What if your health and safety training was the best learning experience your employees ever had?Colleagues talk about what they learned.  New starters get up to speed more quickly.  Learners recommend the training to others and share further learning resources.Is this vision overkill? The answer depends on what you want to achieve.To go beyond ‘tick box’ compliance and create a health and safety culture, you need to keep learners engaged and motivated.Health and safety is one of the first training topics your employees will encounter and a core business function.Towards Maturity says top performing organisations rank health and safety as one of their highest priorities.Here’s how giving your health and safety training more love can bridge the gap between engagement and compliance.Counting the costThe best businesses are improving the value of their health and safety training by using appropriate learning technologies.Towards Maturity reports that high achieving organisations are 26 times more likely to have improved the effectiveness of the learning experience through better application of technology than low achievers.These companies know it is in their best interest and those of their employees to make their health and safety training the best it can be.The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) estimates the total cost to organisations of injury or illness at work as £2.8 billion. The cost to individuals is £8.2 billion. So health and safety training can have a much bigger impact on employees than employers.Good health and safety training explains the real costs and benefits for learners.Are you neglecting your health and safety training?With mandatory training topics, sometimes there is a focus on completion rather than engagement.After all, your employees must do the training. Why sugar the pill?But the learning experience fails if your people don’t absorb what they need to know.If you suspect your health and safety training needs rethinking, see how it measures up against this checklist:Boring - Do your employees dread doing it because they find it boring?Relevance - Are your colleagues confused about why they have to do the training?Consistency - Is the look and feel of your training in line with your corporate culture?Personal - Do your employees end up doing parts of the training they don’t need?Availability - Can your learners find the training and access it easily?Follow up - Are your employees given the option to find more after the initial mandatory training?Tips for giving your health and safety training some loveHere are four ways to help learners love their health and safety training.GamificationCampaignsMicro learningCustomisationWe’ve picked some real examples of each approach to show how to enrich your health and safety training.Gamification: Southern Health NHS Foundation TrustGames work best when there are real risks and consequences. So health and safety training is a good match.Fire safety is one of the most common types of compliance elearning that companies provide for their employees.In this game for Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust learners complete tasks while under pressure.  It is easier to recreate this situation using game techniques. When there is a real emergency staff are under pressure to complete tasks.  Game-based elearning mirrors the effect.Campaigns40% of learners say not being able to find what they need stops them from learning at work.You can overcome this by making the training a process, not an event and marketing it to your learners.You could incorporate health and safety into an existing campaign or programme such as onboarding or induction.It is possible to combine a campaign with a leader board to foster friendly competition between colleagues.See how retailer, Tesco is using this campaign approach to transform its compliance training.Micro learning - FarmfoodsThe more convenient it is to access training, the more your learners will take advantage of it.One way to reduce barriers is to break the content down into manageable chunks.Farmfoods turned key health and safety topics into bite size elearning modules. This allowed staff to fit the training into their working day more easily.Consider a micro learning style if your learners need to brush up on their knowledge, or where you want to minimise time away from customers.Using a mobile friendly technology like Adapt also allows employees to access training from anywhere on any device.CustomisationIf your business has unique health and safety requirements, you may need to customise your training approach.Tailoring a course can overcome learner complaints about irrelevant training or ‘catch all’ courses.If you can show your employees the specific benefits to them personally, your training will be far more effective.Now you know why and how to add some love to your health and safety training, time to put it into action.The post Why your health and safety training deserves more love appeared first on Sponge UK.

David Kelly is Vice president and executive director of the Elearning Guild, he’s one of the people you go to when you want to know what’s hot in elearning technology. Follow David on Twitter @LnDDave. The questions and their times are provided so you can skip back and forth to learn more on a specific subject: 00:34 - What’s the value of staying up to date with emerging technology? 01:35 - How do you judge what technology has potential in the learning space and what hasn’t? 03:00 - What have you seen that has the potential to disrupt the learning landscape? 06:00 - Are there any red herrings that people thought would be important but haven’t emerged as expected? 08:24 - How to learning and development professionals stay ahead of the curve? Topics covered in this interview include: Technology in general and how it can be applied to digital learning Mobile technology and it’s potential for learning Interactive video Google glass as a successful experiment in augmented reality Read highlights from the interview in the accompanying blog post.Ways to listen to the Sponge UK elearning podcastThe full interview is available to listen to using the player above, you can stream the audio directly to your computer or mobile device.Download the mp3 file using this direct link: SpongeUKPodcastEpisode004-DavidKelly.mp3 (11:51, 4.1MB)Subscribe to the Sponge UK elearning podcast to get the latest episodes automatically.Subscribe in iTunesSubscribe using the RSS feedJoin us in two weeks for the next episode of the Sponge UK elearning podcast. The post David Kelly - Sponge UK Elearning Podcast appeared first on Sponge UK.

