…think about how you attack a pile of study material. “People tend to try to learn in blocks,” Bjork said. “Mastering one thing before moving on to the next.” Instead of doing that Bjork recommends interleaving… “This creates a sense of difficulty,” Bjork said. “And people tend not to notice the immediate effects of learning.”

The gamification of learning is seen as inevitable, and one part of its persuasive nature is the challenge that games offer players. Here, we see Dr. Bjork directly point to the need for mixing activities and creating a level of difficulty. Most elearning courses sorely lack this varied mix of activities and challenge. We must consider how we can add those to courseware that must cater to a wide demographic. As a designer, it’s always a challenge to design an activity that challenges learners, does not overwhelm them, but must ensure it isn’t too easy to accomplish either.

…while we count forgetting as the sworn enemy of learning, in some ways that’s wrong, too. The two live in a kind of symbiosis in which forgetting actually aids recall…

While I’ve always known that forgetting plays an important role in learning. It’d be very difficult for humans to manage if they retained everything they ever learned. Yet, we consciously do very little forgetting. We often create learning solutions that are required to learn procedures. I wonder if in addition to helping people learn, we need to include some elements that assist individuals in forgetting obsolete procedures.

As gamification gradually finds its way into the realm of education, more and more educators are voicing their criticism or admiration for it. Despite the criticism, the gamification of education is here to stay.

This week, we take a closer look at ‘Gamification’ and what various L&D professionals think about it. Below are our top 5 GBL links from this week. Read them, share them or bookmark them.

1. Gamification in Education: Epic Win, or Epic Fail?
A trend referred to as “gamification” has swept industries as diverse as marketing, travel, and even education. While turning everything into a game sure seems like fun, it’s not as easy as it sounds. This article from Digital Pedagog explores the trend towards gamification, as well as some of its criticism.

2. The GameiT Handbook
The GAMEiT project is targeted at teachers, trainers, and multipliers and will empower them to design learning environments and teaching methods which are more creative, innovative and motivating by including game based learning elements and engaging the learner. The GameiT Handbook illustrates how games or elements of games can be included in educational practice, and to what end.

3. Why Game Designers Are Better Motivators Than Your Boss
This article from You Tern examines the power of games to motivate people, and how gamification can be applied at the workplace.

4. Three Reasons NOT to Gamify Education
This article from the Learnboost blog examines some potentially negative ramifications of applying game psychology to education.

5. The Fun And Games Of The FBI
This article from Kotaku takes a look at how the FBI is developing and using video games to train its agents.

Hope you like these links. If you come across anything interesting please feel free to share the link with us.

Hence, to ensure that you do not miss out on all the great links we share and also with a view to building a knowledge repository, every week, we shall be publishing a quick summary post of our best shared material from the week before.

Read it, share it or bookmark it.

Below are our top 3 links from this week:

1. The Power of Play in Learning
   Play is a powerful vehicle for learning which amplifies our capacity to innovate and to adapt to changing circumstances. Adults who are deprived of play are often rigid, inflexible and closed to trying out new options. Play is an active process that reshapes our rigid views of the world. This article from the MindShift Blog underscores the importance of play in learning.
2. Teaching Science Through Video Game Design
   A well designed game is akin to a good teacher. It provides the player/student with a reasonable challenge and helps the player learn through scaffolding and instructions. Kevin Hodgson, a Sixth grade teacher from Massachusetts, USA encourages his students to learn Science by designing and creating their own video games.
3. Games-Based Learning Experiences: Testing the principles with teachers and students
   This paper published by Futurelab outlines the findings from three workshops with teachers and students in which they:
   • give feedback on the relative importance of key learning elements identified in digital games
   • explore how these elements could be used to support the creation of games-based learning experiences in formal education settings

Hope you like these and if you come across anything interesting do share with us.

It’s always interesting to hear gamers talk about why they play certain genres of games and what aspects of those games they love.

What is even more impressive is the passion and motivation that gets individuals to play these games.

