Foi publicado o white paper do último case study proposto pelo GamFed: um site gamificado para promoção e venda de bilhetes para um espectáculo da Broadway: The Book of Mormon (ver este post).The Book of Mormon Case Study
The Book of Mormon is a satirical musical developed and directed by Trey Parker, Robert Lopez, Matt Stone and Casey Nicholaw. The production has won 9 Tony awards including Best Musical in 2011.Supercharging Online EngagementWith the musical’s Broadway success rapidly gaining momentum, The Book of Mormon team aimed to increase online engagement and social sharing of tour dates, exclusive interviews and other important content available on the musical’s website. Being savvy about current trends in digital marketing, The Book of Mormon wanted to use social media to build online buzz for the production and boost interaction on the site.Building a Rewards Program for FansKnowing that many people visit a production’s website to buy tickets, The Book of Mormon implemented BigDoor’s Gamified Loyalty Platform to launch site "missions" that prompt and incentivize visitors to check out videos, behind the scenes photos and The Book of Mormon in the news. Joining the program allows users to earn "golden plates", a currency customized by the Book of Mormon team, which were redeemable for tickets to the show and Book of Mormon merchandise. As a white label product, the BigDoor platform easily aligned with The Book of Mormon’s satirical themes.The site also launched BigDoor powered "Street Team missions", which load a timed messages for fans to retweet, rewarding higher point values for those who do so the fastest.Since social media engagement is the ultimate goal, The Book of Mormon uses BigDoor’s social stream feature, which highlights real-time fan achievements earned in the program. Visitors to the site can see who is earning achievements, badges and rewards. The social stream prompts them to join and participate in the program.The ResultsSimply watching the social stream on The Book of Mormon’s website proves how active participants are in the program. Valuable site actions have increased by 10X and participants in the program view 2X as many pages. Fans of the program are learning more about the production, building excitement for tour dates and recruiting their friends to help them earn rewards. "Mission" accomplished!Whitepaper BigDoor - The Book of Mormon by GamFed

According to Wikipedia " HTML5 is currently being developed as the next major revision of HTML (HyperText Markup Language), the core markup language of the World Wide Web. HTML5 is the proposed next standard for HTML 4.01, XHTML 1.0 and DOM Level 2 HTML. It aims to reduce the need for proprietary plug-in-based rich internet application (RIA) technologies such as Adobe Flash and Microsoft Silverlight." There has been lot of talk about HTML 5 in the e-learning industry. Some of the burning questions have been: Will HTML 5 replace Adobe Flash? Is HTML 5 ready for e-learning development? What will be the challenges with HTML 5? Will HTML 5 work? Here are some interesting posts from the web that try to answer such questions: What is HTML 5? Is HTML 5 Ready for E-learning Development? HTML 5 and E-learning Development

Foi apresentado ontem, pelo Ademar Aguiar, o artigo que enviámos para a PLE 2013 - Personal Learning Environments: Learning and Diversity in the Cities of the Future,  em Berlim. O artigo, Using Gamification to Improve Participation in a Social Learning Environment, foi feito em co-autoria com Rebeca Redondo e Ana Vilas da Universidade de Vigo, para além do Ademar Aguiar. A redação do artigo contou ainda com o apoio de de um shepherd, Kamakshi Rajagopal.Abstract do artigo: This paper presents a gamification framework applied in the integration of game elements in a K6 Social Learning Environment leading to a gamified system. With this gamified system it is expected to achieve a raise in the motivation to use the platform with students becaming more loyal users. It is also expected that they will be deeper involved and engaged in educational activities supported by the environment. The proposed gamification framework includes an architecture for a gamified system and a guide to help the development of gamified activities.

Here are the top 5 sites that give you good examples of e-learning: Enspire Learning: Demonstrations E-learning Examples MedlinePlus: Interactive Health Tutorials Cathy Moore’s E-learning Samples SkillSoft: Demonstrations

