I was recently recognized by my peers at the University of Phoenix on their Faculty Scholarship (Research)Day. The title of my poster presentation was "Constructivist Competencies for Online Instructors". Faculty members had the opportunity to present an idea, research topic or study that would enhance the learning environment, integrate a practice or apply a concept to solve a problem. What an honor!

I had the opportunity to attend the ISPI (International Society for Performance Improvement) Conference in Reno, Nevada. What wonderful speakers!I enjoyed the following sessions: Creating a culture of accountability The key to accountability starts with management. Leaders must lead by example and focus on re-designing a culture of accountability. Re-design must occur within the culture and possibly re-design of physical environment. What is Leadership? Transactional vs. Tranformational Leadership Transactional Leadership is focused on the planning, organizing, coordinating, directing and controlling. This type of leaders source of influence is based on position or command of authority. Transformational Leadership engages followers beyond their self interest by recognizing existing needs, arousing and satisfying higher order needs. This type of leaders source of influence is based on visioning, values, role modeling, confidence building and communication. Key attribute is enabling employees to reach their full potential. Click here to learn more about conference highlights.

Our Locus Media Team Members attended a very informative workshop recently, sponsored by ASTD - Orange County Technology Tidbits. The speaker was Victor Kinney of Cornerstone On Demand, and he outlined the ins and outs of Learning Management Systems (LMS). The misconception is that LMS is for larger companies with larger budgets. Victor outlined a lot of benefits for small companies -  to begin with basic features and then add features as needed. In the past, many LMS systems were custom programs that were costly to maintain internally and not very flexible with feature changes. It’s nice to know the industry has grown along with our advances in software efficiencies. Small and medium sized companies can now use well-designed LMS because the large costs and complicated systems of the past are no longer a barrier to entry. Locus will keep you updated on the continuation of LMS advancement.

We hope to see you at the 41st Annual SPBT Tradeshow!  This year’s keynote speakers and workshops are focused on "New World, New Learning" - weathering the storm of your organizational challenges. 1.  Learn the latest on how the Accountable Care Organizational model developed, how it relates to health care reform and how it may impact your business. 2.  Discover how compliance training can be delivered in a manner that is impactful and engaging using the latest interactive technology. 3.  iPads aren’t just for kids anymore!  Learn how iPads are being used as a training as well as a selling tool, learn how to avoid the challenges of technology, how they are used in product launches and building a road-map for a launch solution. The keynote presenters are: * Michael Gelb: How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci: Seven Steps to Genius Every Day * Mike Abrashoff: It’s Your Ship: Management Techniques from the Best Damn Ship in the Navy * Daniel Kraft: The Future of Health & Medicine: Where Can Technology Take Us? And let’s not forget that this conference is being held in New Orleans! There is so much to do in the Big Easy, both day and night - it can be overwhelming. From cemetery tours to city tours, Mississippi Jazz Dinner Cruises to Swamp Tours - there is so much variety you’re bound to find something that floats your boat.  Here are just some ideas: - New Orleans City Tours - French Quarter Tours - Garden District Tours - Ghost and Vampire Tours - Cemetery and Voodoo Tours - Swamp Tours - Riverboat Tours - Plantation Tours - New Orleans Movie Tours And if touring isn’t your cup of tea, or as the case may be in New Orleans, your Chicory Coffee or Hurricane Cocktail, there is plenty more to do and see in this hotbed of activity and fun. Here are some websites to help you on your way to a sizzling stay in historic and happening New Orleans! www.NewOrleans.com www.NewOrleansOnline.com www.NewOrleansCVB.com www.GraylineNewOrleans.com For some fun and interesting showstoppers, come by the Locus booth, #231, and we’ll introduce you to some creative blended learning programs.  We’ll also have some sparkling giveaways so stop by and help us celebrate our 10-Year Diamond Anniversary!

