After a brief hiatus I was happy to have another conversation with my friend and fellow gamification guru (surprisingly someone else’s words!) Michael Matera. In this WellPlayed Podcast we talked about adding Mystery elements to our classroom games.

Here is the link to Michael’s explorelikeapirate.com podcast episode 48 page:

Mystery as a Motivator Podcast Link

I mentioned several classroom powerups posts in the discussion. These can be found here:

Launch Codes: The Power of Access and Mystery

Improving the Flipped Classroom

Hero’s Journey as a Narrative Structure Tool

Dreadsheets: Using Spreadsheets for Boss Battles

We must have had a good conversation because my oldest son was totally into the conversation. I tricked Wes into thinking I was on the radio by playing the podcast through my car stereo auxiliary cord. First he thought it was cool that he could here me talking then, as Michael and I kept talking Wes told me that he loves surprises in school. When I mentioned my boss fights (my dreadsheets) he remembered that I tested it out on him over Winter Break and asked if we could play it again soon. My absolute favorite part though was when he subtracted 11 from 2. Then he asked if I would still be teaching in 9 years when he is in 11th grade because he really wants to be in my class to play this game!

Anyways, enjoy and as always check out #Wellplayed and both the #xplap and #xplapcamp Twitter Chats. I look forward to seeing you all around!