Your employees will benefit most from an elearning course if they can access it at the best possible moment.Sometimes, it’s the right course but it’s deployed at the wrong time, or in the wrong way.This post looks at some of the factors to consider before deciding when to launch your new elearning course.Business-focused driversThere are internal and external drivers that may affect your elearning timetable.  We’ve picked out some instances where timing is critical.InternalA change in company leadership or an internal review often brings with it the need to introduce a new corporate culture. Making a company-wide shift will involve a broad range of roles and requires detailed planning.Taking time to plan an L&D campaign should be the first step.  An elearning course that sets the scene for the rest of the programme is a good way to spark employee interest.Tesco used this technique with their Learning Leap campaign.  After an extensive review of their current compliance training, they decided on a new approach with an elearning course at its heart.These kinds of programmes target a wide range of employees and must be carefully planned and delivered.In such cases, your elearning course’s longevity is more important than getting it out quickly.  Make sure the high level vision is set out before introducing your elearning course to the rest of the workforce.Sometimes, it’ll be an existing situation that needs addressing.  Emma Barrow talked about this process in her presentation at Learning Technologies 2016. She took interactive video and put it to good use at The Royal Mail to help address a need for change in how managers dealt with difficult conversations.ExternalSome of the biggest external factors are legal and regulation changes that introduce new compliance requirements.New regulations are often phased in to allow companies to get the training they need out to the employees affected.Pension reforms for example, meant many small and medium-sized businesses in the UK had to roll out training for their staff.The requirements were set out in advance of the regulations coming into effect.  L&D teams had time to prepare a strategy for training, often including an elearning course.By offering training early in the process, you allow learners to return to it and repeat complex elements.Changes in the market are more challenging to prepare for.  Dramatic changes and disruptive technologies are some of the harder business influences to predict.Is earlier better in these cases? Should you create and offer your learning as soon as possible to be best prepared for the change?A knee jerk reaction to this type of change can be a bad idea.  Your elearning course runs the risk of being obsolete before being of benefit.In this case, it can be better to address the skills you need to meet a challenge, rather than the specific challenge itself.  Training your managers to handle the changes and pass this on to employees could pay off.Learner-focused driversPreboardingWhen do your employees need to know the information for their first day?  Before they arrive.Preboarding or preinduction starts the orientation process before day one of the new job.  Top performing companies use this strategy to reduce the time to competency for new starters.Giving employees a head start with preboarding can lead to significant cost savings. Reducing time to productivity for new staff avoids many hidden costs.You should also consider extending your induction elearning course beyond a month to get the most out of the process.  Spreading out an induction course makes it easier to naturally lead a learner into more online training. Social learning The 70:20:10 principle:70% of learning working on tasks and problems, 20% from feedback and examples and 10% from formal training. Your employees are already engaged in social collaboration. Observing this helps you identify the remaining 10% that requires formal training.Making sure you’re not controlling the social interactions is important.  It allows employees to discover the areas that need the extra work for themselves.An engaged L&D team will keep track of informal learning and identify areas which can be supplemented with a formal elearning course.On demand elearningYour employees are using their phones to access the internet more than desktop computers. It’s a global trend and one that isn’t slowing down, especially in the workplace.Towards Maturity has just published a new report In Focus: Learning and Performance on the Move. It’s a wakeup call for organisations who aren’t already making their learning available on all devices.The report reveals that out of the companies surveyed:87% see "accessing support at the point of need" as a driver for mobile learning, but only 11% achieve it32% think a small screen size is not suitable for their digital training contentWhen asking the learners themselves, 74% responded that they use their mobile to access resources for work.  Thinking about making your content suitable for both mobile and desktop is important.You can make sure it’s accessible for everyone at any time by using multi-device technology like Adapt.  It helps create one course that works equally well on desktop and mobile devices.Let’s recap the key points:When should you launch an elearning course?Once business goals are definedTo launch a campaignWhen a learning need matches an innovative solutionBefore new regulations come into effectTo prepare for changing marketsHow can you make the course accessible when it’s needed?Offer induction before new starters arriveOffer courses that complement natural social learningMake elearning courses that work on all devicesUsing an elearning course rather than face-to-face training can help your employees benefit from all these techniques.The post When to offer your employees an elearning course appeared first on Sponge UK.

