Integrating Online Games into Learning & Development
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Nine billion hours a year are spent playing Window's Solitaire The online games industry is worth – give or take a few – around 15 billion 20 million players have spent 17 million hours on the Xbox – that’s more than 2 hours played for every person on the planet Just imagine what we could do if we harnessed just a small percentage all that creativity and energy (and money!) and channeled it towards something really worthwhile…
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Integrating Online Games into Learning & Development
- 1. Integrating Online Games into Learning & Development the why, the how and the how much Presented by Stacey Edmonds - Head of Film & Digital
- 5. Employees are happiest when trying to achieve goals that are difficult but not out of reach. Daniel Gilbert
- 6. What is a game?
- 7. Game Mechanic = How you play the game
- 9. MONEY PROPERTY & GREED teaches that co-operation and understanding can often achieve more than the selfish domination of a market…
- 11. CAUSE & TOOLS CONSEQUENCE PLAY STORY BIG WIN! SCORE INFORMATION FLOW LEVELS
- 12. "Peacemaker is part of a new generation: games that immerse people in the real world, full of real-time political crises. Games can be more than just mindless fun, they can be a medium for change." The New York Times
- 13. What types of games are out there?
- 14. Gamification
- 15. GAME ON!
- 16. $$$
- 17. Play it before you live it.
- 18. QandA
Editor's Notes
- Nine billion hours a year are spent playing Window's Solitaire The online games industry is worth – give or take a few – around 15 billion 20 million players have spent 17 million hours on the Xbox – that ’s more than 2 hours played for every person on the planet Just imagine what we could do if we harnessed just a small percentage all that creativity and energy (and money!) and channeled it towards something really worthwhile…
- And that is why I am here today talking about how to integrate online games into learning, because I want to harness that time, passion, creativity and power for good. My name is Stacey Edmonds and I believe wholeheartedly that we are finally here – we are in the age of technology where online gaming can take our learning experiences to the next level. Over the past 15 years I ’ve produced more than 120 online learning and training experiences in facilitated, film and digital formats. I studied education, sociology and psychology and most recently multi-platform screen production. A vast amount of experimentation over the years has taught me that applying gaming to learning is highly successful in inspiring participants to engage with learning. In the next 45 minutes or so we will explore why games are so successful when applied to learning. What is a game and how do we play. We shall take a look at a couple of online games to see how they work. And finally explore how you can apply online games in your learning and development solutions. By the end of this presentation you will be on your way to feeling more knowledgeable and confident in talking about online gaming in learning and be able recognise the opportunities you have to leverage the power of online games in your organisation. Where to start? I think with being Human…
- Games are often perceived as frivolous things of fun and fancy. We often link games and playing to children or just to having fun. What I ’d like to talk about is why games are as - if not more relevant for adults when it comes to learning. Games aren ’t a new phenomenon – seemingly modern games such as Backgammon are over 2,000 years old – playing games for learning is also something many of us have been doing for years. Does anyone remember/have the book series Games Trainers play first published in 1980? Just as us humans are hard wired to eat and sleep we are also hardwired to learn through storytelling and playing. Playing is a fundamental part of the human experience. When we play games we test our physical and intellectual boundaries, we exercise cognitive flexibility, we use our imagination, experience story, we push the limits, we are fully and emotionally engaged. And here ’s the thing - when our hearts and minds are engaged and we are fully focused we are in our flow and when we are in our flow we are most happy.
- We are most happy when fully engaged. This may seem a side as I ’m about to launch into the current and exciting research on happiness, why? Because Daniel Gilbert who is widely known for his bestseller Stumbling on Happiness states…
- Employees are happiest when trying to achieve goals that are difficult but not out of reach. And …. When employees are happy they are most productive. So back to playing games, the most successful and engaging games are those where we know we can achieve goals that are difficult but not out of reach that give us a challenge, we achieve and are rewarded. Importantly when it comes to gaming and learning it is not those games that are the most fun… I ’d like to dispel the idea that games are things of frivolous fun and fancy and truly recognise their place in providing us with an engaging challenge – the big win – the consequence of which is that the game is perceived as ‘fun’. When we are engaged and achieve we learn and remember. And that is why learning through games is so engaging, intrinsically motivating and successful. And that in a nutshell is why integrating online games into learning and development is a game changer.
- What is a game? A Game in short is structured play The structure can make the play even more fun, and it certainly makes it more practical - people can join in. It ’s proven that playing a game builds trust in between the players. Why? Because all the players agree to and follow the structure. You don’t want to play with someone who doesn’t follow the structure, you can’t properly rise to the challenge and achieve - and it’s not fun.
- And this is where the term game mechanics comes in. The game structure = the game mechanics = how you play the game.