One challenge central to the training industry is keeping learners engaged . But what does this really mean? The top 2 definitions of "ENGAGED" as cited in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (Houghton Mifflin; 4th ed - from http://www.answers.com/topic/engaged ): Employed, occupied, or busy. Committed, as to a cause. So what is the true context of learner engagement ? At its core, learner-engaged training must have context and meaning, whether it is improved job performance, increased knowledge, or essential changes in specific areas of expertise. The best way to ensure that employees become and stay engaged is to ensure that training addresses both your company’s and your employees’ needs. The training should create a useful outcome for the employee and a measurable ROI for the company, regardless of subject matter. Remember, too, that learners in your company need to know management is supportive of any training initiative that comes their way. The last thing you want is to have employees feel that they are being taken away from productive, profitable "work" in order to complete training that is meaningless to management. Finally, no matter how you present your training (ie, instructor-led, eLearning, blended) establish and adhere to your desired outcomes: What is your intended goal? What do you want to see once the training has been completed? What metrics will help you determine if your goal has been met? How can you follow up to reinforce training? As always, the Locus team can help you develop a sound and engaging training plan to keep your training efforts fresh and viable. In our next issue: Culling effective content from current materials and determining an effective delivery method. "… I never teach my pupils. I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn." - Albert Einstein (http://www.quotationspage.com/subjects/teaching/ )

In order to be successful in business, you have to know the most effective and efficient ways to sell your product to the right audience, at the right time and in the right place. Time is valuable to all of us so we have outlined some quick tips to help you focus your selling time with maximum results. 1. Know your prospect; the chances are that your prospect knows about your company and your competition in some way, so it is beneficial for both parties if you do some upfront research to see if you are a match. We constantly ask ourselves, "Is this the right audience?" and "Are we the right fit?" 2. Plan meetings that matter; each meeting with an existing or prospective client should be focused on accomplishing something that will move the process forward. The only way to make this happen is to carefully plan each meeting. The first thought that enters a buyer’s head before making a decision is "do I want to buy this company’s product?" In response to this, you must create a rapport that will show confidence and trust in your product by creating a personable, curious, and caring environment. Our personal connection and trust with our clients, move meetings forward. 3. Ask questions; this may seem very simple and juvenile, but without asking the right questions and asking them the right way, how will you know what the customer actually wants? Asking questions is key to understanding the desires of a client and assuring that you are a match! In addition, listen to your client’s answers. When the client is speaking, you need to keep an open and active mind in order to get the most out of the conversation. We always assure our services are matched to our client’s needs. 4. Learn how to ask for the commitment; if all of your selling skills are used to perfection but a sale isn’t made, then it has all been a waste of everyone’s time. Learn the right way to ask for a commitment without putting them off or pushing too hard. When we are sincere about why we are the best fit, the value we bring is justified and rewarded! 5. Build a long-term relationship; become an integral part of your client’s business network. The key to our sustained business is becoming a consistent, trusted resource that provides value to our client’s overall business. Understanding these important selling skills and relating them to what is needed in your business, will allow you to build lasting business. Although it took you a few minutes to review these tips, we trust that it has been time well spent! Contact us for more ideas on how to help your sales representatives drive results. What’s in your garden? We look forward to seeing you in Dallas May 19-22nd at ASTD’s ICE conference.

Society of Pharmaceutical and Biotech Trainers (SPBT) and Orlando - Here We Come! We are PLANNING to IMPACT THE FUTURE June 10-13th at the 42nd Annual SPBT Conference and Tradeshow! This year’s conference will focus on the ever changing role of the corporate trainer and their impact on successful learning. The dynamic role of the trainer in the corporate world is similar to what a K-12 teacher faces with declining budgets and high demand for quality education. We want our children to receive the best education possible so they will succeed in life. As an employee, we want to succeed in our career so we learn about our role and the impact we have in the company. The key to success is found in the process of learning. In order to have a successful business, there has to be a plan. You’ve heard this many times but it is very true, and not just a business plan, but a plan to train those who run and work for your business. Proper planning of how to train employees can have major benefits to a business and allow a better trained sales force to be representing your business. Locus Learning tips on planning your training: 1. The first thing to think about when planning your employee training is the outcome. What are the objectives you want to hit? These may include: •             Increased sales productivity. A company can efficiently target customers and increase revenue for the business with a well-trained sales team. •             Lower employee turnover. Employees that are less likely to fail are less likely to leave. •             Tied very closely with turnover is improving morale. Employees that are well trained will have a better sense of purpose and vision to see how the company’s goals fit into society. •             Improving customer relations. Trained employees that understand the importance of building customer relations, will improve business because customers will return and recommend your services. 2. Decide how to train your sales employees: •             Who should do the training? •             Where it should take place? •             What is the method of training that will be used? •             How will we evaluate the training and the employees to make sure it was effective? 3. Employees who are eager to learn and are able to pick up new concepts will be successful and will help the company improve. Evaluating the employees after the training can offer a good measure of the learning success: •             Reaction- do the employees seem pleased with the training? •             Learning- how much information is being absorbed by the learner? •             Behavior- actions speak louder than words so watch to see if the learner has changed. •             Results- can you measure any results that came from the training program? Planning your training outcomes leads to better learning! This can directly affect sales, improve customer relations and lessen employee turnover. My 8th grade math teacher made learning fun with a planned approach. This lead to better understanding of the concepts and we all know how understanding match can affect overall success. Come see us at the Peabody Orlando, Booth #315 from June 10-13th at the 42nd Annual SPBT Conference and Tradeshow. We’ll show you how to improve the outcomes of your training with a planned approach to learning!