Slides da apresentação do artigo Proposta de Modelo de Referência para Aplicação de Gamification em Ambientes de Aprendizagem Social, Challenges 2013, 16 de julho de 2013, Braga, Portugal.Resumo: A gamification consiste na aplicação de elementos característicos dos videojogos em contextos não lúdicos com o objetivo de aumentar os níveis de envolvimento e de motivação dos participantes em atividades nesses contextos. Para atingir este objetivo tem sido considerada, entre outras, a teoria do fluxo. A educação é apontada como uma das áreas com maior potencial de aplicação de gamification. O crescente uso das tecnologias de informação e de comunicação em contextos educativos e o reconhecimento do potencial pedagógico das aplicações da Web 2.0 levam a que as plataformas de apoio ao ensino sejam candidatas à aplicação elementos de jogos, em particular de jogos sociais. Os elementos a considerar e a forma de os aplicar levaram à necessidade de definição de um modelo de referência que auxilie a aplicação do conceito de gamification. Este artigo apresenta uma proposta de um modelo de referência no seguimento de trabalhos anteriores que identificaram já as suas características gerais.Palavras-chave: Gamification, elementos de jogos, teoria do fluxo, ambientes sociais de aprendizagem, modelo de referênciaAbstract: Gamification is the application of typical elements from video games in non-gaming contexts aiming to increase the levels of engagement and motivation of the participants in activities in those contexts. The ways to achieve this objective have been supported by the flow theory, among others. Education is considered one of the areas with greatest potential for the application of gamification. The increasing use of information and communication technologies in educational contexts and the recognition of the pedagogical potential of Web 2.0 applications, made learning supporting platforms good candidates for the application of game elements, particularly from social games. Choosing which elements to consider and how to apply them led to the necessity of defining a framewok to assist the application of gamification. This paper presents a proposal of such a framework following previous work that has identified its general characteristics.Keywords: Gamification, game elements, flow theory, social learning environments, framework

If you have checked my Linkedin profile , you must be knowing that I have positioned myself as an e-learning consultant now. One of my recent efforts have been towards helping the e-learning division in a top-notch  medical institution solve their problems. The e-learning division has a team of graphic designers and flash developers who help in e-learning development. In its endeavour to promote education and networking,  the medical institution has been publishing e-learning material in their portal and LMS. Currently they have been able to publish only recorded CME sessions. This medical institution wants to publish large number of e-learning programs apart from CME sessions in their LMS.  Let’s review this medical institution’s objective, challenges and how templatized e-learning content might help them solve their problems. Objective A medical institution wants to increase publication of e-learning programs within the organization while cutting short their development timelines and meeting their desired quality criteria. Challenges The major challenge here is producing instructionally sound e-learning material and achieving consistency in e-learning programs. Reasons? The e-learning division is small and comprises of graphic designers and flash developers who have no clue about the subject they are dealing with. There are quite a few departments and quite a few SMEs who provide medical content in the form of PowerPoint presentations which are not self-contained. The SMEs produce e-learning content in their own style. Solution - What’s Ruled Out Use of Rapid E-learning tools - because the medical institution already is investing in flash development and graphic design and do not want to try out anything new. Hiring Instructional Designers - the medical institution does not want to hire more people. Training the e-learning division  - time, effort, money will be huge. Success rates low (the e-learning division wants to be involved only in graphic design, flash development and publishing activities) Possible Solution Set a process for e-learning content development. Create standardized PowerPoint templates for creating instructionally sound e-learning content. Templates must enable creation of instructionally sound content. Templates must  be designed in such a fashion that SMEs have less pain filling the template with subject matter. Provide SMEs with quality checklists and guidelines that helps them meet quality criteria and also evaluate the quality of their PowerPoint presentations. Train SMEs to use the templates, checklists and guidelines and create instructionally sound PowerPoint presentations. Benefits Training will help : SMEs understand Instructional Design basics. Help SMEs  use templates and checklists and work well. Templates will : Help achieve consistency in e-learning programs across the organization. Help achieve desired quality criteria. Speed up the e-learning development process. From a designer’s perspective, templates are boring and cause monotonous work. From an organization’s perspective, templates help them a great deal.

By ruparajgo | View this Toon at ToonDoo | Create your own Toon I have been offering training programs for Instructional Design and all the training programs I have done so far have been classroom training programs. Before I begin my training program, I make sure I do the following: Give people a pretest to assess their current knowledge/skill levels . Interact a lot and try to understand their personality type, their likes and dislikes and learning preferences. This really helps me customize my training program to suit my learner needs and choose the right approach for  my training programs. Now that  I am planning to take my training program online ( via web conferencing), apart from regular pre-training assessments, I am going to give my learners an additional assessment - ONLINE READINESS ASSESSMENT. Why an Online Readiness Assessment? While I want to take my training program online, I also think I must not assume that people will be comfortable and will be ready for an online training program. This is because quite a few people who I have spoken to (in India)  have been reluctant to take an online training program due to various reasons such as: No internet at home Long work hours at office Low bandwidth issues No confidence/not comfortable learning online This is when I thought an online readiness assessment will help me get the right candidates for my online training program.  I spent some time googling for online readiness assessments and found quite a few interesting  assessments designed for students. I particularly liked this online readiness assessment that has questions pertaining to : Time management -  Learner’s readiness to manage  time especially if there are going to be offline activities exercises. Technology -  Details about internet usage , internet speed etc. Class Preferences - Learner’s attitude and preferences when it comes to online lectures, offline activities, online discussions etc. Thanks to Google, I got some good examples of Online Readiness Assessment. Now that I have got a clue,  I would frame some questions to check learner readiness for my online training program Have you done an online readiness assessment? Please share your thoughts here.