- Who else here loves monopoly? Played online or in the new app? Created in 1934 The object of monopoly is to become the wealthiest player through renting, buying and selling property. The game is made up of the board (or now the online game or app) Dice, tokens, houses, hotels and the chance and community chest cards. There is a banker, the holder of the monopoly money, the giver and taker of all things important to the object of the game. My brother and I played monopoly for hours. I was always the banker and we fought fearlessly for the dog. We kinda knew the rules though through years of playing they had morphed into our rules, our preferred stories and strategies. One game became very fraught as we were trying to swap the get out of free jail card for Leicester square and it wasn ’t going well, there were different views on the rules and it all came to a head. He accused me of fiddling with his income tax and I replied with well if you had won ‘first place in the beauty pageant’ you would have got more prize money and wouldn’t be in this mess. He said maybe we should just play the short game and liquidate now to see who was the winner. I said no way! If we were paying the short game then we needed to have decided that at the beginning. He said I was purposely holding off buying hotels so that he couldn ’t develop hit properties any further. I furtively agreed. Strategy is everything if you want to climb the property ladder. He threatened bankruptcy and said he was going to tell mum that I was cheating again. Really, I replied, right that ’s it, I’m not playing with you anymore, you always run to mum when things aren’t going your way. We were 35 and 33 respectively. Monopoly taught me maths, strategy, patience, dealing with chance and of course, random imprisonment! I found a few other opinions on what people learnt…
- Then there are the many ways in which monopoly has been repurposed specifically for learning for example - Sociopoly a game that is set up like a regular Monopoly game, but teams have different resources at the beginning of the game and throughout, providing students with insights into social inequalities. On playing many students were simply surprised by the pervasive influence of the economic and social structure. Comments included things like "I just thought people who were poor were just...losers, but now I'm not so sure." Some students felt very angry at the injustice and inequity of the economic system; "It's simply not fair that some groups just don't get an equal start." "I don't like this game because it shows me how unfair the system is." Some students felt liberated, particularly first-generation college students; "I'm the first in my family to go to college, and now I know why it took so long." A few students, moreover, were also frustrated with the simulation for unfairly representing and challenging the sacredness of the capitalistic system. Big concepts, clear learning outcomes, fabric of society conversations = monopoly repurposed as an engaging thought provoking academic game for learning. The success of the designers was to take existing game mechanics and change the content so that by playing the game the learning objectives were met.
- Let take a look at Peacemaker for good example of on online game for learning There are so many online games to choose from. I have chosen this one for us today as it has clear learning objectives, well designed and implemented game mechanics and you can play yourself anytime and see if you can make peace in the middle east. PeaceMaker within the first few months of release sold over 100,000 copies. This means hundreds of thousand of people paid money to play a learning game… a learning game.
- Story Levels Play Flow Score Tools Information Cause and consequence IMPORTANTLY - the big achievement – for example the Nobel Prize for establishing peace in the middle east.
- Types of games There are many types of online games, they are categorised by the game mechanics employed. To name a few… I will give a quick overview, the best thing for you to do is play... see what game mechanics get you motivated, what types of games you like to play and how you like to play. As Chris talked about in his presentation this morning there are the 4 gamer personalities as tested by the Bartle test... are you a explorer, socialiser, achiever or killer? I am an explorer...
- So what we ’ve just experienced are some of the most successful online games out there at the moment in the entertainment space. That means, like monoploy, they have great game design. So... for us to leverage the power of online games we need to understand game mechanics as that is when we can apply them to our content - which may otherwise seem dry and uninteresting... Which brings us to the latest in buzzwords (love it or hate it – it is probably here to stay) ... Gamification is the buzzword that describes applying game mechanics to otherwise non-game activities - which is what we are doing. To gamify or not to gamify – that is the question. In fact at the moment in general the gamification of life! … don ’t get me started… catch up with me at drinks tonight! Here ’s the thing we need to be careful that the rules we make - the mechanics we employ – to make sure they aren’t just token, they must provide goals that are difficult but not out of reach. Game designers have been making inspiring games for years and it is a highly creative and detailed profession. We must be careful not to simply try to add ‘game mechanics’ and call what we have made a game. The key is in creating genuine interaction and engagement with a goal that is difficult but not out of reach.
- So it ’s been game on for me for the past 15 years... Content has included Ethics, Product training, Customer Service, Leadership and Induction Today I can talk though a few of those games though unfortunately due to client confidentiality and current work in progress I can ’t physically show them to you, you can always come and talk to me and I can go into more detail. Each online game is simple, employs effective game mechanics, quickly gets to the point of the learning objective, is a real game and importantly - cost effective. The key is to start small, select the content that lends itself to an online game and use the game design to highlight the most important learning objectives. The beauty of games is that the rewards and points can be directly related to the learning you want people to walk away with.
- In the end it ’s all in the scope - however to give a ballpark figure - You can make online games for lots of money or a budget version. In the game it ’s the game design that will make your game a successful authentic learning experience.
- Thank you for your interest and particpation. Of course we have only scratched the surface of what how games are designed and how we can start to leverage the power of gaming in our learning and development solutions however I am hoping that we have achieved our purpose and you feel more knowledgeable and confident in talking about online gaming in learning and be able recognise the opportunities you have to leverage the power of online games in your organisation.... for good. Today students are using games to learn, today my 5 year old is adept at the complicated angles required to knock down the green pigs in angry birds. Foldit, the science game motivated 100.000 ’s gamers to solve a protein folding puzzle and we are one step closer to finding the cure for HIV. And I am excited as the futures gamified and the future ’s here Game on.