I have a new paper on my proposal for a gamification framework. It was published on november, 19, in the Special Issue of eLearning Papers on Personal Learning Environments (issue nº 35). The paper is co-authored with Rebeca Redondo (University of Vigo), Ana Vilas (University of Vigo) and Ademar Aguiar (University of Porto).The paper, A gamification framework to improve participation in social learning environments, describes a gamification framework applied to the integration of game elements in Social Learning Environments. The framework is being applied in Schoooools.com, a Social Learning Environment for K6.by Jorge SimõesThis paper presents a gamification framework applied to the integration of game elements in Social Learning Environments. The framework is being applied to 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 becoming 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 architecture for a gamified system and a guide to help the development of gamified activities.Authors: Jorge Simões, Rebeca Redondo, Ana Vilas, Ademar AguiarPublication Date: Nov 19, 2013Publication Name: eLearning Papers on Personal Learning Environments, issue 3 Research Interests: E-learning, Social learning environments, and GamificationSee also this post - PLE and Smart Cities - from Ilona Buchem, one of the guest editors of this special issue of eLearning Papers.

A lady demonstrates 2 or 3 ways of making grilled cheese sandwich and tells you "You’re Doing it All Wrong!" She finally teaches you the steps to make a cheese sandwich the right way. How would react to this? Would you relate to the things that you might be doing wrong and try to learn it to do the right way? Or Will you get irritated and think the person is arrogant? When you design an e-learning program, it is a good idea to show common mistakes/errors and then teach the right way of doing things. This way retention is far more higher. Now look at this video on making grilled cheese sandwich: I really liked this video and I think it is very well done.  I would  recommend you look at the comments on this video. Not many are happy with this video. For example one person feels "maybe those? people that "did it wrong", likes their grilled cheese that way!" Now the questions are: How would you react to such a video? Do you think  there is a better way to tell someone how to do something right? Have you ever included "You’re Doing it All Wrong" scenarios in your e-learning to teach the right way of doing something? How did you do it?

An invitation from the EMOOCs 2014 Team for the EMOOCs 2014 Summit, in Lausanne, Switzerland, on Feb 10-12, 2014:"Dear Sir/Madam,Have you heard of the recent global phenomenon that is revolutionizing education? Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have the potential to disrupt the higher education system. Did you know, for instance, that the number of MOOCs in Europe has more than tripled since the beginning of 2013? Do you want to learn about the opportunities that MOOCs can bring to your sector? How to plan, produce and run a MOOC? We invite you to join the EMOOCs 2014 Summit of researchers, policymakers, and practitioners from the world of MOOCs in Lausanne, Switzerland, on Feb 10-12, 2014, to discuss the latest developments and find areas of common interest. EMOOCSs 2014 offers a series of workshops, meetings and the tutorial "All you need to know about MOOCs". With the input and participation of active MOOC stakeholders such as yourself, we intend to collectively shape the future of higher education in Europe. Learn more about the programme and register for this unique event. The deadline for registration is the 1st of February 2014. Feel free to contact us if you would like to receive any additional information.  Sincerely yours,The EMOOCs 2014 Team"Important DatesSubmissions deadline:  October 4, 2013Notification of acceptance: November 15, 2013Camera ready papers due: January 5, 2014An interesting view about how europe is dealing with MOOCs can be seen in this page from Open Education Europe with a distribution of MOOCs per country:Spain is clearly on the lead with 129 MOOCs followed by the UK (69), France (48) and Germany (47).

