https://blogs.baruch.cuny.edu/blue2/
Author: Yuting Chen
Yuting Chen Outline
Introduction
Hook: People are always wondering if they can just play forever instead of learning things they are not interested in at all. If there is a chance of learning while playing, would you accept or decline it?
Statement of the Problem/Debate: Virtual traveling and gamification are the newly founded topics that draw attention to the public and increase debate. Virtual traveling is a way that allows people to travel abroad at any time and anywhere. Gamification involves elements of games mechanics to capture public attention and apply the concepts in different products. The benefits of both virtual traveling and gamification are more than people expected to be. Some people still doubt the advantages of virtual traveling and gamification because they believe in traditional learning. Meanwhile, holding back new technologies and thoughts could stop the world from growing.
Thesis Statement: As a result, virtual traveling and gamification are very conducive tools to improve efficiency by rediscovering and recovering people during Covid, succeeding in real world applications, building a sense of accomplishment, and developing the tourism industry.
Body Paragraphs
Subargument # 1: Virtual traveling and gamification become another way to rediscover and recover all kinds of people during COVID by reducing their stresses.
Support 1: “Almost 80% of Americans say they will not be traveling by airplane this holiday season, and 29% believe they won’t book their next international trip until 2022. 70% of Americans report that their anxiety around traveling has increased somewhere since the pandemic began, and 40% admit that it has increased substantially. 30% of respondents say flying is the facet of traveling that makes them unsafe ( PR Newswire Association LLC, 2020, page 2 ).
Support 2: “ 40 million- plus Americans” are restricted traveling to another country due to COVID, sickness, age, mental illness, and physical disabilities. The needs of virtual traveling grow significantly. At the same time, it encourages everyone who has limited opportunities to travel and they should also enjoy the rights to view good scenes and leave good memories in their lives (PR Newswire Association LLC, 2020).
Support 3: Overall, this research highlights the important roles of virtual learning and gamification in studying chemistry by attracting students in a virtual format, but similar classroom community. The research shows that students’ confidence in learning chemistry stays positive in the pandemic and rediscovers their potentials in adapting to a new virtual environment ( Fontana, 2020).
Subargument # 2: The elements of gamification assist people to succeed in real world applications and improve learning experiences.
Support 1: One example is Nike plus Nike Fuelband. More people start to worry about their health and well-being. Nike plus Nike Fuelband introduces new characters to celebrate when people meet the goal. It can easily track the amount of miles that people finish and see who ranks the highest, which makes everyone healthier and growing ( Chou, Y. 2014).
Support 2: The third core drive is “empowerment of creativity”(Chou, Y. 2014). The example is the game called foldit. The AIDS virus protein structure, which is not being solved for 15 years by scientists, has been solved by a person who is interested in gamification in 10 days.( Chou, Y. 2014).
Support 3: “ A sample of 250 students who used PierSim was surveyed in regard to their learning experience. The students valued the integration of concepts, the learning and the level of engagement above the ‘fun’ experience. This article suggests the success of gamification by attracting students to learn while playing” ( Craven, 2014).
Subargument # 3: Gamification and virtual traveling allow customers to build a sense of accomplishment and interaction with others.
Support 1: The first core drive is “ epic meaning and calling”, which means people feel like they are involved in something important to fight against fate.The second core drive is “development and accomplishment”. People feel proud of themselves when achieving certain goals. ( Chou, Y. 2014)
Support 2: TripAdvisor’s funware, which travellers are encouraged to upload online travel reviews (a play task) in order to get points and badges. Travelers’ are also awarded with high quality reviews and compliments by other users when their travel reviews are found useful ( Sigala 2015).
Support3 : People use a game app called Stray Boots to establish a virtual city tour. When the users answer the question correctly, they gain points and win prizes. The app also has its GPS feature to discover sites. In addition, this article also includes how this game assists people to engage and solve puzzles ( Rosenbloom, 2013).
Subargument # 4: Virtual traveling and elements of gamification develop the growth of tourism.
Support 1: “ Tourism Australia, through the campaign “Best Jobs in the World”, launched a gamification solution to attract young people. The participants were selected based on images or videos sent and shared on social networks and the winners were rewarded with offers of trips to Australian destinations. Therefore, 330,000 persons from 196 countries are actively seeking information about working in Australia” (Negruşa, A, 2015).
