I am a stats junkie. I love to check the stats on my blog, seeing the number of views spike when someone like George Couros or Dave Burgess retweet my post. I also love to see where I rank each week in my list of friends on Fitbit. Though I am never in the top, I feel a need to check regularly just to see the list and where I stand.

Sometimes these checks motivate me to write another blog post or get off the couch to get in a few more steps.  Other times they make me reflect on where I’ve been and commit to new goals moving forward.

I am equally addicted to “leveling up” on a variety of mindlessly entertaining games that I play on my iPad at night (Tap Tap Fish, Best Fiends, and 1010! are my top three right now). I am competing with no one but myself, but I love the feeling of completing a level and moving onto the next challenge. I must admit that I can play these games for hours (while watching TV or listening to a podcast or audio book). I often have to tell myself, “You need to turn this off as soon as you level up”.

Today I found myself thinking about what “leveling up” looks like for educators.

A big level up might be:

• a promotion
• a new job title
• a salary raise

A smaller kind of level up might be:

• written or verbal praise from a supervisor for a job well done
• a thank you note from a student or a parent
• a note of appreciation from a colleague
• recognition of your work via a tweet from your school’s or district’s account
• your supervisor giving you additional responsibilities
• a Digital Badge for completing a task
• earning a MicroCredential

What else might “leveling up” look like for an educator?

I’ve read about gamification, and how we can use our students’ love of video games to make learning more exciting for them in our classrooms. Are there other ways we can support teachers to level up in professional learning and collaboration? I am not a Millennial, mainly due to the actual year of my birth, but I am pretty much a digital native and I love video games as much as the next teenager. I’m just wondering how we might use these passions in more ways in education.

These are my thoughts today.  I’d love to hear your thoughts.