Does Podia Have Gamification? Add Gamification to an Online Course

What is gamification in online courses?

Essentially, it means incorporating game-like elements into your online course to make it more fun and engaging for your students.

There are many ways to do this, such as awarding points or giving out badges when students complete tasks or reach certain milestones. But it's not just about the obvious rewards - the way you design the progression of your online course can also make a big difference in how your students experience it.

By using gamification strategies and game elements in online learning, you're helping your students feel a sense of accomplishment and progress. This can motivate them to stick with your online course and complete it successfully.

This is why it is so important for your online course to incorporate gamification elements. But how can you add gamification features to an online course?

Well, it is simple, you need an online course platform with outstanding gamification tools for you to choose from.

Is that platform Podia? Let's find out.

Does Podia Have Gamification Tools?

No, Podia doesn't offer gamification features.

The only feature they offer that can be considered as gamification is completion certificates.

While course certificates are an awesome way to reward students after they complete an online course (we also offer this feature at Heights Platform), they are not the only gamification tool out there.

There are many more ways to gamify an online course and create an awesome learning experience for your students (badges, points, awards, projects...)

Ideally, you should introduce gamification elements as soon as a new student starts your course, so they are immediately engaged and more likely to complete your online programs.

In fact, it is only in 2022 that Podia added the ability for students to mark a lesson as complete. Podia launched in 2014 so it took 8 years before they added this simple feature! While they do have many other features, and they certainly would have been capable of adding a feature like this earlier, the lack of a lesson completion feature for so long shows a fundamental difference in their way of thinking.

Heights Platform has all of the gamification features we gave examples of above (and will go into detail about below), and has had the ability for students to complete lessons and see their progression as a progress bar both through individual courses, and through your entire program as a whole since it launched in 2018. We view features like this as core functionality to offer students a sense of progression and achievement that can help keep them engaged and motivated to continue learning.

The problem with Podia is that the only gamification feature they offer (completion certificates) is offered only once a student completes an online course and not before.

The Best Online Course Platform for Gamification: Heights Platform

So Podia does not offer native gamification tools besides completion certificates and a community. This means that you won't be able to reward your students with points, badges, or assign them projects directly within Podia.

While Podia does have some integration options with external gamification tools, the process can be complicated and may require additional subscription fees.

Plus, there's no guarantee that these tools will integrate seamlessly with Podia or accurately track individual student progress.

On the other hand, Heights Platform offers robust native gamification tools that are built right into the platform. This means you can easily award points, badges, certificates and more to your students as they progress through your course.

To create an amazing learning experience for your online course students, it's important to choose a platform that's designed with gamification elements built in. And that's where Heights Platform comes in! Heights Platform has been designed with the goal of helping your learners achieve results, and gamification is one way to help accomplish that.

Gamification helps to engage students and motivate them so they can complete your online courses successfully.

Want to see more differences between Podia and Heights Platform? Check out this detailed comparison: Heights Platform vs Podia

How Does Gamification Work on Heights Platform?

Heights Platform is the all-in-one platform that makes it easy for you to reward your students for their accomplishments, with features like points, badges, projects, assignments, community, and more.

These gamification elements help turn the learning process into a fun and engaging experience for your students.

Whenever a student completes a lesson in your Heights Platform course, they can automatically earn a customizable number of points or a personalized badge.

This positive feedback loop motivates them to keep logging into your program every day and continue learning.

Our gamification principles are inspired by the same tactics used by social media sites and video games to keep users engaged.

By incorporating these strategies into your online course, you can help your students stay motivated, engaged, and excited about learning.

Learn more about gamification: 9 Proven Ways to Increase Student Engagement and Completion Rate in your Online Course

So let's have a closer look at how gamification works inside Heights and all the tools and gamification elements we offer:

Keep Your Students Engaged With a Point System

When you create an online course on Heights Platform, your students will receive points for completing each lesson.

You have the flexibility to assign different amounts of points to each lesson, depending on how important you feel each one is to the overall course.

When a student completes a lesson, they will be awarded the corresponding number of points, and their point total at the top of their program will animate and update to reflect their new score.

Using points is a great way to incentivize your students to complete lessons and continue learning. Additionally, the point system provides valuable data for the online course creator to assess students' progress.

