Yesterday I attended one of Sponge Uk’s great webinar sessions with the topic of games in elearning, so here is a quick summary of what I learnt from the session.

The spectrum as games in elearning is vast, from gamification all the way through to mini games and simulations, but all have the same aim, to make elearning more engaging. The more engaging the lesson, the more a user is likely to remember and absorb the information throughout the lesson.

Jason and Emma from Sponge UK explained that a game must be created with the audience in mind, so think about your audience, what’s the age demographic? Will they want strategic games, problem solving or action? Who is the audience and what will they interact best with?

There are four elements to games in elearning, engagement, autonomy, mastery and progression. Each element ensures that the user is immersed in the training and through being immersed is enjoying is learning. These elements can be achieved in a variety of ways depending of the type of game that is being used.

Ideas where discussed of what engaging a learner really is, and how the elements come together to create a great elearning experience. Starting with engaging, Jason spoke about creating a narrative which people can hook into and then add something simple such as  time constraint on making a decision to build on the autonomy, a user then feels like their decision is meaningful and has a consequence and can see the effect of their decisions, making mistakes in safe place. Progression can shows the linear progress that encourages users to carry on and get better and finally mastery comes from reaching the highest level or completing the lesson.

A poll taken in the webinar revealed that games can be used across almost all kinds of training, from fire safety to people management, some game element can enhance the learning, as long as it is relevant and relates to the business aim.

Games in elearning are a great way to give people the opportunity to make mistakes in a safe environment without risk, and an idea that came of the back of that is it is to make it fun to fail, which is something that I will aim to do while creating and designing future lessons.

At the end of the webinar almost 98% of participants said they would consider using games as part of learning strategies.

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  • One of the most significant things I read about gamification recently was that if we look at the most popular actual games on the market they have a feature that gamification tends to shy away from: failure. From Lara Croft to Candy Crush there is no way you are going to get all the way to the end first attempt. As long as the progress increases (even slightly) each time you try, and you remain hooked on the 'gameplay' you will return to it and have another go. Plenty of people stay up until the small hours to reach one more level of a game. I assume that if the learning material is well enough worked into the product we could hope for similar effects. Not that you will ever make a learning game that addictive. Will you?

    • We will try Rob!!

      • I think an obstacle is that employers have limited appetite for employees who take ages to get to the next level in their learning games!

        When I said "will you"? it was not a direct personal challenge but it is a very tall order. Don't people have a natural resistance to totally subscribing to a learning task? Even if its only slight there will always be the possibility that "I have to do this for work" is in the back of their minds? I don't always put up obstacles- I am genuinely interested in this topic.

        • I agree Rob, I think no matter how we work around games and learning there will always be obstacles, some people just are not invested in learning for work. 

          Games really doesn't work for some people, it's down to a case of trying new things constantly and hoping that learners enjoy it. 

          If you are really interested in the topic of games, Sponge UK are hosting a webinar next week which I am attending with the topic of Cyber Security - Bringing the risks to life which will touch on games and real life scenarios - should be really interesting. If you want to take a look click here :)

          Hope to see you there 

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