Explore the infographic and find out the most effective ways to introduce a learning game to your L&D programme.You can use games in many of the traditional training areas but they come into their own when combined with elearning technology to track and assess their effectiveness.Follow three learners through the game map to see how you can appeal to a variety of employees with different types of learning games.The statisticsLet’s dive a little deeper into the statistics from the Infographic and what they mean for your business.88% of learners rate "knowledge sharing within your team" as very important or essentialThe Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies questioned over 5,000 people worldwide for their Learning in the Workplace Survey.At the top of the list of most important factors for learners is collaboration with other members of the team. Games are a natural way to encourage employees to work together.Competitive games don’t have to mean one on one matches. Letting colleagues work together in teams allows them to share knowledge and skills in a friendly, competitive atmosphere.64% of learners find accessing learning from a mobile device essential or very usefulNow that mobile devices are the most popular way to access the internet, it’s essential that you provide a way to access training on the go.A digital learning game is no different, and should be available to all users whether they’re on a desktop, laptop, tablet or phone.Luckily, there are tools based on modern web standards that allow one game to be played on many devices.HTML5 tools like Phaser for games and Adapt for elearning courses make developing this type of game possible.63% of learners say a lack of time for self-study stops them using elearningEven the most engaging game shouldn’t take employees away from work for too long.Towards Maturity’s Learners Voice report gives you an insight into how employees really see elearning. Many of them simply don’t have the time for self-study available for a drawn out game experience.You can build in timed elements to make sure learner don’t linger too long and make quicker decisions. Let us know if you’re using gamification or games in your L&D programme in our Twitter poll: Are you currently using gamification or games in your learning approach?#gameweek— Sponge elearning (@Sponge_UK) April 11, 2016  Practical tips for learning gamesGet some actionable advice on your next game-based online training project with our resources.Games page and showreelRough guide to games downloadGames demo areaFollow the #gameweek hashtagThere will be more insights into using games in your elearning throughout the rest of #gameweek.The post Infographic: Use this map to navigate your way to better learning games appeared first on Sponge UK.

Don’t follow the crowd. Assess whether elearning games are right for you. Before implementing gamified learning, step back and evaluate what will work best for your learning challenge. (Car) key to success In 1981, my Dad bought a Ford Capri.The neighbours had one first. It was new, exciting and fun.  He loved it.However, the Capri had tiny rear buckets seats, unsuitable for a growing family. Dad ended up trading it in for a spacious Ford Cortina estate. Likewise, elearning games are new, exciting and fun. Your competitors may be using them to drive productivity, improve performance and enhance workforce skills. Games and gamification can help transform digital learning into a richer experience and offer an opportunity to engage with your learners more effectively. But elearning games have to be right for your organisation, your learners and what you are trying to achieve. The key to success is working out when elearning games will suit your learning needs and business objectives. Tips for success Gamified learning can deliver results. Early research by Dr Rick Blunt revealed how students who learned using games had significantly higher average results that those that did not. McDonald’s Japan cuts its new-hire training time in half using a learning game. Southern Health NHS Trust is experiencing improved retention rates after the introduction of gamified elearning. The benefits are worth pursuing and there are things you can do to increase your chances of success.  Understand the difference You need to appreciate how games for learning work. They diverge from ‘traditional’ elearning and instructional design in a number of key ways.Understanding the differences will help you judge whether elearning games will fit into your learning approach. When to use games Games are best for training topics that deal with real risks and real consequences . Focus on areas that matter most to your learners such as their safety, job and finances. Games can teach the skills and behaviours your employees need in the modern workplace. Identifying the best option What is the difference between gamification, elearning games and game simulations? How do you pinpoint which approach will suit your needs and budget?Leading gamification expert, Professor Karl M. Kapp splits gamification into two parts. He says structural gamification is adding game elements where the content stays the same. While content gamification is altering the content itself to make it more game-like.In addition, there are self-contained learning games, or serious games. For a more immersive experience, there are game simulations. Given this range, it can be helpful to think of gamified learning as a spectrum. Pitfalls to avoid Some common mistakes can undermine the success of your elearning games. Being aware of these top three problem areas will help you avoid the pitfalls. Unclear goals This is the number one error. Elearning project manager, Valary Oleinik sets out the importance of instructional goals in If You Don’t Have Game, Don’t Gamify . She says: "The first step, before even deciding whether to incorporate gamification into your solution, is to determine what problem you are trying to solve. What is your goal? Until you can answer that question, in the immortal words of the Monopoly Board, "Do Not Pass Go" or collect anything."  If your elearning game doesn’t address your learning challenge, then all you have is a game. It may be fun and engaging. People may want to play it but it will just be a game. Lack of balance Challenge is a key part of any gamified learning experience and has an important part to play within the learning process. Getting the balance right can be difficult, particularly if you are working with a wide range of employees.If an elearning game is too easy learners will get bored and feel patronised by the experience. If it is too hard, they will become disillusioned and demotivated.The perfect state is ‘game flow’, which is the balance between the skill level of the player and the difficulty of the game challenge.You can read more in this article by Sean Baron for Gamasutra .   Poor measurement In one sense, games are great at measuring. Players will usually get a score at the end. You can monitor these scores and collect and use a leaderboard to compare achievement between individuals and teams.But how can you measure the impact of the game in relation to the learning goal? Did the gamified learning help change a behaviour or speed up productivity?Putting an objective measure in place will help. For example, if a game is aimed at helping call handlers improve their performance, you can actually measure call response times. Serious games expert, Pamela Kato has some useful tips on measuring impact .   Games checklist Games and gamification are just one option in your elearning toolbox. They may be the best way to tackle your particularly challenge, they may not be.Here are 10 questions to ask before you go ahead with an elearning game or gamified course: What is the challenge? What are you trying to change? Who is the audience? What are the key messages? What are the consequences of making a wrong decision? Where will the game play take place? What will be the reward for the best decision? Do games fit with your organisation’s culture? Will learners be using mobile devices? How will you measure the impact of the game? Do you have more tips on how to be successful with elearning games? What pitfalls have you encountered? Share your experience on Twitter with @Sponge_UK using the hashtag #gameweek Author: Lidia Pearce, Elearning industry writer. Sponge UKThe post How to be successful with elearning games (and avoid the pitfalls) appeared first on Sponge UK.