Recently I have been playing Little Big Planet on the PSP, something I bought on whim for my seven-year old. Watching him learn to play and master the game has been quite a revelation. Mainly that learning is such an organic activity that trying to define it in any way will be inadequate. While elearning has a long way to go in matching physical world experiential learning, there are definitely some aspects of the game world we want to emulate.

Little Big Planet; several quick realizations:

1. Easy, simple to difficult, complex – Every platform scroller game does this, but LBP excels because it creates the right difficulty curve, not too much, not too little. Just enough challenge to keep you wanting to try; if it weren’t difficult enough, it becomes boring, too hard and you give up. This sort of difficulty curve is never, (I take that back) perhaps rarely seen in elearning courses. Courses are just that, they run the course. We should learn how to offer experiences and not just display after display of information that could be effective as a booklet or document.

2. Contributory nature is very important, the ‘ability to create and share’. Ask yourself about the last elearning course you took – did you create something in it? If you did, could you share it with the rest of the world? LBP differs from other games by being as much a tool as a game. By offering an entire authoring environment, you can custom design levels and share them with the world. It also offers a unique insight into how game levels are created. While the levels that came with the game are nice; the levels that users all over the world have created are simply astounding. Amazingly, it is not just any other level you are sharing, it is the experience on a standardized platform.

I’d really like to see courses that allow individuals to create ‘things’, artifacts that indicate their level of competence. Also, the ability to share those with others, and if possible experience them (as in LBP).

3. Embedded in activities – While learning to play LBP it is nice how the learning is embedded into the environment and the game play activity. You effectively use the environment and controls to learn how to manipulate the environment and control the game avatar. Contrast this with typical elearning, where there is a huge separation between display and content. They are rarely one and the same thing.

A closer look at much touted simulations reveal nothing more than linear task based exercise with limited feedback or a series of shallow scenarios with questions to follow, of which the user must select options and receive feedback accordingly. (especially in workplace elearning) Perhaps this works, but it is very boring. In eLearning we need to rethink simulations, first with better depth of content and decision making required and second, with better fidelity representations of the real workplace. Including realistic goals that can be accomplished as learners make their way through activities in the environment may prove a sound learning design choice.

As you must have already guessed, this website showcases numerous physics-based online games developed in Flash.

The games have been classified into 7 broad categories.

1. Block Removal
2. Construction
3. Demolition
4. Platform
5. Projectile
6. Stacking
7. Other

Though these games aren’t complex science games, they still require a basic knowledge of concepts such as gravity and force. Each of these games is free and can be easily (and legally) embedded into any blog or website.

Why I Like This Site
The games on www.physicsgames.net can be used to teach the fundamental concepts of Physics in a fun and engaging way. It is also a wonderful resource for problem solving activities to be used in training sessions.

Another very important factor is that these games do not require ‘Knowledge’ of the laws of physics. The games are well designed and most games make use of the ‘scaffolding’ technique. The skills required to play the games are built steadily from one level to the next, leading to a gradual progression of problem solving skills being required.

Games To Check Out
My personal favorite is a game called Cargo Bridge, where you are required to design a bridge that will allow you to safely move your cargo from one side to the other. You have a limited amount of money to build each bridge.

Go ahead; check out the games on this website. They may seem childish but have tremendous potential in terms of ideas for some mind-blowing simulation projects.

The list in the article was based on their discussion. Very interesting, take a look.

Three trends among those listed that may impact learning in a big way are:

1. Always – connected gaming experiences – a always-connected environment will probably lead to an entirely different sort of game-play; we can’t even visualize what that might be like.
2. Single-player gaming will end – We are already seeing more and more competitive, collaborative, synchronous, multiplayer game environments that are engaging vast audiences. As developing such games becomes cheaper, and devices with computing and bandwidth are available with users, there is no reason why learning games of the future will not be collaborative/competitive in nature. As a social animal, that plays; such types of gaming will have a big impact.
3. Virtual reality – as they mention, we are finally close to realizing the promise of virtual reality. This means individuals will be able to interact with a virtual world in ways that are not possible right now and will almost certainly include totally new forms of interaction.  This sort of game technology will make for very effective simulations.

