with our mentors, they learned about the principles of design and actually built a prototype.

We wanted a space that had a real curriculum. Even little things like having food in the space were so important in the design. It’s their space and they are not shy about talking to us about the resources they want to see. They drive what we do. Just recently we changed the way we designed the geeking out part of YOUmedia -- the more formal learning opportunities -- to make it fit what the youth were interested in instead of what we thought they were interested in. We offer project-based workshops to provide context for the work, but it’s up to them on how they decide to enter into those projects.

It turns to another conversation we were just having about how we balance a kid who's spending every night in YOUmedia with needing to get his homework done. Clearly he wants to learn in the way he is learning in YOUmedia. I think it is up to us to work with our schools so we can think of new ways to illustrate achievement and skills. Working on things such as a badge system could help make that connection back to the classroom.

Third, a game that is organization-centered rather than user-centered can be worse than no game at all. A game with organization-centered design uses external rewards to increase the organization’s bottom line in the short term.3 Games designed this way attempt to control behavior with rewards. Once users feel the game is playing them rather than they are playing the game, however, they are likely to have a negative feeling towards the game and the organization. 

In this early stage of gamification, it will be useful to remember that gamification doesn’t necessarily require complicated technology or huge investment. For example, you can run a successful game in your library instruction class with a pencil and paper. How about rewarding your library patrons who write to your library’s Facebook page and get most “likes” by other patrons? Or perhaps, a library can surprise and delight the first library patron who checks in your library’s Foursquare or Yelp page by offering a free coffee coupon at the library coffeeshop or simply awarding the Early-Bird badge? In gamification, imagination and creativity can go a long way

Paul Andersen has been teaching science in Montana for the last eighteen years.  He explains how he is using elements of game design to improve learning in his AP Biology classroom.  Paul's science videos have been viewed millions of times by students around the world.  He was the 2011 Montana Teacher of the Year and he is currently a science teacher at Bozeman High School.  For more information on Paul's work visit http://www.bozemanscience.co

. People are motivated by progress. People are motivated by social validation. These designs have just taken things people already want to do – learning stuff, going places, getting fit – and motivated people to do them more by making it easier for users to a) track their progess and b) tell other people what they’re doing.

The most important things about a game is that it offers an experience that is enjoyable in itself. If a game is designed well, people will play it just for the entertainment. Very few gamifcation examples seem to remember this, and so not many focus on creating a fantastic gaming experience as their priority, but there are some.

In his book Playful Design, John Ferrara talks about the game Foldit. The game gives users puzzles to complete based on protein folding and scientists examine the solutions provided by the highest scorers to see if there is anything that can be applied to real-life proteins. One of the solutions helped scientists to decipher the structure of an AIDs-causing monkey virus – remarkably, something they’d been trying to do for 15 years before they got Foldit players on the case

Construct - This is similar to Game Maker but it's totally free, has a nicer interface and can produce some really great results - well worth a look!

With expensive consoles stuck in long cycles, iPhone has transformed from a poor phone with no third-party content into a retina-screened gaming powerhouse with over half a million apps to choose from in less time than it took Sony to make Gran Turismo 5.

You don't reach a billion based on a spectacularly unoriginal physics game and some cartoon birds alone. It needed the ecosystem, installed base and cool cultural cachet of Apple.