An interview with leading gamification consultant Pete Jenkins. "I live and breathe gamification and apply it to anywhere it can be useful," says gamification consultant, Pete Jenkins. As the Chair of GamFed, the international body for gamification, Jenkins is playing a leading role in fostering best practice in the use of gamification in business. He lectures in gamification at the University of Brighton and runs his own gamification business, Gamification+. In this special interview for #gameweek, Jenkins discusses how L&D can make a case for gamification, where it fits into 70-20-10 and how different generations respond to gamification. Do you think businesses and organisations have accepted gamification as a learning technique? The short answer is, yes. The businesses I come across have heard about it and are even implementing some sort of gamification in learning. Gamification and learning return more than 1.5 million results in Google. That is a lot of people paying a lot of attention to the subject. I think businesses have generally accepted gamification as a learning technique. They can see that increased engagement in their learning is going to help it be more effective. I do find businesses tend to think of gamification as a game or simulation and are still  unsure about what gamification actually is. But I think that is fine because it always starts the right sort of conversations. Look at the work of Marigo Raftopoulos from the Strategic Innovation Lab in Australia. She has done research on over two hundred corporate case studies of gamification. One of the interesting things that came out of her study was that corporates see gamification as including serious games, simulations and playful experiences. Personally, I think gamification is simply about learning everything we can from what makes games engaging.  So right now I'm looking at how we can learn from the massive success of eSports and translate that across into learning. What barriers are there to the adoption of gamification in learning? There are certainly some barriers but I don't think the word itself is a barrier, which it used to be. A lot of people have tried it now but sometimes there are poor results from their previous attempts. Maybe they have chosen the wrong approach to the content. Perhaps they have gamified the platform when maybe they should have been doing gamification of the content. So we have to overcome bad experiences from previous attempts. Another barrier is not doing enough to understand the player types or the key motivators of your target audience. You can spend effort on the least relevant game mechanics or not including enough game mechanics to make it relevant and enjoyable for everyone. If you don’t do all that it can make it much harder to create a successful project. What areas are seeing the biggest impact from gamification? Anything involving engaging and motivating people. But seriously, I'm beginning to see it have a strong impact in projects aiming to engender culture change across an organisation. Such as when the only way to win a game built for the project is to play it using the new cultural motifs. There is a great game, that's very topical at the moment following the Panama Papers scandal. It typifies how you can use a game to highlight culture change and how you can make decisions under the new culture. It's called the Stairway to Tax Heaven.  I'm obviously not designed to be a tax cheat. I had to play the game loads of times before I won and 'offshored my wealth successfully'. I’ve also noticed a big impact in short learning engagement, such as adding gamification around new product launches, to kick-off sales events or around cross-selling.  I like the statistics from a competitive quiz app in Spain called retaME. More than 35,000 people have used the game, answering more than 8 million questions. Generally, the game only lasts for five days because this type of engagement works best over short periods. The average knowledge increase for players is 30 percent. Interestingly, 80% of players end up playing outside of work hours with the most common playtime between 11pm and midnight. Now that really shows how fun and engaging this type of gamification can be if people are playing in their own time. How can L&D prove the link between gamified initiatives, learning outcomes and business results? Obviously, the easiest way to do this is to track your key metrics before and after the gamification is implemented. It sounds simple enough but most projects I see don’t track the metrics before the introduction of gamification and after it has been in place for a period of time. They get very excited about the gamification and just launch into it which means it’s really difficult to do the comparison. Three years ago, I came across an example for Yapi Kredi Bank, one of the biggest banks in Turkey. They wanted to train their counter staff in the products they should be selling.  