If you are into e-learning business, how much should you charge for the e-learning program you develop? If you are buying e-learning, is the price quoted by your e-learning vendor acceptable or questionable? These are common questions and a lot of experts have tried to answer these questions. So presenting to you some interesting articles on the cost of E-learning from the web: Tony Karrer’s Blog Post on E-learning Costs Estimating Costs and Tine in Instructional Design -Donald Clark Costs, Benefits and ROI of  E-learning - e-Learning Centre The Cost of E-learning - Howard B. Schechter Measuring the Total Cost of E-learning - Kevin Kruse If you have a useful resource to share on E-learning Costs, please leave the URL in the Comments section.

Donald Clark has an interesting finding in his blog. So I thought I of sharing that bit of information via T-Bite. So here is the excerpt from Donald Clark’s blog post: It’s has been claimed by the likes of Donald Taylor and Jay Cross, that training must transform itself or risk being ignored. And there is a feeling in the training world that all is not well, and that the deep, dark secret is that training is regarded by many as second-rate, full of odd people delivering oddball stuff using outdated methods. For the first time I’ve seen evidence that this may be true. So I draw your attention to this independent survey of decision makers at 100 of the UKs top 500 companies (by turnover): 70% see inadequate staff skills as barrier to growth 40% see risk of employee skills risk being obsolete 55% claim L&D failing to deliver necessary training 46% doubt L&D can deliver Less than 18% agree that L&D aligned with business (Coleman Parkes Spring 2010) Read more @ Donald Clark’s Blog and do not miss the interesting comments on his post.

In any e-learning development company, storyboards and e-learning courses go through rounds of testing to ensure desired quality levels.  You should find a lot of blog posts on e-learning testing. All these articles talk about the importance of usability testing, learnability testing for e-learning courses. When you talk of e-learning testing,  Instructional Design review is also a critical testing activity that happens in the development phase/storyboarding phase. During Instructional Design review,  you analyse storyboards  to check the following: Is the course meeting the instructional objectives? Is content structuring okay? Have instructional stragies been applied right? How is the instructional flow? How is the quality of the content? How’s the language? Are assessments complete and effective? Is the audio script in sync with onscreen content? Are visual descriptions detailed enough? More… When you review storyboards, here are some things you might do: Completely understand project requirements, target audience, design strategy. Map existing storyboards or work done to the initial requirements and design strategy. It is a good practice to test and evaluate your storyboards  during regular intervals to avoid major issues during the implementation phase. It is even better to provide Instructional Design Review checklists to Instructional Designers just when they are about start storyboarding. This will help you minimize mistakes to a greater extent and save all the time you spend fixing mistakes during the review stage. In this post, let’s try answering some questions about Instructional Design Review checklists and how they can help achieve desired quality levels in e-learning. So what are Instructional Design Review checklists? ID Review Checklists are job aids that specify parameters/guidelines for storyboarding and e-learning content creation. Checklists can be created for specific projects. Instructional Designers can use the checklist to check if the storyboards are meeting the desired quality. What kind of parameters/ guidelines can be included in Instructional Design Review checklists? Lets take the example of templatized e-learning content such as these in the MedlinePlus website. In this case, checklists can specify : Guidelines to design course menu Naming convention for topic titles Limit on number of topics Things to keep in mind while designing the course introduction Instructional Strategies to be used Image and text positioning How much text onscreen allowed? How many assessments to include? Assessment design What are the advantages of Instructional Design Review checklists? You will be able to clearly communicate quality expectations to your Instructional Design team. The work that your Instructional Design team deliver will be better synchronized. You will be able to detect quality issues during the development phase. You will be able to achieve consistency and desired quality levels in e-learning courses. Finally! An Example of Instructional Design Review Checklist Please do share your thoughts on this post and also any Instructional Design checklists freely available on the web.