Locus Learning tips on changing your learning game: One of the themes for the SPBT Conference this year, is focusing on better Breadth and Depth for Learning. We are excited to be looking at a deeper learning experience, which is essential for engaging employees and driving performance changes. Websters tells us that the definition of Breadth (for knowledge) is to understand concepts in a broad and all-encompassing manner. Websters also helps us define Depth (for knowledge) as the extent to master a body of knowledge. Or as we say, taking a deep dive! The University of Guelph in Ontario Canada is looking into the Depth and Breadth of Understanding with their Graduate Studies. Their focus mirrors our thoughts on learning: Depth and Breadth are interrelated and mastering a skill and body of knowledge for an employee centers around engaging the learner so they want to know more! Promoting the engagement of learning will contribute to the love of learning. As we know with learning, we deliver new information in stages: Simple consciousness of new ideas Creation of interrelations between ideas Peaking curiosity and desire to apply the information Integration of new knowledge We believe in changing the game with consistent points of true engagement that drive learning to the level of integration. We are using various blended approaches, with digital and traditional materials, that are driving engagement and integration. We are focusing on some new methods to deliver workshops as a Genius Forum (brainstorming on steroids) and adding games and mobile reinforcements to all aspects of our training programs. The more layers of information and reinforcement of key messages, the more engagement increases and the results for the learner will be seen. Come join us to see how we are changing the game on learning at SPBT at the Gaylord Texan in Grapevine TX, June 9-11th for 2 workshops: Beyond the DSA - iPad Utilization for 2014: Culture Eats Strategy for Breakfast - An Experiential Forum to Explore Excellence in Blended Learning and at the Solutions Marketplace/HR Forum with ASTD and SHRM, June 25th at the San Diego Air and Space Museum.

Social Media is Changing How We Learn! Move over marketing, sales, and human resources. Competitive organizations are also utilizing social media for learning and development. While the challenges may be obvious and the greatest obstacle is retaining control, a closely monitored social learning plan can be the key to efficient information transfer and driving learning engagement. Learn more about Social Learning and additional Technology Trends at the upcoming L-TEN Annual Conference in Phoenix. On Tuesday, June 2nd, our Thought Leader Panel will explore, "How Do We Leverage Technology for Optimized and Evidence Based Learning?" Sounds interesting, right? But where to begin? Your head is spinning with compliance issues. Sure, there are challenges ahead, like defining guidelines and making sure the content is appropriate. Who are we to shy away from such challenges when learner engagement is at stake? Reaching the learner in the ways that they like to learn is the key - through classroom, self-directed, application and through mobile platforms. The possibilities of a well executed social learning strategy tie together all the ways that learning can be blended: Driving engagement for employees, teams and clients that leads to focused attention about your products and services. Speed of dissemination is also key. This is also driven by the rate at which your learner consumes information from social media. Collaborative opportunities are a plus, along with the potential for global reach and an expanded sphere of influence. Data is easy to tag and built in analytics allow tracking of learner behavior patterns. Social learning allows for cross-divisional and cross-functional communication, alleviating our traditional communication and training silos. One of our favorite reasons is to REINFORCE learning concepts to help with retention! Are you ready to learn more about developing your social learning strategy? Contact Locus online today and let us help you analyze your current social learning strategy and determine the best blend of content and technology to reach your competitive advantage. Learn more about Social Learning and additional Technology Trends at the upcoming L-TEN Annual Conference in Phoenix. Share in the discussion with our Thought Leader Panel on Tuesday, June 2nd, as we explore the question, "How Do We Leverage Technology for Optimized and Evidence Based Learning?" Locus will also be exhibiting at the L-TEN Annual Conference and we look forward to seeing you in person at the show!

