You may have figured out by now that I am a high school science teacher. In New York State students taking a Regents science course must complete a minimum of 1,200 minutes of hands on laboratory work. As a teacher it is very overwhelming to keep track of the student lab minutes and communicate back to the students about how many lab minutes each of them have earned. Some teachers hand the labs to the students and have them keep the labs in a folder in the classroom and fill out a chart to see where they are at and how close or far away they are from meeting that 1,200 minute minimum. Several years ago I came across a blog about gamifying the classroom and I suddenly realized that it could be easily adapted to keep track of lab minutes.  Here is info about Gamification in education from tophat.com Gamification  is the use of game design and mechanics to enhance non-game contexts by increasing participation, engagement, loyalty and competition. These methods ca...