By Tess Robinson, Director, LearningAge Solutions
My favourite teacher from my high school days, Mr ‘Geography’ Jones, died recently. I remember his enthusiastic and, at times dramatic teaching style as if it were yesterday. He brought Geography alive for us and his theatrical demonstrations of a glacier powering through a valley have stayed with all of us – we will forever know our terminal from our lateral moraine. I’ve pondered on what made him such a great teacher and after watching a TED talk by self-styled Education Pioneer, Christopher Emdin, recently, have come to the conclusion that it was the magic that he injected into lessons. He employed subtle but effective techniques to keep us awake, listening and most importantly engaged. He made us feel excited about Geography – no mean feat when dealing with a bunch of teenagers.
Christopher Emdin argues that educators are not taught to ‘perform’ in a way that will really engage their audience. Instead, he suggests that they should learn from watching hip hop or going to, what he terms, a ‘black church’. The magic for him is all about body language, inflection and participation. It’s certainly true that many of the most memorable performances I have seen have, the ones you could truly call magical, have not been in school or in a training session, but when some of the techniques Christopher mentions are employed in those settings, they can be very powerful and can stay with you for 20 years or more.
What has all this got to do with digital learning? Clearly, with digital learning you rarely have a ‘trainer’ or ‘teacher’ standing in front of an audience, unless you are doing something like a webinar, so how can we inject the magic into online learning?
- It is worth investing in beautiful graphics. As humans we are a superficial bunch and we will automatically make assumptions about content as a result of how it looks. A well designed piece that looks fantastic and resonates well with the audience will automatically be better received.
- Be playful. There’s nothing wrong with a bit of fun. Fun can be extremely memorable. Mr Jones once delivered a whole lesson on how they were breeding multi-coloured sheep in New Zealand without any of us batting an eyelid. He even had photos and graphics. His (very well made) point was to encourage us to question things, to develop critical thinking and not to take things at face value.
- Encourage participation. This might be through networks, wikis, peer support or through asking questions or contributing ideas during a webinar. It’s the equivalent to Christopher Emdin’s preacher asking for an ‘Amen’ now and then in terms of waking the audience up. It also has the added benefit of making them feel that their opinions are valued and that they have something worthwhile to contribute.
- Mix up the learning. For example, have your high impact ‘arm-waving’ scenario-based learning but combine it with the ‘hushed voice’ of resources.
- Include the WOW factor. Don’t be afraid of being creative with your learning design. As long as you include users from the beginning and make sure you build user testing into your project plan, you can ensure that it will be well received.
There are some words that it is not good to use in polite conversation; the F-word and the S-word for example, are generally best avoided. In Learning and Development we also have the G-word, by which I mean “gamification”. The unrestrained use of this term tends to provoke strong reactions:
“Games? My kids play games. I’m an adult and learning is a serious business.”
“What can a game teach me? Just tell me what I need to know!”
Gamification (like ‘social learning’) is a term I tend to avoid unless the other party uses it first. The reason is that it leads to the common misconception of “So you want to make a game?” Gamification is simply the application of gaming techniques to encourage people to adopt certain behaviours.
We don’t have flip-top heads. We can’t absorb large quantities or information. We commit things to memory that have great meaning for us, or that we repeat multiple times. Any approach that encourages a user to repeat and reinforce the right behaviour is a good thing and many game techniques mimic the way we as humans naturally learn – through trial and error;
- We try something – we get an outcome.
- We try again, adjusting our approach – we get a different outcome.
- We repeat and adjust until we achieve the outcome we desire.
Here are some examples of how we’ve used concepts from games in our work:
- Rewarding people for completing their profiles.
- Recognising their effort or success with a badge.
- Giving people a sense of progress towards a goal (and no, a progress indicator Page 23 of 231 doesn’t count!).
- Rewarding the right behaviours or decisions with points.
- Reducing the score for multiple attempts.
- Having users indicate their confidence in their answer and this acting as a multiplier to their score.
- Tasks that must be completed against the clock.
- Tasks that encourage repetition.
- Making assessments visual and competitive.
- Having different outcomes depending on the decisions made.
These examples come from many projects but very seldom have we explicitly discussed the idea of games. Game techniques, as with social learning functionality, should be designed in to the solution only where they help the user achieve what they, or you, want them to achieve.
On your current project consider the behaviours you would like people to adopt. How big or complicated a change is it for them to make? What might motivate the users to make that change? Are there any techniques from games that might encourage them to do so?
The black listing of the G-word may be changing. Recently we’ve been approached a number of organisations who, much to our blushes, confidently and repeatedly use the G-word. This is very refreshing and I hope a change across our industry.
by Tess Robinson, Director, LearningAge Solutions
I have to admit that if you say ‘gaming’ to me, it still immediately brings up images of spotty youths barricaded in their bedrooms, slowly developing RSI in their thumbs from their controllers. Increasingly, however, gamification is creeping into the mainstream and particularly into learning. If you look at the basic principles, it isn’t really anything particularly new. Gamification is essentially about:
- Setting goals and breaking those goals down into simple objectives and steps
- Setting rules within which those goals can be achieved.
- Giving feedback – giving learners a sense of progression and achievement and, of course, the opportunity to learn from failure.
Probably not so different to what you are already doing. However, an IBM survey for the Metro found that 71% of people use game-like processes and approaches in their everyday lives but only 23% had experienced gamification at work – why is that? Is it simply that it is so embedded that they don’t recognise they are doing it? Or is it that many organisations shy away from what they see as a frivolous way of learning, deeming it not serious enough for the weighty learning tasks in hand?