After getting the employees to play it over a number of weeks, cross-selling went up by 12 percent across the bank. They also saved thousands of hours on in-person training so they made great cost savings. Video: Pete’s top tip for gaining business buy-in for a gamification project Do the different workplace generations respond differently to gamification? It’s a really interesting question. The answer is that gamification works on everybody but people are interested in different games. Some research recently discovered that the older generation tends to enjoy strategy games while the younger generation enjoys action games, such as first person shooters. However, the study revealed that younger people also like strategy games. If you put your effort into creating a strategy game then you are going to be able to please all the generations. I think the appeal of strategy games is that they not only give you time to think but you can also apply your experience to them. So as you get older, a strategy game can actually become more interesting. I’ve also done some research on Generation Z, using my own university students. An interesting and consistent finding across all the students I have interviewed is that while technology is important to them it is also making them more socially awkward and anxious.  For Generation Z, I think we need to be designing more in-person social interaction game or events as well as the online stuff. If the workplace becomes increasingly gamified will gamification lose its value? I don’t think gamification will lose its value but instead every element of our work and jobs will get more and more engaging. I think it’s going to be great. The caveat would be that poorly executed gamification is going to be less effective and you’re probably going to ignore it if the other systems that you’re using are more engaging. So if you have something really important to get across, and everything else is gamified, you’re going to have to put more effort and attention into it. At the moment, I think it is really easy to make a great impact using gamification but it is going to get more competitive really quickly.  If they are well-designed, more trivial elements of gamification such as feedback, badges and levels can be highly effective. If you don’t believe me, play Cookie Clicker for a short time (although you will end up playing it for longer.) You can see an analysis of the game on our blog. It’s very engaging even without the higher motivations of meaning, purpose and autonomy. Where does gamification fit into 70-20-10 learning? To my mind, too much energy and resources are going into the formal training versions of elearning. The 70-20-10 model for L&D illustrates some of my thinking behind this when it says that: 70% of workplace learning and development happens from ‘on-the-job’ experience. 20% of workplace learning happens from feedback and by watching others. 10% of workplace learning happens through formal training (classroom events, elearning, downloadable resources) and reading Are we being truly effective if we are putting more than 10% of our resources into elearning?  We should be looking at gamifying the actual job roles and on the job training. For the 20, that is where I am looking at what we can learn from eSports. For the 70, I am looking at applying game mechanics to the job in ways that give you a safe place to fail. Video: Pete on where gamification fits into the 70 percent of the 70-20-10 learning model Are learning designers being taught how to use gamification effectively? It depends who they are learning from.  If they are listening to people like Karl Kapp, Andrzej Marczewski or Yu-kai Chou they are going to be doing the right things. Perhaps, they could look at some style-driven approaches. I likeMichael Wu’s data-driven approach or Gabe Zichermann’s engineering-driven approach, which is all about trying stuff out and seeing what works in order to replicate successful results every time. As long as they are looking at human-centred design and what’s going to motivate people to be engaged and learn, I think learning designers will be on the right lines. They also need to look at the research going on about how to apply gamification practically. For example, the EU-funded Beaconing Project run by Coventry University’s Disruptive Media Learning Lab. You need to stay open-minded to all the results and research. We’re going to be getting better and better at gamification and your learning will need to stand out from all the other gamified aspects of the workplace. To find out more about Pete Jenkins and connect with him visit gamificationplus.uk The post Why you’ll have to work harder at gamification in the future appeared first on Sponge UK.