The Ultimate Learning Solution at The 44th L-TEN Annual Conference The appropriate blend of learning and technology can make the difference between learner apathy and engagement! Make the most of your conference experience by planning your expected outcomes. This will help you integrate new trends and additional strategies into your 2016 programs. Here are our conference priorities, focusing on the business strategies first and how training fits into the overall business in order to align blending learning and technology: View From Above: Strategy (Heads of Learning) - Take a step back and look at the bigger picture. Assess trends and define and evaluate your organization’s learning strategy, ensuring business alignment. Once alignment is reached in different aspects of the company, the company can create and move forward developing successful strategies for the future. Mobile and eLearning - Learn from case studies of technology roll-outs and talk about what’s next. The industry is changing and the more digitized world will allow companies to roll out new ways of learning. Global Learning - See how companies today and moving forward will address globalization of the classroom as well as self-directed and virtual classroom education. Businesses that can embrace the globalization of learning will be able to get ahead and thrive. Do you need help determining an optimal blend of learning and technology? Learn more about blending Learning and additional Technology Trends at the upcoming L-TEN Annual Conference in Phoenix. Share in the discussion with our Thought Leader Panel on Tuesday, June 2nd, as we explore the question, "How Do We Leverage Technology for Optimized and Evidence Based Learning?" Locus will also be exhibiting at the L-TEN Annual Conference booth #120 and look forward to seeing you in person at the show! If you are not attending the conference, contact Locus today and let us help you analyze your current strategy and determine the best blend of content and technology to optimize learner engagement. www.locusmedia.com, 760-757-8511.

  Join Enspire Learning’s Robert Bell and ConAgra’s Jennie Reid and Randy Esterling at the Training 2013 Conference & Expo, Feb 18-20 at Disney’s Coronado Springs Resort in Orlando! Robert and the ConAgra team will host a talk on "Designing Talent Management Training Simulations for Managers". Drawing from experience gained during Enspire/ConAgra engagements, the talk will offer tips, lessons learned, and best practices in talent management sim development. We hope to see you there!  

    Partnership for a Drug Free Texas generates advertising and media exposure to encourage Texas youths to make wise choices about alcohol and other drugs. Houndstooth designed and developed a series of educational videos in collaboration with Enspire writers and Sherry Matthews Advocacy Marketing. This series of four videos (three are up, with the fourth to follow next week) appear on the landing page of drugfreetexas.org. Each video unfolds as a narrative, and interleaves a dramatic storyline with facts and statistics about the drugs in question.

Enspire CEO Bjorn Billhardt was sworn in as a US Citizen yesterday afternoon. The Enspire team celebrated in true American style with apple pie, American beverages, and lots of red, white, and blue. Congratulations, Bjorn!