Support 2: “ One of the biggest areas in tourism gamification and virtual traveling is destination marketing. Games can contribute to advertising: (1) Specifically designed advergames. They are created to promote the brand and places, aiming at the association and recall of the brand” ( Xu, 2016)
Support 3: “ In the tourism literature, emotionally attached to the environment/destination can be part of the tour experiences. Tourists’ immersion within the destination contributes to their memorable experiences through the surrounding environment, the virtual sound, the imaginative stories, and the challenges brought by the game tasks/missions, players could immerse themselves in sensory, challenge-based and imaginative immersion, which all contribute to a deeper level of personal experiences” ( Xu, 2016)
Conclusion
To sum up, virtual traveling and gamification improve the world’s effectiveness by benefiting people during Covid, solving problems in real world applications, establishing confidence, and growing the economy of the tourism industry. When there are new reliable technologies and new ideas coming in, people need to embrace them instead of rejecting them right away without considering. Even though virtual traveling and gamification are very new concepts, they help many people through tough times and give them chances to explore the world.
Reference:
Chou, Y. (2014, February 26). Gamification to improve our World: YU-KAI Chou at tedxlausanne. Retrieved March 17, 2021, from https://youtu.be/v5Qjuegtiyc
Craven, D. (2014). Gamification in Virtual Worlds for Learning: A Case Study of PIERSiM for Business Education. Gamification in Education and Business, 385–401. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-10208-5_19
Fontana, M. T. (2020). Gamification of ChemDraw during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Investigating How a Serious, Educational-Game Tournament (Molecule Madness) Impacts Student Wellness and Organic Chemistry Skills while Distance Learning. Journal of Chemical Education, 97(9), 3358–3368. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jchemed.0c00722
Negruşa, A., Toader, V., Sofică, A., Tutunea, M., & Rus, R. (2015). Exploring Gamification Techniques and Applications for Sustainable Tourism. Sustainability, 7(8), 11160–11189. https://doi.org/10.3390/su70811160
PR Newswire (2020, December 17). Beeyonder Releases 2020 Holiday and Virtual Travel Report as the Pandemic Brings Travel to a Halt; 29% of Americans Don’t Anticipate Booking International Travel Until 2022, and 60% Have Tried or Are Considering Virtual Travel Alternatives. Retrieved March15, 2021, from https://advance-lexis-com.remote.baruch.cuny.edu/api/document?collection=news&id=urn%3AcontentItem%3A61J5-B4D1-DXP3-R1XK-00000-00&context=1516831.
Rosenbloom, S. (2013, May 31). Let’s play: Making travel a game. Retrieved March 04, 2021, from https://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/02/travel/lets-play-making-travel-a-game.html?searchResultPosition=3
Sigala, M. (2015). The application and impact of Gamification funware on trip planning and EXPERIENCES: The case OF tripadvisor’s funware. Electronic Markets, 25(3), 189-209. doi:10.1007/s12525-014-0179-1
Xu, F., Buhalis, D., & Weber, J. (2016, December 18). Serious games and the gamification of tourism. Tourism Management. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0261517716302369.
Yuting Chen Marvel
In this opinion piece, the author addresses his own viewpoints about the Marvel movies. The first claim that the author makes is Marvel movies are not art. “ Cinema was about revelation — aesthetic, emotional and spiritual revelation” ( Scorsese, 2019). In Marvel movies, Scorsese doesn’t see the elements of art, which builds a sense of connection with people. In his perspective, cinema is about inspiring people to be creative and form new ways to diversify art forms. They could agree or contradict with certain values and faiths. In other words, movies could have different forms. Movies intend to have the power to influence people deep in their hearts and make them think differently. People have strong feelings to agree or disagree with certain things, which could lead to different discussions. In addition, Scorsese doesn’t feel related to Marvel movies because everything could be predicted. Scorsese believes that Marvel movies have no risks and doesn’t bring surprises. He reveals his understanding in movies and believes that people will feel a strong connection between movies and themselves.
The second claim that the author makes is Marvel movies don’t challenge the current market trends. “ The pictures are made to satisfy a specific set of demands, and they are designed as variations on a finite number of themes” ( Scorsese, 2019). This evidence suggests that Marvel pictures are the pictures that only focus on fulfilling people’s expectations about certain themes, which Marvel movies directors predict is a popular trend and most people will like it. In other words, movie directors tend to cater to the market and make profits. The market then becomes limited and does not improve.