No! It doesn’t!

Research suggests that if learners are able to score and win the game without learning, they are more likely to do so. So what conclusion can we draw here?

In order for a game to be educational, it is imperative that the learners be required to learn in order to score and win the game.

What makes a good learning game?

A good learning game would include the following essential elements:

• Continuous Challenge: First identify the learning objectives of the course material and create a series of challenges, with each challenge leading up to another. Set clear, short-term goals appropriate to the level of the learner/player and the context in the game. Each challenge needs to map to a learning objective. Challenges are the key engagement factor with learners adapting to the difficulty level being built up in stages.
• Interesting Storyline: Research suggests that rewriting course lesson content in the form of a story combined with a challenge for students to overcome significantly improves learning performance. The learner is hooked on when the story and the game are interwoven.
• Flexibility: Provide the learner with multiple ways to achieve each goal. Asking the learner a series of questions with options does not qualify as a game; it is nothing but a visual representation of a multiple choice question. Allow the learners to make a choice and design their own strategies while still achieving the learning objectives.
• Immediate Rewards: Instead of the learners just accumulating points on a scoreboard, provide them with immediate rewards such as new capabilities in the game environment or even unlocking a new task or level. The idea is to make the learner/player continue playing the game. This is something that I realized while playing the game “Mafia Wars” on Facebook. Even though the game isn’t challenging, the immediate rewards kept me hooked.

What do you think are the characteristics of a good learning game? Please feel free to comment.

Key Healthcare Issues

Americans currently receive only about 50 percent of recommended care and typically perform only about half of the “self-management” procedures and behaviors necessary to keep them healthy. Traditional approaches to addressing these issues aren’t working quickly enough, that’s why the C3N (www.c3nproject.org) was created. C3N is a new system of care to enable patients, clinicians and researchers to collaborate to solve important problems, and use their collective creativity and expertise to act in ways that improve health.

Critical Issues That The Solution Must Address
C3N wants the game to do (at least) two main things

1. Change patient behavior in the real world – improve adherence to medication and increase patient empowerment and activation
2. Game to span both patient and clinician community – a bridge to improve clinician / patient interaction

Challenge Overview

The Seeker, Collaborative Chronic Care Network (C3N), is looking for approaches to using games and/or game dynamics applications to inspire adolescents with inflammatory bowel disease (both Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis) and other chronic illnesses to create and maintain their own health.

A successful solution will present a clear description of how the game(s) should work and look like, ideally with initial thoughts on design and images.  Besides, an ideal solution will include the description of all or the majority of the following “components”:

• It will clearly describe how the solution will create a community that will bring together adolescent IBD patients, their peers, their families and friends, and their doctors;
• It will clearly articulate how the solution will produce sustained engagement in self-management behaviors in a way that is persuasive, appealing and engaging to adolescents;
• It should provide well defined means for a “positive” peer pressure, i.e., allowing members of the community to positive affect and motivate other members;
• It will promote enhanced self-management of the disease by the patients and constructive, collaborative interactions between patients and doctors or other clinicians;
• It should provide some measures of “success”, that is, it should be able to “score” healthy behaviors that could be shared with the rest of the community, for example, using Twitter;
• It should provide means for group competition, i.e., by allowing teams or leveling up (Scouts, Champions, Titans, etc.)
• It should clearly define the platform upon which the proposed game(s) will run, i.e., mobile phones, Facebook, Internet portals of patient groups, etc.
• It should be specific to IBD (both Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis) but adaptable to other chronic conditions with only minimal adjustments.
• The Solvers are expected to provide a short (2-5 page) written description of their approaches along with drawings, diagrams or screen shots to illustrate the idea, if applicable.

Next Steps

Log on to the Innocentive website to view additional details and register for the challenge. The deadline for submitting entries is June 18^th, 2011.

This is a splendid opportunity for designers of game based learning to showcase their talents. I’m sending in my entry, are you?