Hello, everyone. Like the proverbial bad penny, I’m back with another "Anatomy of a Game." Last time, I talked about indie breakout Minecraft. This time, I’m going to pivot 180 degrees and talk about multimillion dollar colossus Grand Theft Auto V, which released recently on Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. Unless you have been living in a cave (with wifi, hopefully), there’s a pretty good chance you’ve heard someone talking about this game, even if it’s just a politician wringing his hands because won’t someone think of the children? The game is big. It made over $1 billion the first weekend it was released, and will doubtless go on to earn zillions more. So what the heck is this game? Why does it get people so bent out of shape? What does it teach? Grand Theft Auto V (abbreviated, henceforth as "GTAV") is a member of (and its forbearers are, in many ways, the progenitors of) the genre often described as "free-roaming" or "open-world" games. Prior to Minecraft, games of this type were also sometimes called "sandbox games," but the genre has more structure than "sandbox" implies and that term is more accurately applied to games like Minecraft and Terraria. As one might assume, open-world games take place in - wait for it - an open world! Thanks for reading. Come back again soon! You’re still here? More? Ugh. You people and your demands! Fine. Where was I? Open world. Right. The player navigates an avatar through a predominantly urban landscape using the game controller. The avatar is visible, so the game has a "third-person" perspective (as opposed to the "first-person" perspective of games like Call of Duty, Halo or the venerable Doom, where the avatar’s eyes are the camera and the player looks directly through them out at the world). The avatar can pull out a weapon, hop in a vehicle, punch or shoot things and otherwise engage in various interactions with the world. Getting into a vehicle allows it to be driven (or piloted). The player is given a general introduction to the core mechanics at the beginning of the game, and then largely set free in the world, learning new mechanics as needed to handle the game’s various designed missions. The thing that was so revolutionary about the Grand Theft Auto games when they reached the tipping point into megahit status (with the arrival of GTAIII), was that they presented a 3D city to explore with no loading screens as you move through it and a seemingly endless array of options for the player - the spectrum of which has been added to with each new iteration. The player’s avatar is a guy (and has always been a guy up to this point in the history of the series, excepting GTA Online, which I’ll touch on later) who can steal and drive cars, fly planes, go into stores and buy things, and store "acquired" cars in his garage. In the newest iteration, he can also buy property, buy cars, buy clothes, stick up stores, change his hairstyle (and facial hair), play tennis, play golf, visit strip clubs, go out with friends, get drunk, drive drunk, pick up prostitutes, compete in street races, shoot random people, run away from police, shoot at police, stop random muggings he comes across on the street, browse the internet (not the REAL Internet - the IN-GAME Internet) on his phone, walk his dog, and many other things. Many of these activities are illegal because, oh, by the way, the player is playing a criminal. Three criminals, actually, since GTAV has, for the first time in the series, three protagonists the player can freely switch between. The story is less of an ensemble piece in the style of crime films like "Heat" or "The Usual Suspects" (although it draws heavy influence from that oeuvre) and more like three intercut and interconnected stories. It is layered with absurdist satire of American culture which is another staple of the series. The experience I’ve described thus far is the single player game: a crime narrative interwoven with an open world designed to be experienced by a player on his own. GTAV has an additional, entirely separate mode called GTA Online, which is what it sounds like. It uses the GTAV map (an ersatz Los Angeles called "Los Santos") and turns it into a world populated by numerous players. Storytelling is reduced - missions have to be simpler and repeatable - and there is an emphasis on missions that encourage direct competition between players, either racing, shooting at each other or both. Still, there are plenty of opportunities to cooperate, including the unreleased-as-of-this-writing feature of planning and executing multiplayer bank heists. In some ways, the online world feels less rich, as some of the single-player activities are not available, but the dynamism that other (very) unpredictable players provide definitely helps to fill that gap. Also, GTA Online marks the first time in one of the major GTA releases that players can customize their character, including gender, rather than playing as a protagonist (or protagonists) predefined by the designers. That freedom to express more individuality within the confines of the world is something that has been missing from a series that in many other ways set the bar for player freedom. When people talk about open-world games, what they are really talking about is a fully realized simulation (as opposed to the build-your-own-fun of a sandbox game). The activities described above, although often incorporated into the designed missions, exist all the time, and when the player isn’t actively opted-in to a mission, the city and the game keeps going, creating a playground for the player to explore as he or she chooses. Within the simulation, the player does things and the simulation reacts. The experience of being in such a complete feeling virtual place is incredibly compelling. There is the illusion the game creates that you can do ANYTHING - that there are no boundaries, literal or otherwise. Ironically this is both what gamers adore about the game AND what non-gamers freak out about. So maybe this is a good place to talk about what this all looks like from a learning perspective. I guess I’ll start by stating a few (hopefully) obvious points, one being that GTA is not intended for children, and a second being that it isn’t going to turn not-already-deranged people into axe murders, school shooters, or anything else. All that being said, if I believe all games teach (and I do), then what does GTAV teach? I think it shares a lot in common with other games of its type, in terms of teaching fine motor manipulations and the sorts of pattern recognition that many combat-heavy videogames teach. But beyond that, I think GTA represents the sort of safe space that games so often are. It is game-as-laboratory, a place where players can do whatever they want and see the outcomes of those actions in an environment free of real world consequences. It’s also an example of transgressive play - using a game to create a safe space for engaging in behavior that would not be acceptable in the real world. It’s important to recognize GTAV as fantasy, despite the veneer of realism it creates - it’s a weird, messed-up world full of weird, messed-up characters, and fantasies sometimes portray dark things that are fun within the fantasy even though they would be horrible in real life. So as someone interested in the learning applications of GTAV, what do you do? Well, first, raise about $200 million to make a GTA-quality, open world game… Oh. Sorry. No. You absolutely DON’T have to do that. I DO think (politics aside) that teachers should look at GTA and try to understand it, since their students are playing it. It’s a worthwhile topic of class discussion, in the same way that talking about Hamlet or Othello or MacBeth murdering people is entirely appropriate to the classroom. Why do players do what they do in the game? What is their perception of their actions? Do players have personal lines they won’t cross when playing? From the standpoint of professional training, I think it’s valuable to look at how a transgressive element can be added to training to make it more fun, funnier, and more thought provoking. Can the learner be a disruptive element? What happens if he or she deliberately says all the wrong things to an important client? What happens if he or she ignores all the safety regulations in a compliance training game? Letting learners experiment safely and without real world consequence can give them the chance to explore a topic in a deeper and more complete way, and can make the experience more fun and more memorable. Have you played GTAV or GTA Online? What do you think about the game? Have you tried incorporating GTAV or other console games into classroom discussions? Feel free to provide your thoughts in the comments! You can also look me up on Xbox Live as MrSunshine. Feel free to send me a friend request, but be sure to mention that you read this blog so I know to add you! The post Anatomy of a Game: Grand Theft Auto V appeared first on Enspire.

