The Incredible Adventures of the Food Detective is a fun learning game. The game emphasizes on the importance of healthy eating habits for youngster. In this game, you play the role of a junior detective. Your objective is to investigate unhealthy habits in young boys and girls and suggest healthy food to each of them. You need to simply click on the mouse button to play this game. There is nothing challenging about the game. This is a guided game, where you are told at every instant what you need to do. Yet you never get bored because you know the objective of the game is to convey an important message and not to challenge you. When you start with the game, you get to choose the girl or boy whose case you would like to investigate. For example I chose to investigate the case of a girl called Althea, who skips breakfast. All that I had to do is click on the clock to  indicate to Althea that it is breakfast time and click on a healthy food like cereals or banana for her to eat. When I succeed in making Althea eat a healthy breakfast, the case gets closed. You get similar other cases to solve in this game. Each case is unique. The problem is specified at the outset and you need to find a solution which is not difficult at all. You also get mini games to play at the close of each case. These games are fun to play and do not necessarily facilitate any kind of real learning. The message "Eat Healthy" is quite predominant in the game. What I liked about the game I liked the use of the anchor or agent (amazing food detective) in the game. She engages and involves you in the activities. You cannot ignore her or get bored with her I liked the graphics, choice of colour, the voice over and the sound quality I appreciate the way fun activities have been designed to convey an important message I like the use of labels that give you some quick fact or the nutrition value when you hover over each food item The  Surprise Element in the Game It was a surprise for me, when I got the following message after I kept the game window open, without interacting with it for a long time. I could not play the game for 60 minutes after that. This is really funny,  though not so user friendly. In short, the game is well designed and worth a play Play the game now and leave your thoughts in the comments section.

IEEE Games Innovation Conference (IGIC) 2013, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, September 23-25, 201.  Conference Theme: New Horizons & New Audience (Single & Social, Console & Mobile). Scope: Social: Multi-player Games Single Players Mobile & Console Cloud & Networks Beyond Entertainment: Games in Education, Health, & at Work Design, Development &Production Interfaces User Experience Call for papers: not available yet.

My post on how to increase call out lengths in Camtasia helped Tina Williams solve her problem. This feedback on my post prompted me to write this post with yet another useful tip When I was working on my tutorial videos using Camtasia, I noticed that after I produced the video in a shareable format such as avi, the video did not have a smooth transition from one slide to another. There was a slight jerk or a random zoom effect. When I previewed the project before producing it in avi format, the transition was smooth. The problem occurred only after I produced the video in avi format. I struggled to fix this problem on my own. I could not solve this problem. Then, when I asked my colleauge, he said using transitions is the only way to achieve smooth visual affects in videos created using Camtasia. I used transitions and it did work very well. So here are some quick steps to include transitions in your camtasia project: 1. Open your project in Camtasia Studio. 2. In the left hand side, in the Task List, click on Transitions. 3.  You should see the Transitions pane with the list of effects that you can use for slide transition. 4. You should also see the storyboard with all the slides as follows: 5. Click on an effect in the Transitions pane, drag and drop it in between the slides, particularly into the slot that has a blue arrow. Side Left is a good effect to use for slide transition. I have dragged and dropped it between the slides as shown below: 6. When you right click on the slot that has the transition, you should see options to set the speed of transition. 1 Second Transition is a good option to choose. 7. Save the changes. Now when you produce your project in avi format or any other shareable format, the transition from one slide to another will be smooth. If you found this post useful, please leave your comment

Call for Papers for the peer-reviewed track of the third European Conference on Games for Health Europe, 28-29 October 2013 Amsterdam, The Netherlands.    Deadline: May 24th, 2013. Founded in 2004, the Games for Health Project supports community, knowledge and business development efforts to use cutting-edge games and game technologies to improve health and health care. Themes and topics:The conference encourages papers from multi disciplines, especially from game & play as well as from health practitioners and researchers. This call for papers is intended to solicit contributions from an international audience on recent developments and experiments that: Present innovative and state-of-the-art design and applications that use playful concepts in health care settings, Describe game-based and playful solutions to behavior change and pervasive healthcare problems, Share experiences, insights, best-practices and lessons-learned, Report the results of technical and social evaluations with regards to playful interaction and serious game design related to health care, Report scientific insights on development and efficacy of gameplay in professional an patient education, Report results of longitudinal studies, Discuss and highlight the key challenges and future developments within the domain.