As a course creator, you have access to detailed analytics about your students' performance, making it easier for you to understand which lessons or course materials students prefer, and where there is a need for improvement.

This can help you tailor your online courses or membership site to better meet the needs and preferences of your students.

By default, the point system is already enabled in your program, but you can always disable it if you prefer.

Celebrate Your Student Milestones with Badges

In addition to points, Heights Platform also offers a built-in badge system as a gamification tool.

The best part?

Badges are automatically granted to students based on their actions within the course, so you don't have to spend time manually setting them up or awarding them to students.

There are two types of badges available on Heights Platform: System Badges and Custom Badges.

System Badges are built-in badges that will be automatically granted to students when they meet certain conditions within the course, such as completing their first lesson or earning a certain number of points.

On the other hand, Custom Badges are badges that you as the course creator, can design with your own custom imagery and style. These badges can also be manually granted to students.

Heights Platform provides a selection of pre-made custom badges, which you can easily edit by adding your own name and description. This allows you to create a unique badge system that reflects your course personality and is great to engage students.

Create a Project for a Shared Learning Experience

Another feature native to Heights Platform that Podia lacks is Projects!

Heights Platform is the all-in-one online course platform that offers a Projects feature. This is a unique way to encourage students to apply their knowledge in a practical setting.

Unlike standard quizzes or tests, Projects offer a hands-on approach that is more beneficial for both students and course creators.

If you want to add a Project to your Heights online courses, it is a good idea to align the Project's content with the goal of your course and challenge students to apply their knowledge in a practical way.

For instance, if your online course is about app web development, the Project could be "Create a Portfolio Website," where students can submit their work for evaluation, see other students' work and motivate each other!

In fact, students can provide feedback and vote on each other's Projects, which fosters a sense of community and collaboration within your course.

Once they've completed the course and reached the desired outcome, they can even post their own Project to show what they have achieved.

Keep Students Motivated as They Learn With Assignments

The end of an online course is not the only time when you can have students showcase their work and put their knowledge into practice.

With Heights Platform's Assignment lessons, you can create tasks or ask questions for students to complete after the lessons inside your course.

This feature lets students apply what they have learned in a more hands-on way, and you as the creator, can easily review their work and offer feedback to help them improve.

Assignments can also help you assess a student's progress and make sure they understand the material and course content.

With the ability to upload files, students can demonstrate their knowledge in a variety of formats, making this feature ideal for online courses that require practical work or involve creative projects.

Community & Completion Certificates

The course creation gamification features we have described up until now are unique to Heigts Platform, and cannot be found in Podia gamification tools.

What Podia and Heights Platform have in common is the option to add a community feature and offer certificates of completion to students.

By providing a space for students to interact with one another, ask questions, and share their experiences, you are creating a more inclusive learning environment that encourages students to stay engaged and committed to their learning journey.

In addition, community features like discussion forums, group chats, and peer-to-peer feedback can help students build relationships with one another and feel more connected to the course and its content.

Heights Platform's community feature makes it easy to build a thriving online community, without the need for third-party software or complicated integrations.

To learn all about building an online community, check out these articles from our blog:

• Why You Should Build an Online Community of Engaged Customers and How to Do it
• How to Choose the Right Online Community Platform For Your Knowledge Business
• 7 Steps to Revive Your Online Community and Increase Engagement

Heights Platform also offers a customizable certificate feature that creators can use to recognize and reward their students for completing their online courses or specific sections of their program.

The certificate can be designed to match the creator's branding and style and can be granted to students at the creator's chosen time.

Once set up, Heights will automatically deliver the certificates to students upon completion, based on the creator's settings.

Learn more about offering certificates of completion for your course students here: How to Offer Certificates of Completion in Your Online Course

Conclusion

Compared to Podia's lack of gamification tools, Heights Platform provides a comprehensive set of features for creators who want to sell online courses, sell digital products or digital downloads, membership sites and more - while enhancing the learning experience of their students.

With Heights Platform, creators can access points, badges, completion certificates, assignments, projects, and a built-in community space to create engaging online courses and improve their online business reputation.

If you want to sell online courses and create an awesome learning experience for your students, create your Heights Platform account today!