1) This Adobe publication outlines the current state of mobile. The most surprising bit: "In just three years, tablets have overtaken smartphones in the amount of traffic they drive." More people are using tablets than smartphones to browse the web, watch videos, read magazines, and read books. This aligns nicely with best practices related to mobile learning — tablets should be targeted for more formal experiences and smartphones for more transactional experiences. 2) The Art of Data Visualization is a short video that provides an overview of… well… the art of data visualization. The video’s interviews with Tufte and others are interesting, but the data viz examples are the highlights of the video. In particular, the Genealogy of Pop/Rock Music is an infographic I hadn’t seen. If you’re searching for a Christmas gift for me, look no further. The post Two for Tuesday: Mobile Benchmark and Data Visualization appeared first on Enspire.

Welcome to our foray into podcasting! Every game teaches something — beginning with this premise, The Ministry of Games podcast goes on to explore the intersection of play and learning. Game designer Matt Rhoades and instructional designer Robert Bell take a close look at traditional edugaming, AAA console games, indie titles, board games, and beyond to discuss how games can positively impact learning experiences. In this premiere episode, Robert and Matt introduce themselves and have a free-ranging conversation about games and the premise of the show. Click here to subscribe to the podcast! The post Ministry of Games #1: Welcome to the Ministry appeared first on Enspire.

2013 seemed beset by news stories of the many problems in our education system. For 2014, I want to focus my work activities as an instructional designer into creating more problems for education. I want to create interesting problems. And, I want these interesting problems to form the basis of inquiry in project-based learning experiences that require design thinking skills and the access/adoption of need-to-know information and appropriate tools. Again, those essential elements are: Learning structured as project-based work addressing interesting problems Design thinking skills as core competencies Acclimation to knowledge and tools need to do the work Whether designing curriculum and instruction for K-12, higher ed, or corporate/organizational training, these are essential elements to creating transformative and transferable learning experiences. Here’s why: 1. Project-based learning targets a specific goal and objectives, and often occurs in short, recurring (iterative) time spans. In other words, the learning experience is set up to be purposeful and concentrated. This is how most of us structure our work activities too. Rather than receiving instruction through lecture or assigned readings or other traditional "education" methods, project-based learning requires an active exploration and assessment of the knowledge and skills necessary to completing the project. Learning is applied directly to tangible goals, and therefore is more relevant, memorable, and transferable. 2. Design thinking promotes creative and integrative approaches to problem-solving. Design, as a discipline itself, requires consideration of both usefulness and appeal in solutions. Important subsets of design skills are communication — encompassing interpersonal and team interactions — and resource management, which includes time and other constraining variables. Design thinking skills are the mother of all transferable skill sets. 3. We want learners to become adept at accessing and using the resources they need to inform critical thinking and decision-making at work or in their study. I’ve written before about the importance of "distributed cognition" which proposes that knowledge is not confined to an individual, but rather it is distributed throughout an environment. We use external sources including other people, materials, and other tools and supports within the environment to help us solve problems. This applies to any task in any setting: I need to do this, so I need to know this and I need to use this. There’s a wonderful dynamism between project-based work, design thinking skills, and the ability to assimilate resources that supports — indeed transcends — the subject domain or task area. It begins by creating interesting problems: challenging, worthwhile, intriguing, surprising, complex problems that act as significant catalysts into the content and skills to be learned. The post My 2014 Resolution: Create More Problems for Education appeared first on Enspire.