So what do I mean by creative skills? These three mainly:

1. The ability to create/generate ideas, create things either virtual or real that have value, are new and surprising.
2. Being imaginative and extending ideas beyond the boundaries in which they are generated – taking A and applying it to B.
3. Being ‘creative’ within a system/framework. I studied engineering and found that it enabled a framework of thought that allowed me to be creative within its constraints. Systematic creativity is encouraged and enabled in many disciplines such as the arts, science, design and of course, engineering.

The exceptionally creative people I’ve known over the years have shown distinct abilities that set them apart from others. Don’t get me wrong, every individual is creative in their own way; this creativity is essential to human adaptation to the varied situations encountered in life. However, there are some individuals you meet who shine in lateral thinking, making connections, drawing conclusions, reaching decisions and creating/generating something that is new, surprising and interesting.

So how does Lego figure in all this?

Lego encourages the development of the ability to create or generate ideas. Typically when a Lego player gets a box, they go over the parts and the accompanying building instructions for it, follow them once to build the model and then dismantle the component pieces all over again. At this point, some will rebuild the model to discover nuances of the set; most however, will try to create something that they’ve thought of. This translation of an abstract design thought into a working/physical representation is done using Lego bricks. Each individual creates something that is different from the other.

As a child, typically Lego isn’t taken at face value. In the sense that while the Lego bricks remain plastic parts, they are often assembled into ‘models’ that inhabit the child’s imagination. This type of extending the boundaries of the imagination into the physical world is very typical of individuals with creative skills. So Lego encourages creativity by enabling an environment that allows for infinite combination, exploration within boundary constraints of a system (the Lego system in this case), and supports transformation – allows for the creation of entirely new models with little in common with the building instructions that come with the sets.

This offering a system of interaction and creation (leading to an environment of play) rather than a toy is great for play and learning. Lego encourages a systematic approach to creativity. While there are varying levels of expertise in building models with Lego, the rules remain unchanged. As one learns the ropes, one realizes there are things that one can and cannot do within that environment. Any model building must take into account this framework of rules. This reflects the demands of creativity in real life as well.

Lego helps children imagine possibilities, create real/physical models based on their ideas, play, manipulate, modify and experiment with their creations, share their models, insights and techniques with others, and analyze their building experiences. Eventually, I feel digital learning environments would need functionality that allow similar activities.

• What simulations are and aren’t
• Where simulations fit in an organizations’ flow of skills
• Best practices in designing and creating simulations

After reading the post, I browsed the web for examples of simulations that are capable of generating a powerful learning experience. One that really struck a chord was – Inside the Haiti Earthquake.  Inside the Haiti Earthquake is a first-person simulation based on documentary footage from Haiti and real-life decision scenarios.

At 4:53 pm on January 12 2010, the worst earthquake to hit the Caribbean in 200 years struck the impoverished nation of Haiti. The epicenter of the 7.0-magnitude earthquake was only 25 kilometers from the country’s capital, Port-au-Prince; the devastation was massive and immediate.

When the earthquake happened, a team of journalists co-coordinating with the Canadian Red Cross were able to deploy with some of the first emergency response units and they came back a few times afterwards to film the progress.

Inside The Haiti Earthquake is an interactive documentary project about the Red Cross response in Haiti that allows users to simulate the experience of a survivor, journalist or aid worker following the earthquake.  In each role, users have to make choices and face the consequence of their decisions which ultimately, says  the creator (Michael Gibson) will “deepen their understanding of the conflicts, challenges and contradictions of disaster relief.”

The simulation’s home page has the following intro:

Inside the Haiti Earthquake is designed to challenge assumptions about relief work in disaster situations.

This is not a game. Nobody is keeping score. By playing the role of an aid worker, journalist and survivor, you will be given the opportunity to commit to various strategies, and experience their consequences.

What follows is fairly simple. You are shown a scene and then have to pick one of multiple choices, which will influence how the rest of the story progresses.

Inside the Haiti Earthquake is PTV Productions’ first foray into web-based gaming. It is a nominee for the 2010 Canadian New Media Award for Best Web-Based Game. In November 2010 Michael Gibson presented a paper on the writing process at the International Conference on Interactive Story-telling in Edinburgh.

