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GAMIFICATION: The application of typical elements of game playing (e.g point scoring, competition with others, rules of play) to other areas  of activity, typically as an online marketing technique to encourage engagement with a product or service. As a chess coach gamification is the bedrock of your chess academy because promoting the game of chess does not only build great chess players but also helps students apply their knowledge in other areas…Gamification is an approach that converts difficult life situations to fun and should be embraced by all.

As a professional, efficiency is always key in determining the choice of work tools whether gamification is applied or not. That is why the Swiss army knife always symbolizes “efficiency” as it is a single tool with several functions because of it’s unique multi-purpose nature. In this article, the Swiss army knife represents the single tool that provides all solutions to the challenges of the modern chess coach.

In the area of chess education, the demo board, chess sets & clocks  method of teaching will definitely enlighten the students about the game of chess to an extent, but most coaches would agree with me that achieving significant success in the making of champions is a key factor that make coaches stand out among their peers, and achieving such feat cannot be done without the right tools…That’s why it’s essential to possess the Swiss army knife of chess coaching.

Among several platforms built over the years to aid chess education, little focus has been given to the necessary tools coaches would need to manage their students effectively until the emergence of the world’s leading coaching management platform called Chesslang.

WHY IS CHESSLANG CONSIDERED TO BE THE SWISS ARMY KNIFE OF CHESS COACHES?

Not only called the World’s leading coaching management platform because of its direct access, total control and coach/ student friendly environment. Chesslang has set the pace in revolutionizing chess coaching as it is specifically designed to serve as the single but multi-purposed learning and teaching tool for students and coaches.

Lets take a look at how this platform gives a whole new meaning to gamification through it’s unique features.

• ACADEMY: The academy feature helps coaches organize their academies, Here students can be sorted out into various groups on certain criteria’s (regions, level,age and more), this enables coaches to be able to give personalized training and tasks to particular groups or individuals and track their performances effectively. Why keep long registers, and bulky paper records when you can organize your groups at ease and get the best from every student?

• SESSION: A unique feature specifically for online chess lessons, the session is a classroom-like environment equipped with a video-audio call option, a sophisticated chess board with reference board, engine, moves, chat and other sub-features that let coaches flip board, show pawn structure, draw arrows, highlight squares, set up position, copy and upload positions. Why struggle with non-user friendly software’s when you can possess your own branded coaching management platform that helps you coach all your students from various regions of the world.

• ASSIGNMENT: While coaches can assign tasks to students individually or in groups to ascertain their understanding of the rules, principles and positions. A student performance can be tracked effectively as detailed information on the strength and weakness are provided based on the task that has been attempted. The presence of a private database enables coaches to set up their very own problems and assign to students or groups, although they can choose to select from already existing problems which has been specifically created from different topics..The public database is accessible by all coaches using chesslang and its updated frequently to cover all areas. Finally , it is important to note that each assigned task has a deadline which can be set by the coach creating the task, to aid organization in the academy as the students will be able to comply with the time frame.

  

• PRACTICE: Practice as the name implies, is  a key feature that possesses several unique positions of varying difficulty to be solved by the students with the aim of perfecting their understanding on the theories and principles behind tackling such frequently occurring positions. The practice consists of various mating patterns with king and rook,  knight, bishop & King and much more. Practice can be repeated with the aim of achieving perfection, As the saying goes ” Practice makes perfect”..It is obvious that this is a key feature that allows students gain mastery through practice which in turn leads to success and a successful student makes a successful coach.

• PROBLEM-BASE AND GAME-BASE: This feature has definitely eased the burden of chess coaches in respect to data storage and organization. Most coaches struggle with having a safe place to store vital information’s needed to adequately manage their students, The chesslang problem-base feature enables problems to be stored in the cloud, This problems can be assigned to students or solved by the coaches during lessons for purpose of giving students insight on how to tackle similar problems. Also, the game-base which is similar to the problem-base is a database of games which contains all the games the coach has uploaded for analysis or reference while of teaching.

• BLIND-BOT: Named after it’s unique function, the blind-bot enables students to play blindfold chess against a chess engine at any difficulty level. The importance of this feature cannot be overemphasized as blindfold chess aids retentive memory while also developing the players vision…The ability to reveal/hide position on the blind-bot guarantees that a player can slowly but truly master the art of playing blindfold chess..This is definitely a fun way to improve the chess skills of students.

• SHARE-BOX: The drop-box of chess, known as the share box is a game-sharing feature built to enable coaches send annotated games in pgn’s to students and vice versa. With the share-box students can share their tournament games for analysis while coaches can do same for personal review of games by the students before a lesson. This feature simply helps coaches and students get access to all games they require at a click of a mouse.

• TOURNAMENT/GAME-PLAY : Last but not the least is the game play/ tournament feature…Learning the game of chess is the first step to becoming a chess player while learning how to play tournaments,handling tournament pressure, handling time pressure and competing by the rules part of the requisites for becoming a complete chess player. This is simply why this platform possesses this feature as students need to test their readiness for competitive play and also learn how to handle time and tournament pressure.                                       

In summary, A coaching management platform that serves as a single tool for coaching, performance tracking,practice,game-play, assigning tasks, database maintenance and more should  be your very own coaching management platform. Why struggle with various non-user friendly tools, bulky paper-work and physical demo boards that requires setting up positions at the expense of your scheduled time when you can have a user friendly branded tool, lots of storage space and avoid unnecessary cost by simply adopting an all-in-one coaching management platform.

Visit us @ www.chesslang.com and see how we change the way you coach…Don’t follow the trend, be the trend!