Even though the author argues that Marvel movies are not cinema, Marvel movies bring more opportunities in economic benefits and promote gender equality to the public. “ Disney has earned more than $18.2 billion at the global box office from Marvel movies since purchasing the company in 2009” ( Whitten, 2019). This evidence demonstrates that Marvel movies gain huge public attention and economic profits in just a decade, which is very fast and has potential developments. The success of Marvel movies brings more economic growth and the filmmakers have more chances to produce more adventurous films. In addition, Marvel movies also contain female representation and break the old impressions of males being superheroes. Marvel movies create equal representation of women and powers of women in Captain Marvel ( Itzkoff, 2019). Marvel movies bring diversity of characters from both female and male positions and encourage women to be strong and confident. Women can embrace who she is and believe that she is able to achieve anything she wants. Marvel movies bring up a lot of racial and cultural history, which builds a real basis for the character and connects people to characters in the movie. The themes of each Marvel movie become meaningful and viral. Most people face struggles in the real life, they could get inspirations from movies and move forwards with their life.
Whitten, S. (2019, July 22). Disney bought Marvel for $4 billion in 2009, a decade later it’s made more than $18 billion at the global box office. CNBC. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/21/disney-has-made-more-than-18-billion-from-marvel-films-since-2012.html.
Itzkoff, D. (2019, February 28). Can ‘Captain Marvel’ Fix Marvel’s Woman Problem? The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/28/movies/captain-marvel.html?searchResultPosition=1.
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:
- How does gamification bonds to behaviors of online traveling users?
- What are some core values of gamification?
- How does virtual traveling experiences help people manage through COVID?
- How does the internet help and change the way we travel to a place?
- 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
Yuting Chen Draft 1
Why I choose my topic: I would like to choose this topic because I am interested in how virtually traveling experiences may be different from traditional traveling. I want to explore how people interact with each other online even though we have different backgrounds and languages. I would like to find similarities and differences among cultures and promote cultures to others who might be interested.
Research questions:
1) How does traveling help people to discover new lifestyles and development of personal characteristics?
2) What is the connections between traveling and interactions among people? [I think this question might be a little too big for this essay. Some people travel without interacting with others.]
3) How does internet help and change the way we travel to a place?
4) How does virtual traveling experience ( Gamification) help people managing through COVID?
Topic: How does virtual learning ( gamification ) and online traveling experiences impact behaviors of people to learn different cultures without physical contacts? [This seems like another research question to me. It is very similar to the first question you listed above. It might be a good idea to focus on this question only because there should be a lot of great ideas and resources regarding this topic.]
Annotated Bibliography:
Entry 1
Reference:
Sigala, M. (2015). The application and impact of Gamification funware on trip planning and EXPERIENCES: The case OF tripadvisor’s funware. Electronic Markets, 25(3), 189-209. doi:10.1007/s12525-014-0179-1
Summary:
This journal article reveals how gamification plays important role in attracting people’s attention to travel around the world. One example that Sigala (2015) showes is TripAdvisor’s funware, which allows people to plan and change their traveling processes and destinations. [I’m not sure I understand how this is an example of gamification. Lots of apps let you change your plans. You might need to give one or two examples]. Gamification has great potential in marketing because it is simple and gives customers sufficient web experiences. Gamification also values faithfulness and satisfaction of customers. This paper focuses on investigating how gamification may affect user’s virtual experiences and behaviors by collecting datas from users’ online experiences. It explains how funware encourages users to interact with each other and form games mechanics such as user profile and activity feed. [Similar to my previous comment: I think providing an example would help your readers understand this better] These gameful experiences improve travelers’ egos and self- esteem when they complete certain tasks.This paper also conducted research on how the funware designs impact TripAdvisor by motivating the travelers to engage in the website and how it impacts the travelers’ decision-making by looking at the reviews. Moreover, the gamification application is enabled by Facebook, which means users can logging into the TripAdvisor’s website with their Facebook account to chat with friends and match the game mechanics with their own values.
Reflection:
This paper supports my topic because it is similar to the product we make. The main focus of this paper is to attract customers’ attention by giving out interesting game mechanics and motivate people to use the product. It is not just a game, it gives the opportunities to create your own planning process and encourage you to chat online and make friends with others. It collects satisfactions of customers and improves based on customer reviews. Games have been involved since the birth of humans. There are different games such as board games and card games. People then have games on their electronic devices since technology is gradually becoming something that people rely on. People interact with each other through phones. It fits my topic to encourage people to learn different cultures while avoiding physical contacts. [I think you’ll need to provide some specific examples of how these virtual interactions encourage people to learn more about different cultures.] People can build their own profiles and read friends’ activities. Our customers can use the product to gain their rewards and achieve some goals each time they learn some knowledges about a country.