Matt Rhoades and Robert Bell delve into the history of the two big "edugaming" titles from 1985, The Oregon Trail and Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?. The guys discuss these educational games to examine what they can teach us today, both as games designers and as instructors. Are our memories of these computer lab classics clouded by nostalgia? Or do these games actually hold up as entertaining and instructive experiences? Show Notes: Super Amazing Wagon Adventure Very funny spoof of The Oregon Trail that calls out the frustration of reported events arbitrarily happening to you along the trail. Indie game available on Steam. Papers, Please Unlike Oregon Trail, this game does a great job of making the player feel emotionally tied to their family characters through text alone. Billed as a "dystopian document thriller", Papers, Please had been highly rated and regarded since its release last August. Indie game available on Steam. Click here to subscribe to the podcast! The post Ministry of Games #2: The Oregon Trail and Carmen Sandiego appeared first on Enspire.

There are few expressions that irk me more than "It’s only a game." Ironically, the phrase is tossed around by both detractors of games and apologists, and it’s equally misplaced by both groups. You’ve almost certainly heard it used in at least one context: someone is getting mad during play and one of the other players tries to soothe that anger by reminding everyone that "it’s only a game." The phrase gets bandied about when the highly contentious topic arises as to whether games are capital-A "Art" or not. Often passionate gamers will reply (presumably with eyes rolling in contempt) that "they’re only games," because, as we all know, Art is Not Fun. Film critics will sometimes refer to a movie as "like a video game," and they never mean it in a complementary way (they are not, for example, lauding how immersive and engaging the film is). Instead, they’re almost certainly referring to how shallow and meaningless it feels. In each of these cases, it seems to me that games are being taken for granted. Maybe that’s natural - after all, for many of us, our earliest childhood memories probably involve playing games. We DO take them for granted. And for some of us, the transition to the serious business of adulthood (sadly) has involved setting games aside. After all, capital-A Adulthood (like Art) is Not Fun, apparently. But games deserve better than to be denigrated with a word like "only." Let’s take a moment to look at what people are actually saying when they say "it’s only a game," and let’s give the humble game its due! Let’s start by looking at the situation with the angry player. He’s losing, or has already lost. His competitive nature is getting the better of him and now he’s upset. "It’s only a game," someone says. But what that well-meaning person is really saying is that games are a safe place where you can make mistakes and fail without consequence in the real world. Far from being something trivial, this is one of the most magical and wonderful things about games! It’s OK to fail and learn from that failure because we’ve all agreed that what happens within the game has no bearing outside the game. It’s OK. It’s a game. Games, by their nature, impose artifice on the real world - a set of rules that is arbitrary, but consensual among those playing. To be bound by those rules is, at the same time, to be liberated from the rules of everyday life. That’s magical - like the sense of being transported that comes from reading a book or watching a film, but with the added sense of participation that only engaging directly in an activity can provide. Since we’ve returned to the subject of films, let’s revisit our film critics. I think many of these critics haven’t played many (if any) video games, and that bothers me, but let’s give our hypothetical critics the benefit of the doubt. When they draw comparison between a game and a film, they are almost always describing a film that is kinetic, violent (or at least dense with action), limited in terms of plot, and probably laden with special effects and computer animation. To be fair, that description probably applies to a large percentage of video games available today. And yet, games like that can still be richly engaging and almost hypnotically immersive in a way the film being described almost certainly is not. Maybe our critics are really saying, "I wish I was playing instead of watching this." Because the missing element is interactivity. Games by their nature demand to be picked up, played with, experimented with. When that element is missing, the magic can vanish. This is the eternal bane of game marketing people: many games aren’t much fun to watch. To an outside observer, without the element of interaction, the game becomes confusing, boring, or both. This is also why you’ll often hear people struggle when trying to describe the experience of playing a game, sometimes falling back on "you just have to play it." It IS experiential, and for the observer, the experience is incomplete. This brings us finally to our game aficionados discussing whether games are Art or not. If you aren’t living and breathing the world of games on a daily basis, it might shock you how often this topic emerges and how heated the discussions can become. Many who claim to be the most dedicated and most invested in games are the most passionate that games are NOT art, while many others who have aspirations for the medium beyond Call of Duty 12 are equally passionate that they ARE. I’m going to sidestep the question (take THAT, internet!) in order to focus on why it is that this discussion is so intense. Games are personal. I talked earlier about how early in our lives our first experiences with games occur. Games have been with us as a species for almost as long as we have BEEN a species, and playing games is woven into our DNA on some level. Add to this "genetic proclivity to play" the fact that the player’s experience with a game is shaped by his or her interaction with the game - the player provides the input, and that makes his or her experience with the game in some ways unique, even if modally those interactions with the game are limited - as well as the fact that the player is immersed within the game, and the result is an experience that is intimate and personalized. So when people passionately argue that "they’re only games" in this context, they are really arguing that "they’re my games." Maybe that personal experience doesn’t bear out the thesis that games are Art, or maybe the ardent defender of games feels that external forces are trying to change or redefine what that profoundly personal game experience is and has been for the player. In any case, that personal connection to games is powerful. So, games are experientially safe, immersive and interactive, and intensely personal even when they are shared communal experiences. They are powerful vehicles for transporting us as players. They stir passions. Not bad, considering they’re "only" games. The post It’s Only a Game appeared first on Enspire.