A curated list of games and gamification experts that offer practical tips for your L&D needs.Introducing new learning methods can involve an overwhelming amount of information. A Google search for gamification in business has more than 1,340,000 results.So who can you look to for relevant resources on game-based learning?We’ve highlighted 10 figures from the games and gamification world and given you the information you need to pick one or two that are relevant to you.Take a look at a representative article or book that they’ve written, watch a video or catch up on their social feeds.Once you find your personal games guru, you’ll be a few levels closer to launching your next games- based digital learning course.Karl KappProfessor Karl M. Kapp is synonymous with games and gamification in elearning.  The author of two popular gamification books he also lectures at Bloomberg University on the subject.His real world experience of games in digital learning means his work is relevant to your L&D needs.He is accessible and active on social media. Just this week, he’s taken part in the #ozlearn Twitter chat and our own #gameweek Hangout, as well as recently publishing results of a study in a LinkedIn slidedeck.Follow for: A focus on games and gamification in digital learningRead: The Gamification of Learning and Instruction Fieldbook: Ideas into PracticeWatch: Life lessons… from video games: Karl Kapp at TedxNavesinkEngage: @kkappMonica CornettiShe’s the host of long running podcast Gamification Talk Radio.  Monica Cornetti consults and speaks on gamification in business.We’d recommend reading or listening to Monica’s content to get a broader view of gamification techniques.Follow for: An overview of gamification in businessRead: Totally Awesome Training Activity Guide Book: How to Put Gamification to Work for YouListen: Gamification Talk Radio - a weekly podcast featuring guests from the L&D industry talking about gamification.Engage: @monicacornettiPete JenkinsHe is Chair of GamFed (the International Gamification Confederation) and owner of Gamification+ Ltd.  Pete Jenkins offers insights into gamification in business.  He also lectures at the University of Brighton on gamification topics.The research and examples highlighted in Pete’s work are helpful for getting a wider perspective on practices around the world.  His sites and social profiles are a good option if you want a diverse source of case studies on gamification.Follow for: A wide range of gamification concepts with fresh examplesRead: Why you’ll have to work harder at gamification in the futureWatch: Gamification for Business - how and where it works bestEngage: @petejenkinsJason ButlerMost of the people on this list started out in the L&D or business and moved towards games and gamification.  Jason comes from the opposite angle.He was an independent game developer for many years before moving into elearning .  He’s now Games Evangelist at Sponge UK and a leading figure in creating multi-device elearning games. If you’re a game designer who wants to break into the elearning field, there’s a lot to learn from Jason’s experience.Follow for: A game designer’s approach to effective elearningRead: The role of games in digital learningWatch: Why so serious? Developing games for elearning, slides available for download.Engage: @oldmanvegasMarigo RaftopoulosBridging the gap between academia and enterprise with peer reviewed research into gamification in business, Marigo Raftopoulos is an important figure in learning games.When you want research backed facts that relate to your business challenges, Marigo’s website and social feeds are a good place to look.Follow for: Academic gamification research applied to enterpriseRead: Enterprise gamification infographicWatch: Marigo Raftopoulos on Game Has Changed: Cutting through complexity to engage employees & customersEngage: @marigoGabe ZichermannA popular speaker at many gamification themed events, Gabe Zichermann has an entertaining style of explaining how game mechanics work in non-game contexts.If you’d like an introduction to gamification that uses every day brands and names as examples Gabe’s talks are a great place to start.His talks are backed up by three books on gamification and you can currently sign up for early access to the new version of Gamification by Design through the website.Follow for: Customer-focused gamification trendsRead: Gamification by Design: Implementing Game Mechanics in Web and Mobile AppsWatch: Gabe Zichermann at TNW Conference Europe 2015 - Building an industry, not just a companyEngage: @gzichermYu-Kai ChouHe is best known for his gamification framework Octalysis.  Yu-Kai Chou offers a different  perspective on gamification, focusing on how it can be used to improve many different areas of life.If you want examples of positive uses of gamification and a user-friendly framework for achieving the same results yourself, try Yu-Kai’s work.Follow for: Practical framework for positive gamification outcomesRead: Actionable Gamification: Beyond Points, Badges, and LeaderboardsWatch: Gamification to improve our world: Yu-kai Chou at TEDxLausanneEngage: @yukaichouJane McGonigalShe has two New York Times bestselling books and a host of appearances on popular talk shows and conferences.  Jane McGonigal is one of the world’s highest profile games developers.Her approach is not focused on learning games, but will give you an insight into how game-thinking can be applied to any area of life, including training.For L&D professionals, she offers a figurehead for the application of games to business, something that could play a role in getting buy in from management.Follow for: The high profile face of game scienceRead: SuperBetter: A Revolutionary Approach to Getting Stronger, Happier, Braver and More Resilient-Powered by the Science of GamesWatch: SXSWedu Keynote - How to Think (and Learn) Like a FuturistEngage: @avantgameRichard DaveyHe is the developer behind the popular HTML5 game framework Phaser.  Richard Davey is an interesting person to follow for digital learning developers that want to add games to their multi-device courses.HTML5 is a modern web standard that’s used by all popular web browsers on desktop and mobile devices. If you want one elearning game that works on many devices then Phaser is worth investigating.Richard often tweets examples of games built using Phaser that can serve as inspiration for new learning games.Follow for: Multi device games news and examplesRead: Meet Richard Davey, creator of PhaserWatch: Let’s Make a Game With PhaserEngage: @photonstormAndrzej MarczewskiWhen you’re thinking of introducing something totally new to your L&D strategy you need a good grounding in the basics.  Andrzej’s blog and YouTube channel offer this for games and gamification.Andrzej’s blog on the difference between games and gamification is a great primer on the subject.He has also authored books and created frameworks that help you apply your new found knowledge to meet your business challenges.Follow for: Straightforward explanations of fundamental game and gamification principlesRead: Even Ninja Monkeys Like to Play: Gamification, Game Thinking and Motivational DesignWatch: Gamification: Intrinsic Motivation & Extrinsic RewardsEngage: @daverageWho is your personal gamification guru? Is there anyone you go to for inspiration on games in learning that we have missed out?  Let us know using the hashtag #gameweekThe post Find your personal gamification guru appeared first on Sponge UK.