Gamifying a subject does not necessarily make it light-hearted or fun in a ‘ha-ha’ sense. It is more about playing on intrinsic human motivations such as competition, achievement, challenge and even cooperation, in that learners may be rated in group output or on their ability to inspire others. Adding an element of play to that, may make learners more willing to try out new behaviours in a ‘safe’ environment
Ben Betts in the Really Useful eLearning Instruction Manual identifies 5 types of games for learning:
- Drill and Practice
These are usually fairly limited and more an ‘interaction’ than a game. Players/learners perform a basic task with repetitions with the aim of reaching rote retention. A bit like learning spellings at school. This type of game is often found as an app with a single mechanic (the actions players take in order to progress in the game) and a basic storyline.
- Serious Games
These games are played for a specific, real-world purpose. They embody multiple mechanics, a well-defined virtual environment (space) and a compelling story.
- Commercial Off-the-Shelf Games
Off-the-shelf commercial games may well contain valuable lessons for the workplace, particularly those that involve strategy and decision-making. You don’t need to have a massive budget then to use the kind of game quality that learners are used to outside work.
- Alternate Reality Games
These are based on transmedia principles. Usually rooted in the internet they create a fictional narrative that players can interact with. Often in the form of a kind-of treasure hunt with a set of clues to be followed.
Perhaps the most useful type of learning game. Simulations reproduce real-world situations, particularly in terms of rules and conditions and increasingly in terms of look-and-feel as well. Simulations allow learners to practice new behaviours and skills in a safe environment before trying them out for real. Simulations are particularly useful where the new behaviour involves a level of risk or where the repercussions of getting something wrong could be disastrous.
It is helpful to set out these five types of games in terms of clarifying the landscape, but gamification doesn’t have to be a big budget, epic virtual world or even a specific type of ‘game’ in order to be effective. The simplest gamification might include things like scaffolded learning with increasing challenges, levels to be achieved, badges, progress bars, virtual currency or points – things that you can build in to all kinds of digital learning.
The same is true of design, and for the purposes of this article I’m going to focus on the design of learning experiences, websites and apps.
The secret to great design is simplicity. The challenge is that designing a simple solution to a complex problem is usually a long journey. It is far easier to design something complicated with every bell, whistle, doodah and whatnot, than to focus in on the minimum critical functionality and doing that really well.
So firstly, why is there a tendency to over complicate designs?
The customer wants it – if a customer has a decent budget and you have a reasonable timescale, almost anything is possible. It becomes tempting to include ‘cool’ functionality just because you’re able to. This is rather like, in course development, adding far too much content – the user can’t see what is important.
Unrealistic expectations of users – when you are totally submerged in a project it’s easy to forget that what might seem ‘intuitive’ to you may not be for your users. Getting their heads around your workshop, course, app or system is something they will expect to be easy. They will have high expectations of usability from the apps they use in their personal lives. If your design falls short of this, they will quickly switch off.
Not allowing time to think it through – boiling something down and making it really simple to use takes time, thought and effort. It is far easier to design more than less. In the pressure of a project it is tempting to rush the design phase so that you can get going on the build. The trouble is that this will lead to a sub-standard, over-complicated product.
So what can you do to address these three situations?
The customer wants it – the constraints of time and budget are your allies here and even if a budget is generous, it won’t be bottomless. This helps you to focus in on the key functionality that the app / system / course / whatever must have. I often ask customers to prioritise functionality as this gives a really good steer on what it vital and what is secondary. Also focus on the behaviours, skills or outcomes that you want users to achieve. Wireframes, mockups and prototypes are great ways to help customers appreciate the level of complexity of something without having to build it.
Unrealistic expectations of users – what you need here is empathy. Empathy is the single most important ability for any designer to have. How can you develop empathy? Get to know your users. Spend time with them, talk to them, observe them, run focus groups and studies and use them as sounding boards. User testing early and often will help uncover if something is confusing or over-complicated.
Not allowing time to think it through – we typically separate out the design from the build phase of a project. The design phase is done for a small fixed cost, the output of which is the design, specification, costs and timescales for building the solution. Even before we begin the design phase, from discussions with the customer we are able to give an indication of the build cost (usually a range) which the design phase then specifies precisely. This approach mitigates the risk of the project for both parties. I like to work on a design over a period of weeks whilst working on other stuff too. If there is a particularly knotty design problem I don’t throw my self at it. I do a little work, leave it for a few days, then do a little more. I let my mind rest against the problem and wait for a solution to appear. It always does.
I challenge you to look at whatever you are designing right now – it might be a document, a presentation, a workshop, course, system or app – and ask yourself “is it simple?” If the answer is no, invest the time to make it so.
I have now officially stepped down as the Chair of the eLearning Network. My four years on the Board are up and I will be handing on the mantle to another dedicated soul.
It has been a privilege and pleasure to have worked with so many lovely, talented and committed people over my term. I can’t deny that it’s been a lot of work, but when I look back on what the Board has achieved I feel very proud. I was there for our 25th anniversary celebrations and the setting-up of our mentoring scheme, which is unique within the industry and which has helped many, be they seasoned professionals or newbies, negotiate their way in the wonderful world of elearnng. We’ve published the first ever eLN book, with contributions from the most fabulous world-renowned authors, such as Clive Shepherd, Jane Hart and Charles Jennings, revamped our online presence, run a successful guerrilla marketing campaign and seen the popularity of the eLN increase.
I am genuinely sad to go, but I know that the enthusiasm and dedication of Board members will continue and that the eLN will go from strength to strength. It’s been a blast!