Matt and Robert start their ongoing discussion of genre in this episode. As shorthand for "design choices", the guys examine how genre allows us to group games by the characteristics they share. They also dive into the first genre of this series: action games. What lessons can designers take from the features of action favorites like Space Invaders and Street Fighter? This episode is a companion piece to "The Lexicon of Games" conference session Matt and Robert delivered at ASTD TechKnowledge 2014 and Training 2014 Conference, so if you missed them in Las Vegas and San Diego, here’s your chance to get a taste of their talk! Show Notes: Divekick Matt recommends this as an exemplar of the action genre; "Divekick is a fighting game, but it is played with only two buttons (not even a joystick) - it’s really stripped down and funny, but it still preserves the essence of fighting games." Indie game available on Steam. Click here to subscribe to the podcast! The post Ministry of Games #3: Let’s Talk Genre appeared first on Enspire.

1) Here’s a feature that all learners skip, all designers dislike, and all project stakeholders insist on: the nav tour. We spend 30-60 seconds saying, "Here’s the help button… here’s the resources button… here’s the menu… etc." First, let’s stop doing that. Second, think about how they do this in games and mobile apps — they provide in-app tutorials. When you first launch an app, you don’t get a prolonged tour of the interface — you start using the app. Then, the first time that the user might need to click a certain button, the app says, "Hey, it’s your first time doing this, so Imma help you out. Click this button." That’s what we ought to do more often. 2) I won’t overburden your working memory by going on and on about this chunking post from Connie Malamed. Just know that it’s helpful information. The post Two for Tuesday: Nav Tours and Chunking appeared first on Enspire.

Matt and Robert discuss systems, the essence of why games make sense as a learning tool. The guys will speak to assigning values to reward behaviors, emergent gameplay, and Michael Jackson’s Moonwalker arcade game. Matt also demonstrates the importance of testing your games as he reminisces about his fatally flawed homemade Miami Vice role playing game. Show Notes: "A Theory of Fun for Game Design" by Raph Koster Robert brought up theories found in this book, which "…teach[es] interactive designers how to create and improve their designs to incorporate the highest degree of fun." Robotron: 2084 The classic two-joystick arcade game, which is incredibly difficult and designed to eat your quarters. The system in this game allows players to choose whether or not they want to save the family that is under attack. Since saving the family is not required to finish the level, but has an extra point value incentive, the behavior of helping people is encouraged but the game gives players enough space to choose that behavior for themselves. Click here to subscribe to the podcast! The post Ministry of Games #4: Games as Systems appeared first on Enspire.

1) Many of you are probably familiar with the Oatmeal, where Matthew Inman regularly posts hilarious and insightful comics on a variety of topics. This story about running really caught my attention, though. It’s funny, memorable, and a pleasure to read. Why isn’t more online learning like this? What’s wrong with simply telling a story in an engaging way? Here’s my pitch to you: ask your learners for actual stories about the next learning need you’re trying to tackle, then create a comic around that story. 2) This one’s for the geeks… We’ve all heard about the importance of white space in graphic design. How about the importance of white space in our code? I’ve certainly worked in plenty of XML files that were created with no white space, indenting, or nesting — it ain’t fun. The post Two for Tuesday: The Oatmeal and Readable Code appeared first on Enspire.

1) I’ll be honest. I’m mostly curious to see if a link to an "Elearning Bullshit Quiz" will make it through our marketing department and onto our public website. If you’re reading this, I’ve won! 2) It really is amazing how putting notes, ideas, drawings, and tasks on a wall can get a project moving. Just this week, we had a design workshop that didn’t really gel until we started moving sticky notes around a whiteboard. Once we all had something to touch and move on the wall, we really started cooking. The post Two for Tuesday: B.S. and Working Workshop Walls appeared first on Enspire.