The Avatari project started with a conversation between Ryan Winkelmann and me on gamification in education. We quickly brought in Karen Mills and looked at the 7th grade history project (we also had Nancy Adair and Paul Hagen join in).

The premise was straight forward. The 7th grade research project was long for that age. The steps along the way could use a little extrinsic motivation as they progressed toward the finish line. What we came up with was a way to receive currency and then spend that currency to dress up your avatar. (Avatari is a mash up of avatar and the video came system atari).

Our EvoInstruction talk on Avatari in 2013

It was an intense and interesting project. Ultimately, we dropped it, but it helped us understand canvas integrations better and gave us a tremendous amount of credibility with Instructure (canvas).