Take a glimpse into the future of elearning gamification with insights from some of the leading experts in the field.  Following the second annual #gameweek, we anticipate which gamification trends will continue and which will change over the next year.The wave is building With the amount of coverage on gamification and games, you would think our workplaces are flooded with gamified learning programmes. The #gameweek Twitter poll suggests otherwise.Research from the Association for Talent Development (ATD) supports the idea that there is still a long way to go. ATD found that only 25% of organisations currently use gamification in learning, and 20% use serious games.Gamification expert, Professor Karl M. Kapp said: "One good thing about the statistics is that there is a lot of room for opportunity. It is a little difficult sometimes to take the plunge.  You may have a conservative corporate culture, face challenges in development or struggle to know what to gamify. So, there is a lot of hesitation about exactly how to get started." Learning Game Designer, Jason Butler thinks many L&D teams are still testing the water. "People are thinking about it, taking those first tentative steps or experimenting with gamification. But I think there’s definitely an appetite for it, and I would expect the percentage of usage to increase over the next 12 to 18 months."Serious games are going mobileMobile is the fastest growing market for games in the UK, up 21.2% from 2014 to 2015.Compared to the console hardware market, which saw a drop of close to 25% in the same period, mobile is increasingly seen as a way for everyone to enjoy video games.The learning game industry will need to reflect this development by making games work on a variety of devices. With modern web technology, it’s possible to not only build an elearning course that works on mobile, but to integrate fully featured games into it too.Jason Butler talks about using a mobile first design philosophy for learning games. "You can make it more instant, people understand it and it’s more tactile, immersive and engaging," said Butler. "There’s a huge thirst to be able to take your learning away with you in your pocket."L&D departments are already asking for this kind of functionality for their Learning Management Systems (LMSs), elearning courses and their serious games.We predict that more L&D teams will be getting the most out of their elearning games by going for a responsive, multi-device approach.Gamification grows, L&D needs to stand outPete Jenkins, leading gamification consultant has a bright view for gamification in the business as a whole. This could mean a bigger challenge for L&D teams introducing gamified learning.If the gamification market grows as predicted by Business Insider , it’s going to become a commonplace to see points, badges and leader boards wherever you go.On one hand, this trend will mean more familiarity with the different aspects of games and gamifications. Stakeholders are more likely to have been exposed to positive gamification experiences.If getting buy in from your managers becomes easier, getting your learners on board might be harder than ever.When gamification makes its way into more aspects of work life, your learning games will need to stand out more to offer the same boost in engagement.Elearning games will become more ambitious and have a broader scope than before.Elearning strategy games will widen appealOne of the concerns for L&D departments is making sure game content is inclusive for all learners.The 45-74 year old age group makes up 27% of UK gamers according to an Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) report. In their report Avoiding the demographic crunch: Labour supply and the ageing workforce the CIPD highlight that currently over 30% of the workforce are over 50.Introducing elearning games to a wide age range takes some careful planning. Research by Quantic Foundry shows that strategy style games are the most universally appealing across age groups.Senior Manager for Learning Solutions at Yorkshire Building Society (YBS) Group Emma Barrow has identified something she calls the ‘grandparent effect’. When older employees are dismissive about a learning game it helps to relate it to a situation they are familiar with.Emma describes talking to learners who are not initially receptive. "At Christmas you all sit around and play Monopoly or Scrabble, that’s a game, let’s think about it differently," she urges.An elearning game doesn’t have to be a jumping, flashing, action-packed experience. Strategy games that tap into the same skills you use when playing Scrabble can introduce new skills to learners just as effectively.This kind of experience uses game thinking and gets the same benefits that other types of games give without explicitly being called a game.During a Learning and Skills Group (LSG) webinar, Louise Pasterfield gave this advice: "Using different language can help - set it up as a ‘challenge’ or that you’re going to discover something about yourself, there are ways you can word it so that it doesn’t come off as a game".Your next elearning game might not look like a game at all. Some of the overtly gamified elements will take a back seat and deeper, more strategic games will start to become more popular for L&D teams with a wider target age range.More games will be measuredTracking the results of any elearning course is important. Many of the gamification experts we’ve spoken to have pointed out that elearning games are often not tracked as well as they could be.Karl Kapp says: "The nice thing about game-based learning is that we can track everything. How long it took a learner to answer a question, how many points they’ve earned, and by tying the points to learning outcomes, we know if they’ve got it or not."The potential is there to record all the interactions that make up an elearning game. Using this data you can see where the game is working well and which areas you could improve upon.Combined with more traditional feedback from learners who have played the game it gives you a complete picture of the training experience.When we asked leading figures in the industry about the big issues for elearning in 2016 there was a lot of talk on learner focus. Laura Overton from Towards Maturity said: "The staff in our organisations are consumers of technology. They are also consumers of learning but they don’t necessarily know it and I think we need to get in tune with our staff."Your L&D strategy will continue to be led by learners and more emphasis will be put on measuring success of courses. We predict games and gamification will lead the way in tracking interactions and discovering more effective ways to engage learners.We’re already looking forward to #gameweek 2017 when we can check back in on our predictions.  If you have any experiences of gamified learning you’d like to share, please get in touch on Twitter @Sponge_UKThe post 5 predictions about gamification in learning appeared first on Sponge UK.

