Video Thank You

Last week's crowdsourced gamification resource challenge pushed Level Up members to share those great game-based learning and gamification resources that we will all want to reference later. It also produced a Diigo group (Thanks, Katy Vance!) and a LiveBinder (Thanks, Jennifer LaGarde!). Our guild's curating strengths can rival that of any on WoW!

The #levelupbc reader with the most contributions was none other than Carli Spina! Carli's prize was a video thank you for all her hard work. I decided to go the gamer-route and customize a popular video game theme song to pay tribute to our dear pal, Carli.

No apologies here. The things we do for love of Level Up. Enjoy!

- Matthew

LYRICS: 

Carli won for Level Up

She had an epic win for our book club

Resources on game-based learn-

-ing… and of course on gamification

Jennifer put her links in our LiveBinder and

Everybody said, “hip, hooray”

Level Up is lucky to have you, Carli

…that’s no joke.

You shared 50 crowd-sourced resources and

Climbed your way up the leaderboard

Others gave some fierce competition, Carli

…and you won

By the end of the week we amassed

One hundred eighty-three

Game-based resources others can share

Way to go Level Up!

And The Task 5 Winner is...

This has been a week of Epic Wins.  Last week we challenged you to locate and share awesome articles, videos and other resources related to gamification and game based learning.  We gave you the option of posting your treasures on Twitter or via the #levelupbc Tumblr and offered a sweet, sweet reward to the person who shared the most.

And boy did you guys deliver! In just one short week, 183 scholarly articles, blog posts, news features, educational videos and other game based gems were shared!  This kind of crowdsourcing takes a group effort, but one #levelupbc member was definitely on fire this week!  Congratulations to Carli Spina whose epic sharing not only rocketed her to the top of the #levelupbc Leader Board but also helped guarantee an epic win for the rest of us as we continue to explore game based learning and what it might mean to our practice as teachers, librarians and other education professionals.  Way to go, Carli!

Just one day after this challenge was posted, Matthew and I knew were onto something big and started scheming a way to curate all the great resources that were being shared.  While you guys were busy researching and revealing, we were busy putting together a collection of the links that were being tweeted and tumbled.  Our efforts resulted in a Level Up Book Club Livebinder - an epic collection of categorized resources for us to refer to now that the challenge is finished.  We hope to continue to add to this resource as time goes on, but are thrilled with its current incarnation - which would not have been possible without all of YOU!

Again, this has been a week of epic wins!  Thanks to everyone who participated in this week's challenge.  Stay tuned for info about next week's task.  Here's a hint:  It's gonna be fun!

And The Winner of Challenge 4 Is...

Last week we challenged you to take a virtual victory lap by sharing photos of your own EpicWins on our Tumblr.  The results were STUPENDOUS!  We had everything from architectural design elements  to (half) marathon completions to true medical miracles appear on the list - plus many other crazy inspiring examples. I gotta admit, this has been my favorite challenge so far - I just loved seeing so many examples of pure joy. Well done, gang!

As with past challenges, once the week was over, I put the names of all our participants into the app PikMe! (which I use at school to select students at random). A few clicks later and we have a winner!

Congratulations to Kristina Thoennes whose impromptu, made from scratch, lemon meringue pie not only bumped her up a notch on the Level Up Book Club Leader Board, but also made her the winner of this week's prize!  Congrats Kristina!  I know I speak for the rest of our club when I say, of all our entries this week, yours was certainly the yummiest! 

Speaking of Epic Wins, thanks to all of you who participated in last week's Twitter chat!  One of the best parts of this whole process has been the conversations that have taken place on Twitter as we explore the concept of gamification and how it might impact student learning.  The twitter chat was truly an explosion of ideas that left us saying "wow!"  

If you missed it, don't fret, you can still check out the discussion by searching for the #levelupbc hashtag on Twitter and following the tweets starting at 8pm EST on the 28th.  The Twitter Chat is also where we announced next month's read:  What Video Games Have to Teach Us about Learning and Literacy by James Paul Gee.  Thanks to everyone who voted!  

We'll announce next week's challenge tomorrow.  In the meantime, congrats again to Kristina whose Epic Win scored big this week! 

Task #4: The Epic Win

Directions: Take a #levelupbc victory lap by sharing a photo of one of your very epic wins on our tumblr! Your epic win can be game related, school related, work related, kid related, dog related or none of the above related! Any example of a situation that made you want to pump your fist in the air and shout "score!" will do.

Reward: Sharing your epic win will not only grab you a point for the #levelupbc leader board, but this week we draw one participant at random to become to receive a shiny new Level Up Book Club button.  (Trust me, they're sweet!)

Deadline: 11:59pm Friday, June 29th. Share photos via Twitter and Tumblr as often as you'd like. One chance per participant to win!  Good luck!

Reminder: The very first #levelupbc Twitter Chat will take place THIS Thursday, June 28th starting at 8pm! So grab your book, the beverage of your choice and a set of nimble fingers so you can take part as Level Up Book Club members far and wide gather to discuss Jane McGonigal's Reality is Broken.  Twitter handles for all #levelupbc members can be found on our leader board.  And don't forget -- we'll be announcing our next read at the end of the chat, so... if you haven't voted, now's your chance!  

Good luck on this week's challenge and we'll see you on Thursday!  Happy reading, sharing and winning!