Why Serious Games differ to elearning; it’s obvious no?

Regardless of the obvious point; of fun, delivery, platform, graphics, etc etc, there is so much more to a serious game experience than there is to an elearning piece.

Where elearning is a delivery platform for information and each screen is weighted pretty much equally with the goal of imparting certain information and then ‘assessing’ that information, not every action or event within a game is about increasing/assessing the skill level of the user. Yes that’s the ultimate target but there is so much more going

Behaviour Change

A short animation on behaviour change – 6 minutes well spent!

This animation really brings to light how we need to alter the way we view changing behaviour. Understanding the principles under which behaviour will change is the most crucial aspect above emotions and attitudes and information.

What the Gamification of Feedback Means to Learning Design – PDOA (Public Displays of Achievement)

Gamification has spread from marketing to learning and development, and at PIXELearning we’re often asked to design leader boards, badges and public rewards into the feedback mechanism of our Serious Games.

I felt it might be a good time to take a moment to check out the pros and cons of gamifying feedback.

 

So, before I go any further

We’re turning into attention junkies, looking for our next big hit.

We’re now well on the way to being blasé about the term gamification. It’s certainly grabbed peoples attention in a way the term Serious Game never did. I’m glad to see some more balanced discussions about the topic too but there’s still so much that concerns me and so I believe its important to continue the dialogue (beyond purely commercial motivations) and look at the psychology behind the idea. So I thought I’d re-post my response to a recent blog on the power of Gamification, feel free to continue the dialogue, but I certainly won’t be awarding you any points for doing so

Gamification is something that fascinates and concerns me right now. As a psychologist

Flash is dead! OK now get off the band wagon and calm down dear!

If I had a pound for every time someone had told me recently that Flash is dead, I’d take you all out for a pint and tell you about why Flash is far from 6 feet under. But so far, no one has been so generous; so I’ll have to make do and blog about it instead.

Now I’m not a techie and I’m not a coder, and I’m not a business woman, but

Innovation In Learning; The Six Sigma Serious Game

For those of you who attended Learning Technologies 2012 and those who didn’t make it! Here is a copy of the presentation by myself and Kate Smith of Capella Associates. Enjoy

Brain studies show why games engage us!

New research published by on the Yale Daily Bulletin by Yale researchers suggests the human brain devotes a lot of resources to the outcome of games. New studies show the whole brain

eLearning Innovation Seminar- The Presentations

As promised the presentations from, a very successful seminar if we do say so ourselves, are freely available.

The first presentation you see here is from Andy Hasoon, Director of Strategy for Intellego introduced the

Viagra for marketers? MSG for consumerism? Solution to all our woes? Erm…I don’t think so! Why Gamification bugs me…

The hype around ‘Gamification’ has been gaining momentum for the best part of this year and seems to be more acceptable than Serious Games ever was/is as an industry label. However; as with all fads, they don’t all stick, and they’re not all good for us. And yes, at the moment I see Gamification as a fad, similar to the early days of social networking. In my mind it is yet to be proven to be anything more than a slick buzzword. Now social networking has taken off, in a big way, but will gamification do the same?

As a serious game designer I love the idea of more game mechanics in our lives and it looks like gamification is becoming an ‘acceptable term’ where serious games has failed to gain a footing. However; without trying to be melodramatic there may be

Some Crystal Ball Gazing: What does the future of education look like?

Earlier this year I was a co-author on a chapter examining serious games in education with the goal to help teachers implement these tools into their classrooms, what was clear from our research, personal knowledge and experiences was that education hasn’t really changed all that much in the last 150-200 years; we’re still deeply entrenched in the 19^th century factory model of education. Anyone who’s not been living under a rock for the past decade will know our world is moving at an unprecedented pace with regards to