I just read this post listing 60 great resources on teaching online. I have been offering online training programs on Instructional Design basics for quite sometime now and I was delighted to find these resources. This also prompted me to write this post. If you offer training programs via Skype or web conferencing tools like Webex or are aware of such online training programs, I am sure you will be able to relate to this post and participate in the discussion. My objective in writing this post is to highlight the challenges with online training and invite opinions  to overcome these challenges. So here goes my list of challenges with online training: Internet Connectivity Issues - If you are located in India and offer a training program online, then you need to think about internet connectivity issues. Especially if your learners plan to take the training program from home, the first thing you need to check is the internet speed at their residence.  Internet connectivity issues can spoil your training program big time. Power Cuts - If you are located in India and do not live in a place where there is  power backup or your learners live in a place where there is no power backup, then you need to keep track of the frequency of power cuts and plan your online interaction with your learners accordingly. Power cuts again can frustrate both you and your learner. Learner Motivation Issues- To keep the learners focused and engaged in the learning process is a challenge in any training program. With online training program, the challenge increases because you are not physically present with your learners and if they are taking the training program from home , there may be lots of distractions. A lot of activities can engage and engross your learners. For example my training program is completely activity based. I talk less and allow the learner to discover things through activities. Interaction/Communication Issues - In a classroom training program there is great scope for trainer-learner interactions. With online training, the trainer has to make an effort to keep the communication going. If there is lack of communication, then the online training program is sure to fail. For example in my training program, I allot a couple of hours for online interaction/discussions. My learners spend a lot of time doing exercises offline. When my learners are taking their offline exercises, I make sure I am available on Gtalk/Skype so that they can ping me if they have any queries. I also ping them to check if all is fine. Managing Expectations - This is relevant for any training program. You need to set expectations and set rules to meet the expectations upfront. If you do not do this then you cannot expect your learners to perform well. For example in my training program before every exercise I  list all the rules to complete the exercise. I make sure I give the rules to my learners both in written and verbal formats. I have seen that not setting expectations and rules upfront can frustrate the learners. Trainer Personality - Online training demands much more openness,  flexibility, concern and friendly attitude on the part of the trainer. The trainer has to compensate for the lack of physical proximity in every possible way. The trainer needs to make the learners comfortable because most people are apprehensive about online training. I work hard on my attitude, tone and language to interact well with my learners and I am sure with time I will get better and better at it What do you think? What are the  top challenges with online training? How do you overcome these challenges? Please share your thoughts.

Open Education Europa: top content of 2013 based on the number of pageviews. In the  category "Top articles from the eLearningPapers", my paper A gamification framework to improve participation in social learning environments, co-authored with Rebeca Díaz Redondo, Ana Fernandez Vlas (University of Vigo) and Ademar Aguiar (University of Porto) is #3. In second, another paper from University of Porto.This paper presents a gamification framework applied to the integration of game elements in Social Learning Environments. The framework is being applied to a K6 Social Learning Environment leading to a gamified system. With this gamified system it is expected to achieve a rise in the motivation to use the platform with students becoming more loyal users. It is also expected that they will be more deeply involved and engaged in educational activities supported by the environment. The proposed gamification framework includes architecture for a gamified system and a guide to help the development of gamified activities.The K6 Social Learning Environment is Schoooools.com.

In school, I have been punished a lot of times - reasons :  homework not done, shoe not polished, stepped into the class late etc. I used to hate punishments and always wondered why teachers cannot be a little lenient or deal with these issues in a better way. Now consider this e-learning course : The Incredible Adventures of the Amazing Food Detective. It is an engaging course to create awareness about healthy food habits. The target audience for this e-learning course are children/youngsters. All is fine till you continuously interact with the e-learning course window. If you leave the window open for a long time, without interacting with it, this is the message you get: Its funny to see this message and you can laugh it out. But then if you see it the other way, it is kind of penalizing the learner for not paying attention to the e-learning course though the message does not explicitly convey any such thing. After this message, you cannot access the course for 60 minutes. Isn’t that frustrating? Especially if you are involved and engaged in the learning process. Do you think such strategies should be included in e-learning programs? Please share your thoughts.

