Since the inception of Covid19 pandemic, the gamified education system has started to swell in terms of users, number platforms, technology, innovation and so on. Online classes, learning management systems, and so on are now becoming a part and parcel of the education system. Understanding the need, Wonderslate, an ed-tech platform, has introduced a gamified app – Prepjoy.
In conversation with AnimationXpress, Wonderslate CEO and founder Anand Achyut shared that Wonderslate has built a gaming environment specific to learning and has taken academic content sources into this environment. This is completely different to the model followed by others. And it’s just the initial phase towards the dream of building a learning experience in the metaverse.
He expressed, “For the past few years, gamification has entered rigorously into the educational sector. This new concept of learning via gaming design elements can be used to improve an aspirant’s engagement level which can lead to the improvement of their skill sets, memorisation of difficult concepts and solve tough problems in a fun way. We believe that gamified learning technology is the future of the education sector in India, so we decided to launch Prepjoy to help aspirants crack entrance and competitive exams in Hindi as well as English in a fun, effective and efficient way. The app is useful for current affairs, general awareness, general knowledge, general studies, Indian and global environment, national and international updates, and others.”
Today the attention level of students while following the traditional old school model has reduced compared to where it was in the past. Usually the biggest concern of the parents today is that their child is glued to a screen for hours just for the purpose of playing and being unproductive. Regarding this, Achyut added, “Being aware of this issue, we thought about revamping a concept which already existed in the market and already has a huge customer engagement by adding a twist of education into it.”
Prepjoy provides users an opportunity to read more about daily current affairs in a fun manner and keep testing themselves with the unique current affairs quiz game. “On the app, students and aspirants can play the quiz game as a challenge to see how much they actually learned to constantly improve and grow by accepting and excelling at various levels. Also, the option of maintaining a leader board is provided on the app so that the students can maintain a score with other participants and thrive to get better with the knowledge.”
Achyut has noticed that when students accumulate good scores for different quizzes, they collect badges for every achievement, and it has encouraged students to improve their scores. Apart from that it helps students to prepare for competitive exams as it enhances self-study, provides complete freedom to fail and real-time feedback.
Prepjoy’s first version Prepjoy Current Affairs is extremely popular among students which recorded close to 100,000 downloads in three to four months. Students are appreciating it as it enables them to read all the relevant materials, videos in one place. They can practice by playing multiple times with different opponents, which gives them a lot of confidence.
While designing a platform which enhances knowledge with the help of games, there are several key factors which one should keep in mind. He added, “It is very important to make the platform very interesting and engaging. The platforms should always match up with the market trends and keep on improvising/ updating to maintain continuous user engagement. It is an incredibly challenging process as a lot of things like innovative learning styles, motivational rewards/scores, user diversity and so on needs to be kept in mind.”
To design games which is simple to use but to build an experience closer to the style of exam preparation is challenging. It requires working with different communities / groups to understand models of the exams, content types and learning styles, marking patterns, design the models for practice to excel, leader boards and rewards. This usually takes around three to six months to understand and design a learning game.
In the coming years, gamification would become a strategic management tool rather than simple game-based designs. “We can see a new level of functionality, accessibility, and lifestyle integration to grow gamification intrinsically. eLearning will spread widely, and we can see a deeper approach in its teaching and learning process,” he said.
After the success of the first gamified module for Current Affairs, Achyut shared that it will be followed by Prepjoy Engineering Entrance, Prepjoy NEET and Prepjoy State exams.