Paraphrasing:
TripAdvisor’s game mechanics help to form interesting experiences of the places customers visit because TripAdvisor would recommend the most popular places and engage users to stay and avoid tourist traps from reviews from other users. ( Sigala, 2015, p.2)
Analysis:
I choose paraphrase the paragraph because it tells me how TripAdvisor can help people travel and gives best suggestions on where to spend time and time spent at destination. In our product, we will also give best advice to inform our customers the most popular places to visit and eat. With the game mechanics and funware, people can perceive their trip experience and make them feel they are like in the real place instead of virtual traveling .
Entry 2
Reference:
Rosenbloom, S. (2013, May 31). Let’s play: Making travel a game. Retrieved March 04, 2021, from https://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/02/travel/lets-play-making-travel-a-game.html?searchResultPosition=3
Summary:
This news [article] demonstrates how a couple uses a game app called Stray Boots to establish a virtual city tour. The app would ask questions like “ what color is the wall painted?” When the user answers the question correctly, they gain points and win prizes. [I’m a little confused about this example. Why is it asking about the color of this wall? How is this an example of cultural exchange?] The app also has its GPS feature to discover sites. In addition, this news [article] also includes how this game assists people to engage and solve puzzles. It leads to a change of behaviors of customers in psychological aspects. The more challenging a problem is, the more time customers would spend in order to get the rewards. [Are customers playing with other people online or are they playing alone?] The elements of game mechanics allow users to know how many countries they have visited and create special memories. It also helps companies to achieve some business goals and earn profits. Companies will create more and more creative designs and programs in order to engage customers. If companies introduce the same concepts, users would have aesthetic fatigue and not be willing to download the app. Promotions and surprises are necessary in order to attract users.
Reflection:
This news [article] presents a similar idea as our product of creating fun experience to customers in an app and explore world. Users can save a lot of money in the game instead of going somewhere they don’t know. They can also plan to go to the place they are interested in after knowing the basic knowledge so that they can avoid some problems when traveling. It is easy and quick to create an account. Companies try to create more emotional elements such as choosing own avatars. People can share their comments under arts works that are shown. One big concern would be that gamification may fail to earn profits for travel industries because customers already knew what the places have. These gamification company owners can cooperate with travel industries. For example, gamification companies can give higher level players certain coupons and discounts when they travel to other countries. [I think you need to provide a stronger connection between this article and the idea of learning about different cultures through virtual travel. For example, how is this game different from simply researching these sites on your own?]
Quote:
“ A map of the world shows players where their avatar is on its journey, and an Indiana Jones-style graphic line between cities enables users to track their progress. There is also a weekly sweepstakes, where five players are randomly selected to earn 100,000 points.” ( Rosenbloom, 2013, p.4)
Reason to choose the quote:
I choose this quote because it gives an example of how users can keep an eye on their accomplishments and the visual pictures of the cities. It also gives a sense of excitement when people can be picked as the “ lucky people” to win points and treats.
Both of these sources make sense considering your topic. I think you’ll need to provide some specific examples or analysis of how these apps/games encourage users to learn more about other cultures. You might also want to consider how the gamification of travel is different from simply researching different places online (which can still help people learn about other cultures). One suggestion: maybe choose another source that helps you explain how games promote interaction and/or cultural exchange.
Yuting Chen
Hello, everyone. My name is Yuting. I was born in China. My intended major is finance. I live in Staten Island. I worked as a summer camp counselor when I was in high school. I also enrolled in Summer Youth Employment Program last summer remotely. I am currently working for Baruch Undergraduate Admission as a part time job.
In my free time, I love watching TV and cook ( mostly Chinese food). I am learning to bake. My mom likes to cook and bake different stuffs. My mom taught me how to make cake long time ago, but I forget everything haha. My mom made this cake, I was helping her. 
One wonderful experience I had with my friend and her family was we went snow tubing in New Jersy. It was so beautiful. We also went to eat hotpot afterwards. I am looking forward to know all of you and hopefully we will learn from each other and know each other better! 