Nordic DiGRA will be held in Sweden, in May 29 and 30:Games are becoming more and more pervasive in our everyday life. Gamification and game-based learning are research topics that are blooming. Games are also used in electioneering. We invite submission for full papers and for workshops. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:gamificationgames in societygames and learninggames as propagandapersuasive gamesgames in teachingcritical stances to gamification and game-based learning Important dates: Full paper submission and workshop proposals: March 30, 2014Founded in 2003, DiGRA is the premiere international association for academics and professionals who research digital games and associated phenomena. It encourages high-quality research on games, and promotes collaboration and dissemination of work by its members.

The EDEN Annual Conference 2014 will be held in Zagreb in June, 10-13, 2014, with several Conference Themes.The year 2014 is important as the start of the new European programme period until 2020. This coincides with intensive developments in ICT-supported learning, educational innovations and, in particular, open educational resources. With present economic trends, the key question being growth and employability, it is highly important how employers accept job candidates with the certifications and competences from the new world of learning, characterised by many innovative approaches and open educational settings.Important Dates:Paper Submission: 31 January 2014Conference Dates: 10-13 June 2014

We love watching videos. YouTube and other similar video sharing websites have made viewing and sharing videos as easy as possible. However when it comes to learning from videos, there is certainly a hitch. For example, consider I have to write a paper on Entrepreneurship and I am referring to some videos on the topic. Let’s say I look at the video below : Referring to a video as shown above for learning purpose can be really time consuming and painful for the following reasons: I will have to go through the entire video and then find out if there is anything relevant. If it is a lengthy video, I will be spending too much time going through the entire video. Since there is no table of contents, I cannot skip portions and move on to more relevant portions. Now look at this video here : Learning from the video above is much more easier because: The contents are clearly listed and segregated. The duration is also indicated. You can either listen to the entire lecture or  jump to portions that interest you. In this case, even if it is a 2 hour video, you do not have to worry much because you can always skip and look at stuff that interest you or is relevant to you. What do you think about the point I am making here?  Please drop in your thoughts in the Comments section.

One of my blog readers asked me an interesting question: How do you go about finalizing content for your project when there is no source content or the source content you have is largely incorrect? To add to this problem, suppose the ID is working on a hardware based project, has not clue about the subject and  and the SME is a tough nut to crack. What should the ID do? My Take Honestly, I feel every e-learning project must involve a Subject Matter Expert who actively contributes and participates in the development of the training material. It is the responsibility of the project head to ensure that IDs have all the support to their work. If there is no Subject Matter Expert on the client side or there is a Subject Matter Expert who is not supportive or doing his/her part well, you can either involve an Instructional Designer who has some clue on the subject or get someone within the organization to assist the Instructional Designer. I find it strange when an Instructional Designer is given no assistance with respect to the Subject Matter especially if the subject is highly technical.  I have worked on e-learning projects where I have had to research on the Subject Matter and come up with the content without any guidance. I used to find it very challenging to decide on the content, because I really didn’t know how to go about finalizing the content without any pointers. While its challenging to handle such a situation, you cannot avoid this at all. So here are some things you can do to finalize the content for your e-learning project, considering there is no Subject Matter Expert for the project: Keep the target audience in mind. Keep the course goal/objective in mind. Spend some time on Google and  get a grip of the subject matter by reading stuff randomly. This will help you get comfortable with the subject. Refer to full length books on the subject matter. If you refer to 4 or 5 books, you will get an idea what to cover. Make a list of topics to cover. Research on each topic and put the raw content in a Word document. Discuss with your colleague or someone who has a clue on the subject and get an opinion. Stop at one point and freeze the content. There is no point doing endless research. You are not the subject matter and you know there are limitations. Make sure you keep your Project Manager in the loop all the time. Tell your Project Manager what you have been doing, the challenges you are facing and the possible solutions you can think of. Remember there is no point fretting and fuming. Do your best. In case things are not on working well or your client is not  happy, escalate/get help. Your Project Manager or higher authorities will have to do something about it. What’s your answer to this question? Please share your thoughts.