A adesão recente ao GamFed - International Gamification Confederation resultou num pedido para colaborar na análise de um "case study" de uma aplicação de gamification - uma campanha de marketing gamificada da Sephora. A aplicação - Disco Flipper - não é mais do que um jogo de flippers (pinball) em versão digital. A ideia é que as clientes da marca ficarão mais envolvidas com esta se jogarem este jogo que também serve como veiculo de promoção de produtos. Esta experiência dificilmente pode ser considerada uma aplicação de gamification. Não se estão a usar elementos de jogos mas sim um jogo (que nem sequer é um jogo original). A jogadora em função dos pontos que obtém pode participar num concurso onde são atribuídos produtos da Sephora. Cada uma pode convidar outras jogadoras e partilhar as suas pontuações nas redes sociais (Twitter e Facebook). Esta componente social será talvez o aspecto mais interessante desta iniciativa que no global deixa muito a desejar no que diz respeito ao que se entende por gamification. O próprio jogo é pouco adequado a público feminino e o facto de apelar à competição entre as utilizadoras também parece ser pouco apropriado. Apelar à competição faz mais sentido com um público masculino. O resultado das várias contribuições recebidas sobre este caso de estudo será publicado pela GamFed num white paper a divulgar a 11 de fevereiro. Vamos aguardar. Os objectivos concretos da GamFed não são totalmente claros mas vamos também aguardar para ver. Será interessante se surgirem casos de estudo na área da educação.

FarmVille is a highly addictive multiplayer strategy game that you will find in Facebook. The objective of the game is to build and manage your own farming business. You can easily play this game using simple mouse clicks. The game proceeds in levels. Your success is measured as you move up the different levels, you make more money and expand your farming business. Here is a snapshot of my farm in FarmVille. I am a level 8 farmer Let me now give a brief overview of the activities you do in this game. Low Level Activities Creating your persona Before you get started with the game, you create your own persona using the persona builder. Your persona executes all the activities for you in your virtual farm. Ploughing the land Ploughing costs money. So you plough portions of your land depending on how much money you have. Buying After you plough, the next step is to buy some seeds to sow. In Farmville, you have a market, where you can buy all the stuff to run your farming business. Here again, you buy seeds depending on the amount of money you have. Sowing/Planting/Rearing After sowing, you need to keep checking for the harvest.When you buy seeds, check for harvest time. If you leave it overtime, the crops wither away. You can plant trees. You can buy animals and rear them. Harvesting and Selling Once the crops are ready for harvesting, you sell them and make money.You can also sell cow’s milk and goat’s milk. You can sell sheep’s wool. S0 everything in your farm can fetch you money. Adding Neighbors When you add neighbors, it is an advantage to your farming business. You can visit your neighbors farms. You can make money by helping neighbors clean their farm. You can send your neighbors gifts and they send you gift in return. High Level Activities Watching business profit/loss As you keep repeating the low level activities to run your farming business, it is very important you watch the cash inflow.  You need to keep track of how much money is coming in and how much you are spending. You must make sure nothing gets wasted. Strategising As you move up levels and you expand your farm, you need to strategise and plan how to make the best use of available resources to sustain and grow further. Investing money You invest money in seeds, plants, animals, vehicles, homes etc. Wherever you are investing, you need to keep the overall business in mind and see how this can fetch you more money. You need to spend money judiciously. Noteworthy Aspects of the Game Simple Usable Interface The game has such an usable interface that you do not need to read the help instructions to play the game.  Everything is neatly places and is easily accessible. The top bar has options to send gifts to neighbors, invite friends to FarmVille etc. The main bar clearly indicates progress, business profits. The tool bar has tools to execute activities in the farm. The market is the place where you buy things. There is a bar at the bottom of the screen where you can add neighbours. Easy Game Controls You just have to click on things using the mouse. You get all the options that you require. There is no chance that you will get confused on how to proceed in the game. Use of Indicators In the farm, when you mouse over you should see some figures in percentage indicating how much time is left for harvest. This way you are informed of the progress and you know when you can expect a harvest. Similarily if is a cow is ready to be milked, that cow gets highlighted. For example in the image below, there are 3 cows and one is highlighted. This is really a good idea to use such visual effects to indicate progress or completion of a process. Theory of constructivitism in learning applied This game does not tell you how you should make money out of your farming business. It gives you all the tools you need to do your business. You learn how to do business by experimenting, through trial and error. You learn to do business yourself. You do your business in your own style. You look at what your friends are doing and learn lessons. This is what constructivitism is all about. Example of Immersive Learning This game has this virtual farm setup where you try you hand in farming. The experience is interactive and engaging.You get an idea as to what it means to do business in the whole process of playing the game. A good exercise for  spurring creativity and individualism This game gives you lot of scope to use your creative skills. Your creativity come to play especially when you are arranging things in your farm. So each farm looks unique. You make decisions individually and you do things individually. There are no rules as to how you need to arrange your farm or what decision you need to take. The choice is all yours. This is where you learn a lot through experimenting. Key messages - growth and sustenance I am not sure if the game actually ends. You play FarmVille continously. So the objective is not to complete the game but to start a farming business, expand it and sustain it. You choose when you want to stop. If you are already playing FarmVille, please let me know your views about this game. If you have not played the game before, play it now

Vídeo da sessão realizada no MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) em 21 de setembro de 2012. O vídeo tem 2h40m40s mas vale a pena ver a apresentação (começa aos 5m e termina nos 20m45s) feita for Anant Agarwal, presidente da edX (uma plataforma que disponibiliza cursos on-line, baseada nos cursos oferecidos pelo MIT e outras universidades).  Nesta apresentação que se intitula "Gamifying Learning", destacam-se as ideias seguintes: "... in my view, the future of learning is games" "Great lectures were theater, but the future is in games" "Interactive exercises with instant feedback" "Instant feedback is a game changer" "Point systems, badges and gaming are critical in bringing this gaming thing into learning" O objectivo de gamificar o ensino tem como propósito envolver e motivar os alunos, tendo em conta as diferenças da atual geração de alunos relativamente às gerações anteriores.

