Creating Games-That-Teach
Fifty to 60% of the project inquiries we’ve received over the past year have included questions about Games-That-Teach. There exists both a curiosity about what’s possible and angst over their perceived complexity and application.
What are Games-That-Teach? Part of what creates angst is the broad definition of what a GTT is. Also known as Game-Based Learning, the simple definition, “a learning-based activity that challenges a participant to a contest or task with an outcome that is both measurable and comparable,” is broad enough to encompass many content delivery formats. These games are often used to help audiences better understand information, improve performance, manage situations, think critically, problem solve and make decisions.
GTTs generally fall into one of three categories – Edutainment, Training Simulators, and Serious Games. They may be as sophisticated as a virtual reality environment like World of Warcraft (over 11.5 million unique players worldwide) and the popular FarmVille (over 82.4 million unique players worldwide), or as basic as Tic-Tac-Toe or Scrabble. It is the element of challenge that differentiates games from other content delivery tools.
Do Games Work? Here’s where you can relax a bit. Despite being around since 1962, there’s little empirical evidence that digital games as a whole are better at teaching than other, more conventional content delivery formats. Again, the variety and complexity of game types combined with the huge differences in the goals and objectives they seek to achieve and a limited ability to collect meaningful performance metrics conspires to keep the value of game’s contributions to learning enveloped in a haze. We think we see a form but the edges are fuzzy. The reason we think games are effective in the learning environment is that they clearly support three dominant learning theories:
- Activity Theory: GTTs engage learners in non-threatening virtual environments, allowing them to participate in and experiment with the content.
- Situated Learning: GTTs can safely immerse learners in a variety of virtual environments
- Experiential Learning: during gameplay, learners gain knowledge, experience or practice through direct experience.
The quick answer to the question “Do Games Work?” is, on an epistemic level (games that help players learn to solve problems that don’t have standardized answers) an emphatic… probably, but on a training level the answer is, almost certainly. In fact, Europe is well ahead of North America in the productive use of digital game-based learning in the corporate training environment.
Our most successful game-based learning programs have been those that incorporate game components as part of the pedagogy, using them to reinforce concepts and create deeper learning.
Creating the Right Game for The Situation – now is an appropriate time to get into the game pool by starting at the shallow end. Here are 10 heuristics that will help keep you afloat while you learn to swim:
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We’re well beyond the debate as to whether games-that-teach enhance the delivery of learning content (they do), so why aren’t we seeing more of them? The two biggest challenges we encounter are:
Listening, Verbal or Auditory Learners connect more dots through listening. Audio descriptions, storytelling, sound effects, and audio cues are better comprehended. If you want to connect better with this type of learner, try using voice over or record a podcast. When using a spacial based learning environment, sound effects and environmental noises that relate to your topic can often help your user focus as it will immerse them in the content.
Seeing or Visual Learners learn through imagery. They make better connections between information and themselves through seeing. Examples include videos, animations, infographics, photos, charts, graphs, and even visually laid out text. There are many ways to better connect with your user such as making a video that shows a process or shows motion graphics that represent the information being presented. Draw out what is being explained or use images that represent each step or the details of a product or theory.
Touching, Tactile and Kinesthetic Learners learn through interaction or by doing. The hands-on style of learning often allows for mistakes and changes to variables which express the cause and effect of the subject at hand. To connect with a tactile learner, create an interactive experience. Let the user make choices or interactively explore.
Illumen is excited to once again sponsor the 
eLearning is a vague term which 
eLearning starts with a need or an idea and from there we can begin to develop goals, objectives, and strategy. Through this series, we are going to look at the process of creating an eLearning application that teaches the user how to change a bicycle or bike tire. Each part in the series will focus on a specific eLearning topic or step in the process. We will explore different technologies and different approaches to creating a simple course that does nothing more than teach our audience how to change a bike tire.
Go into any classroom and you will see students taking notes. What do we do when we need to remember things? We write them down. We all retain and gain our understanding of information differently and so we all take notes differently. So, with note taking being such an important tool in education and training, it is important that, as we move learning to the Internet, we have the tools available to allow us to take notes online.
Illumen’s CEO, David Charney, talks User Experience (UX) at the IBM Innovation Center Granite Group meeting. This example filled presentation covers the meaning of UX, why it is important, where it is being applied, the process of developing strong experiences, the