Gamification in education is here to stay. We dedicated an issue of the Edudemic Magazine to it. You’re using it in your classroom on a daily basis. But up until now, it hasn’t been caught fire like I would’ve expected.

That’s all about to change with the opening of the new game-based school in Los Angeles.

The PlayMaker School has been funded by both AT&T and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. It’s basically a subset of the New Roads school and will feature 60 6th grade students. The school is designed to tightly integrate gamification into its instructional model from end to end. The goal is of course to further engage students, test out new game-based lessons, deploy technology alongside game-based projects, and more.

It’s not the first game-based school (check out Quest to Learn), but it is an exciting step toward the future of game-based learning. It will be interesting to see how the school fares over the coming school year. We’ll be keeping an eye on it, hoping it goes well!