Yuting Chen Synthesis Letter

Yuting Chen
March 12, 2021
Professor Beacher
Draft 2 

Topic: How does virtual learning (gamification ) and online traveling experiences benefit people? 

Research Question:

1. How does gamification bonds to behaviors of online traveling users?
2. What are some core values of gamification?
3. How does virtual traveling experiences help people manage through COVID? 
4. How does the internet help and change the way we travel to a place?
5. How does virtual traveling establish a great opportunity for people with disabilities and people with other special circumstances?

Synthesis reflective  letter: 

Dear Professor Beacher, 

During the process of researching how gamification and virtual traveling experience could benefit people. These four entries are the ones that I think are the most helpful resources to explain the connections among gamification, virtual traveling, and people. These four entries reveal the advantages of gamification, developments of human thinking, and discover core values of both gamification and people. The concept of gamification and virtual traveling has illustrated among these four entries. They help us to realize why gamification has such great potentials and gains in growth of both companies and humans.

            Sigala (2015) and Rosenbloom (2013) both suggest how companies use game mechanics to motivate people to gain rewards in the process of exploring the world virtually. Gamification provides great opportunities to let customers challenge themselves and keep moving forward with their accomplishments. The audience of these two resources are people who are interested in game mechanics and eager to learn about the world virtually. These two authors would like to convey how gamification is a foundation to both companies and people in order to improve their understanding of the world. Companies are composed of people. They need to keep developing new techniques in order to fulfill expectations of their customers. Similarly, customers want to experience new and fun products in order to perform better. Sigala (2015) is a professor of tourism and director of International Federation for Information Technologies in Travel and Tourism( IFITT), she is an expert in traveling management. The article she writes is peer- reviewed scholarly paper, promotes the idea of gamification and then applies the idea to traveling virtually. Since the article mostly mentions the benefits of gamification, I might say it is a little biased because gamification might have some downsides as well. Rosenbloom is a columnist for the travel section of the New York Times, she has been a reporter for more than ten years. She reports how people gain knowledge by using gamified apps and establish virtual museum tours with multiple people. The tone aims to be objective and report what she sees. 

              The third entry, which was published in December 2020, mostly discussing how gamification and virtual learning benefit people during the pandemic. People now are stuck at home due to the pandemic and they have to avoid physical contacts. In addition, people with disabilities also have hard times to have chances to connect with other parts of the world. Virtual traveling establishes connections by interacting with different people. In addition, they are able to adventure more easily than physically go out. The goal of this article is to let people discover about themselves during the pandemic. People have actually reduced their concern due to gamification and virtual traveling. They are able to stay connected with the world. The audience of this article is people who are affected by the pandemic, but try to avoid their concerns about the uncertainty. This article is published by PR Newswire, which released news over sixty years. The tone is aimed to be objective and report how Americans think the pandemic would change overall traveling rates and turn it into virtual traveling. In entry four, Yu- Kai Chou (2014) has developed his own octalysis, which explains the definition of gamification and its core values. The purpose of this video is to encourage people to learn while playing. The tone is inspiring and encouraging. They are involved in something big that might change the world. The eight core drives demonstrate that people have potential to turn games into real life examples. They are able to help and improve the world by inventing creative products. Yu- Kai Chou is a gamification pioneer and helps people believe that they have great ideas to make everything more productive. 

         I believe that these four resources can better help me understand the connections among gamification, virtual learning, and people. They all added to the ‘conversation’. The concepts of eight core drives establish a foundation of introducing and explaining what gamification is about and how they drive people to become a better person. The consequence of knowing the potentials of gamification brings people to apply the ideas of gamification in different areas such as virtual traveling. It raises people’s interests and demands about the product because they discover something new about the world. At the same time, people achieve, accomplish, challenge, and reward themselves with concepts of gamification as company owners and regular people. Virtual learning is simple and convenient, especially now. Virtual learning helps reduce anxiety of people while avoiding physical contacts. It also encourages people with disabilities to not give up the beauty of the world. I believe the best way to organize my ideas is to find connections among the resources and combine the ideas of gamification and virtual traveling to show how they benefit people in various ways. 

Sincerely, 

Yuting Chen