Challenging Ourselves to Design and Build a Serious Game in under 8 hours!

We often hear about hackathons and codeathons, times when very talented people get together to really challenge themselves, but having never taken part in one myself,  I’ve always wondered how challenging it would be to put yourself in that situation. So I did, but from a design perspective.

PIXELearning recently attended our belated group Christmas Party, graciously hosted by DLM in London. As well as the company presentations about strategy and operations, team bonding

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

Observations on LwF: So much innovation, so little time!

Our roaming graphical artist/reporter Anna Bailey attended the Learning Without Frontiers conference at the end of January and here she captures some musing of her day there….

Learning without frontiers showed me how things are changing within the classroom due to Leading Innovators within the field.

In my experience teachers have a reluctance to teach using technology.

Come see us at Learning Technologies 2012 stand 57

January 25-26^th see’s PIXELearning and Intellego’s first event of the year and it’s gearing up to be one that’s not to be missed.

Learning Technologies is in its 13^th year and is one of the leading conferences for learning and emerging technologies in Europe. With a growing number of attendees and exhibitors we have taken this opportunity to get our names and skills back out there in the world of workplace learning.

By attending the conference you will have the opportunity to attend a wide selection of free seminars one of which is being delivered by PIXELearning’s very own Helen Routledge and guest speaker Kate Smith, of Capella Associates. This seminar will look at using serious gaming for Six Sigma training.

When: Wednesday 25^th January 2012 at 14.00

Where: Theatre 3

Overview: Our natural tendency when faced with a problem of any description is to try to solve it, leading to changes that either don’t solve the problem or that are not sustainable. Six Sigma helps avoid this by providing a method and a toolset to improve any process in any sector.

What better way is there to raise awareness and capability in Six Sigma to your organisation than by playing an on-line game that engages learners in an exciting case study, reinforces principles, stretches knowledge and provides feedback for CPD planning?

The mechanics and methodology behind the game will be reviewed as we explore this approach for learning and you will hear how this highly effective, low-cost solution for improving performance can be applied in your organisation.

PIXELearning will be at stand 57, showcasing demos and presentations of elearning, serious games and mobile apps.

Together we are building the next generation of digital learning and bring about a step-change in the way organisations and individuals learn, develop and improve.

It would be great to see you there, please drop by the stand for a chat or arrange to meet us there.

You can register to attend the event for free by clicking here: http://www.learningtechnologies.co.uk/register-now/

Fancy joining the Autumn Hackathon?

The Autumn Hackathon in partnership with Central Working and Milamber Digital is the first in a series of technology hack days, bringing together developers to pool their talents to create new ideas and applications.

Judges including leading entrepreneurs & developers will be awarding prizes including £2000 worth of legal services from a top technology law firm. Entries will be judged on innovation, commercial potential, usefulness & fun factor. To encourage greater involvement of those in further & higher education, teams are limited to three members but allowed a fourth member who is a full time student. Sign up for two days of coding and creativity with Javascript, JSON and Node.js!

London, 22–23 October 2011

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

Missed PIXELearning and Intellego’s E-Learning Innovation seminar…?? Don’t panic! Here’s a roundup of events. By Anna Bailey

Having just joined PIXELearning I think it is only appropriate that I introduce myself. I am Anna Bailey and have completed 2 years at The University of Huddersfield studying Computer Games Design and have now gained an internship as a graphical artist here at PIXELearning for a year before completing my course.

With the Elearning market growing by approximately 10% each year*,

E-Learning Innovation Seminar: Gamification- why this could be important to you.

With increasing pressure on training budgets, companies need a new approach to enhance its learning programmes.

It is well known that immersive learning allows the individual to take in more when doing, than by listening or reading. “Gamification” is the process of applying gaming techniques to the workplace.  It is set to become a mainstream approach in large organisations, according to analyst firm, Gartner, more than 70% of the global 2000 will be using serious games for at least one aspect of their organisation by 2014.

PIXELearning, now a part of Intellego and a global leader in Serious Games, would like to invite you to a seminar sharing knowledge and experience from the World’s leading specialist organisation, the Serious Games Institute. It will offer:

PXL & Global Novations receive 2nd place award for Best Professional Game with budget over 40,000 Euros in 1st European Best learning Game Competition!

This summer PIXELearning entered ‘Our Worlds of Makrini’ into the awards under the category of Best Professional Game with a budget over 40,000 Euros. We received second place in the competition narrowly beaten to the top spot by Serious Games Interactive’s ‘Playing History – The Plague’.

The 1st European Best Learning Game Competition sought to expand the understanding and capabilities of developing and using Serious Game applications for learning and training and to promote a debate of Serious Games as factor of regional development.

‘Our Worlds of Makrini’ is a very ambitious and innovative online serious game aimed at tackling issues around diversity and inclusion topics – it uses a sci-fi themed context to help staff make linkages between abstract diversity issues and real world, day to day business activities and objectives.

PIXELearning and Global Novations are very proud to have achieved 2^nd place in this competition and the judges had this to say about the product…

‘Our Worlds of Makrini’ has been well appreciated by the jury…Your outstanding technological and educative achievement has been promoted with a real success during the Serious Games, Education & Economic Development Conference 2010.” (Dan Baclesanu Ludus Project, 2010).

“Learning what they learnt would have helped with a lot of lessons learned” PIXELearning 2010

If you overheard someone talking about private equity, net profit, direct costs, floatation and surplus, what judgments would you make about their job, and their skill sets? You would be forgiven for thinking that they work in the financial industry or at least studied finance. I’m afraid neither is true, these are just some of the terms flying around a group of thirty 13-14 year old students on Tuesday!

March 9^th 2010 saw the final heat of The Enterprise Challenge, organised by Mosaic network, using PIXELearning’s The Business Game. Over the course of 3 months the challenge saw over 1000 students take part from across the UK. With four heats played, the six top teams were invited to London for the nail biting final.

An hour of game play saw frustration by some teams, a relaxed approach by others but a determination to win by all.

Giving young people the chance to develop their entrepreneurial skills and be mentored by experienced business men and women – the Apax Partners – Mosaic Enterprise Challenge saw students achieved virtual net profits of over £5.8 million by Handsworth Girls School (West Midlands) and £5.9 million by Small Heath School (West Midlands).

The winners were Manchester Academy with a staggering virtual net profit of £6.3 million.

Awarded by Evan Davis, presenter of Dragon’s Den, the winners won £3,000 for their school, a behind the scenes tour of the BBC news broadcasting room with Mishal Hussain, a meeting with the Chancellor of the Exchequer at Number 11 Downing Street, before a stop off at Apax offices for tea. For their final treat the winners were whisked off for a meeting with James Cann, well known from BBC’s Dragon’s Den.

If I’d know that was the prize I would have entered too!

PIXELearning would like to wish hearty congratulations to all teams who took part in the challenge! Over the past 3 months all the team members learnt an awful lot about business concepts and how to focus their attention to achieve their goals.

You never know perhaps we have inspired the next group of Dragons!