Get inspired for your next elearning game with excerpts from interviews and talks with a range of experts from the world of elearning games. This episode follows up on #gameweek, our annual focus on games and gamification in digital learning. We hear from a range of experts and elearning creators on how to use game based learning to promote engagement and get results from your learners. As an introduction Sponge UK’s Louise Pasterfield, talking in a webinar for the Learning and Skills Group , explains where games can be most useful in digital learning. 00:20 - Louise Pasterfield on when elearning games are most appropriate There are many ways to create games or add gamified elements to an online training course, and one of the most common is using an elearning authoring tool. Articulate’s Tom Kuhlman spoke to us in 2015 about some of the pitfalls of using game elements within an elearning tool. 01:43 - Tom Kuhlman on adding gamification features to elearning authoring tools We caught up more recently with Sponge UK’s learning game designer Jason Butler when we were talking about Adapt , a software framework that makes it easier to create one course that can be accessed on many different devices. He gives us the low down on whether a game can be integrated with an Adapt course. 02:42 - Jason Butler on building games with Adapt So you’ve got different options for building the games themselves, but how do you go about tackling the design process if you haven’t taken on an elearning game before? Louise Pasterfield takes us through the differences between traditional elearning design and creating a game experience. 06:28 - Louise Pasterfield on the difference between traditional elearning and games design  Gamification consultant Pete Jenkins spoke to us last week and brought up some interesting examples of how gamification is getting real results. We asked him how L&D can prove the link between gamified initiatives, learning outcomes and business results. 08:00 - Pete Jenkins on proving gamification works To wrap up the special #gameweek podcats Professor Karl Kapp, author, consultant and guest on our gameweek hangout has some advice on how to evaluate how well games are working for your learners. 09:51 - Karl Kapp on measuring the success of games and what you can do to make sure you get the best out of your feedback Ways to listen to the Sponge UK elearning podcast The full interview is available to listen to using the player above, you can stream the audio directly to your computer or mobile device. Download the mp3 file using this direct link: SpongeUKPodcastEpisode005-Gameweek.mp3 (12:28, 4.3MB) Subscribe to the Sponge UK elearning podcast to get the latest episodes automatically. Subscribe in iTunes Subscribe using the RSS feed Join us in two weeks for the next episode of the Sponge UK elearning podcast. The post Elearning games - Sponge UK Elearning Podcast appeared first on Sponge UK.

NEWS: Story Contracting, one of the fastest growing infrastructure companies in the UK has launched its first elearning induction programme for new employees.The company, based in Carlisle, has a workforce of 480 and provides construction, plant and rail solutions across the North of England and Scotland. Award-winning elearning provider, Sponge UK created the new elearning module which is being rolled out to new starters and existing employees.It is the first time the company has used online learning as part of its induction training.Head of HR at Story, Claire McClean said: "Our induction elearning reflects our company values and culture, and our new colleagues have felt part of the Story family from day one after going through the module. This was exactly what we wanted. We were delighted to work with award-winning elearning specialist Sponge UK on the project." The 20-minute elearning module introduces Story employees to the company’s vision and core behaviours and provides an overview of its people and structure.It begins with a video message from the charismatic owner and Chief Executive of the company, Fred Story and features video clips of employees talking about life at the company.Louise Pasterfield, Managing Director, Sponge UK, said:"Video plays a critical role in this elearning module, helping to inspire new and existing employees at Story Contracting to have pride in their company. Using footage of real life colleagues across the business and a personal message from the boss helps to create a sense of belonging. Music helps to engage learners’ emotions, and the course ends with a smile, as there are some charming video outtakes to finish. "The new induction elearning module is supported with face-to-face sessions and ongoing mentoring for new employees throughout their first six months with the company.Story Contracting also has its own purpose-built training facilities and in-house training programme to help its employees develop their skills, knowledge and expertise.Sponge UK is one of the nation’s leading custom-made elearning companies and is the current gold winner of Outstanding Learning Organisation of the Year (Elearning Awards).The post STORY unveils new chapter in induction elearning appeared first on Sponge UK.