The paper is available for a free download here

You can try out the simulation or  view the trailer for the Inside Disaster documentary here

Patapon is really ‘fun’; and it set me thinking about what makes it fun. The perception of fun is a moving target, and it’d be difficult to say X element in a game promotes fun, but I’m hazarding sharing my thoughts. We’ve all seen games that are visually appealing, contain numerous game elements and aren’t ‘fun’ to play at all. Then there are those games that don’t have sophisticated visual appeal, appear simple in mechanic but are still spell-binding and sap hour and hours of one’s time due to their fun and addictive game-play.

So these are – IMO, 9 essential elements in fun games:

1. The opportunities to allow for various types of game-play within a solid mechanic. For example, in a real-time strategy game, a player is able to formulate varied strategies depending on the challenges that face him/her. This response is targeted at a particular juncture in a particular situation that has formed as a result of player action within the game environment.
2. The game environment needs to provide the space, or rather a sense of space that prompts the player to explore. The game environment need not necessarily be a 3D high-fidelity representation of reality. As I saw in Patapon, a simple layered 2D approach can work very well.
3. The game mechanic needs to be solid and add infinite ‘replayability’. The rule set that defines the game structure must be logical, and allow for unique instantiation within the environment and the player’s interaction with it. If I look at Patapon as an example, the song/rhythm for an action mechanic is simple yet evocative and allows for a variety of interaction with the environment and non-player characters and elements.
4. Every game must necessarily include a range of challenges. This is perhaps the simplest observation, to be commonly found in most commercial games. On the other hand, I have found this to be quite rare in learning games.
5. Every game must target a range of abilities – the combination of abilities required to solve a game problem must progress incrementally. As the level of difficulty goes up, not one but a combination of abilities must be used to win. This sort of ‘ability scaffolding’ is important when players are expected to master the game as they play through levels.
6. Every game must require varied levels of skill when using the abilities that the game provides. So while I mentioned a combination of abilities previously, its equally important that game requires an increment in the level of skill for abilities within the game.
7. Rewards must be commensurate to the combination of abilities required and the appropriate skill level to solve a game problem/challenge. Too much reward for too little in relation the in-game demand abilities and skill levels vs. too little reward in relation to the in-game demand for abilities and skill levels. A balance has to be maintained and the player must find the reward fair when contrasted to the abilities and skills required to win in-game.
8. Failure should never be cheap or free. There must always be a cost associated with it. While this cost may not seem like much and a player will repeatedly pay that cost to learn. Pricing failure encourages players to try out different strategies (combination of ability/skills) in attempt to avoid the price of failing.
9. There must be multiple ways to win a game. Simple enough; this ties to the mechanic allowing for a variety of strategies to emerge during game-play. If there is typically a single and repeatable way to win, this would be more like a puzzle and not a game. Allowing for multiple win strategies or paths also provides good motivation for strategy exploration. “I can win using this combination, but can I win using another different combination?”

What other elements would you add to this list? Share your elements in the comments below!

The Healing Blade is a card game that teaches budding Med students the ins and outs of infectious disease. It was created by two doctors, Francis Kong and Arun Mathews, who founded the game company Nerdcore Learning.

In the game you play as either an Apothecary or a Lord of Pestilence. It’s a two player game where each player chooses one side. The goal is to beat your opponent through better card management. The game’s USP — playing the game teaches you which infectious diseases are vulnerable to which antibodies. It’s not a trivia game, but players learn or put into practice real-world knowledge of fighting infections during game play.

The game does not have the end-goal of generating a profit, but of generating funds to donate to a worthy cause. The money Nerdcore Learning raises by selling the game goes toward an organization Dr. Mathews created called HOPE, Hospital-based Online Pediatric Environment, which provides video game consoles to pediatric hospitals.

There are numerous card and board games which can be used as effective learning aids in Instructor Led Trainings, and many more can be designed to satisfy specific learning outcomes.

Here’s a list of five more learning games (Board and Card) that I came across.

• American Megafauna
• Erosion
• Britannia
• ORIGINS – How We Became Human
• Zendo