After asking Grant if he got an achievement for the gameification class he was taking, I looked into it and signed up for this gameification class on Coursera too. This was my first Coursera class, and I discovered that it has a magical power that activated almost every time I blocked out an afternoon for classwork, and would cause one of my clients to call and offer me rush work.
The lecture videos asked quick multiple-choice questions, which were great for staying on target and for feeling smart. I usually prefer reading to lectures — I know that there are visual learners and physical learners and action-focused memorization styles and all types of ways people absorb information, but I am a weirdo who likes to read books and learn things that way.
I didn’t mind doing the essay assignments, but I didn’t really enjoy the peer-review part of the class. With each written assignment, we were asked to peer-review 5 classmate’s assignments. I didn’t like this part one bit, because each time I’d read four last-minute essay that got kinda close to answering the questions asked, and one essay that was so good I’d despair of ever working in games. (We were randomly assigned 5 classmates each time, and this happened every time.)
There were quizzes on the lectures as well, and although I didn’t get a trophy or badge, I was pretty happy with how I did.
Games: 4.25 / 5.00
Game Elements 9.00 / 10.00
Motivation & Psychology 9.25 / 10.00
Design Choices 9.90 / 10.00
Not sure what I got on the final exam yet, but I really want to get an Achievement Unlocked! for this class.
That’s either quite the statistical anomaly, or the essays were run through computer grading before being assigned and distributed for peer review.
That seems to be the breakdown for folks who want to get into games. Most have a fun idea but no follow-through, or want to make games but miss the basic concepts. And a few who have great ideas, communicate them clearly, drive excitement without being a weirdo, and is basically so brilliant that I hope we’re never up for the same position.