In India, there are very few training institutes or universities that offer certification courses in Instructional Design. When you look  at the courses that these training institutes offer, all these courses follow the classical approach to teaching  Instructional Design. In a classical approach, you start with the basic concepts, theories and then move on to application. So the classical approach to teaching Instructional Design to a fresher would start with the question "What is Instructional Design?" , then move on to Instructional Design theories and models, Instructional Design tools and the Instructional Design activities would be taught after the learners have got a grip of the theories, concepts, tools and so on. At the end of the training program, the learner will have to do a storyboard for which he/she will be evaluated and given a certificate. So typically the course duration for such beginner level course would be three months. Now this is one approach to teaching Instructional Design. What about the Hello World approach to teaching Instructional Design? Have you heard of a Hello World program? If you have not, let me quickly tell you what a Hello World program is. When you want to learn Java programming or any programming language for that matter, you first write a simple program that will print Hello World. People who have no prior experience in programming are asked to write a Hello World program, so that they quickly understand the principles of a specific programming language. People write a short code to print Hello World and run it to see how it works. They also trying making small changes to the code and then they run the program to see how the changes get reflected. So when I say Hello World approach to teaching Instructional Designing, I mean a quick workshop or a tutorial , that will help freshers create a complete e-learning course on a very simple topic. When I say "complete" I do not mean just the storyboard, but the digitized e-learning course, may be using some rapid e-learning tool. When the fresher actually completes creating this simple e-learning course, he/she would have gathered a lot even without getting into the Instructional Design theories, concepts and models. After this, the fresher gets to learn more on Instructional Design and undersands better because he/she has already tried a hand in creating a complete e-learning course. Instead of overloading a fresher with lot of information at one go, mentoring and coaching the fresher to gain hands on experience might work well. All freshers who start with Instructional Designing typically work on linear e-learning courses and most often only do storyboarding.  So is it not important to teach the most important skills that will make a fresher productive at workplace? Instructional Design is like programming. You gain mastery and expertise over a period of time. You internalize  Instructional Design concepts over years. So what is the point overloading them with lot of information at one go? What do you think? Considering the young generation joining the workforce and that they are likely to be impatient to get hands on, will not a Hello World approach to teaching Instructional Design work?  Instead of a three month beginner level course, will not short end to end beginner level workshops with lot of mentoring and coaching work? If you want to hire a fresher, what would you look for? A certificate that the fresher can do Instructional Design or the fresher can exhibit hands on experience in Instructional Design or not? If you are from a different country, I would love to know how you teach Instructional Design to freshers? What is the approach you follow? Please leave your thoughts in the comments section.

No seguimento deste post, Disco Flipper: A Case Study in GamFed, foi publicado, com data de 21 de fevereiro de 2013, o white paper deste caso. Este documento destaca que as mecânicas presentes neste caso são "product recognition, retention, fun, brand awareness". A principal conclusão sobre este caso de estudo foi "Gamifiers should look to leverage social reward mechanics, when permitted by the social platform, in gamified experiences". O documento não menciona que o jogo pode não estar adaptado ao público-alvo da campanha assim como o facto de apelar à competição entre os utilizadores também não ser um elemento especialmente motivador para esse público-alvo. O caso envolve ainda uma questão mais de fundo que é de quando considerar uma aplicação com estas características como um jogo sério ou como uma aplicação gamificada. A distinção nem sempre é fácil. Aguardam-se por novos pedidos de participação em casos futuros propostos pela GamFed.

Hello All, I started the Game of the Week series in March 2009 and have managed to post quite a few games and my reviews every friday in this blog for the past 7 months.You can find all the games posted so far here. Here are the top 10 games that you accessed and played through this blog: Super Stacker 2 Edheads Design a Cell Phone Pizza Hot Bloxorz Get The Glass FarmVille Post It Draw It The Scruffs Show Jumping Pavlov’s Dog I want to specially mention this game called Velma Vision that caught a lot of attention. Thank you all for playing the games that I post and also reading my game reviews. To take this forward, I need your help. I would  like to invite  you to help me find some really good games that are freely available on the web. If you find an interesting game and would like to feature that game in this blog, please send me the game url @ ruparajgo19@gmail.com. I will post the games in this blog with  full credit given to you. Please note that the Game of the Week series now changes to Game of the Month series. Starting October 2009, you should find a game on the last day, every month. Hope you continue to enjoy the games that I post. Cheers, Rupa

Uma contribuição para o blogue de Gamifeye: Four Approaches to Collecting Data in Gamified Systems, publicada em 18 de fevereiro. Tradução adaptada: A análise de grandes volumes de dados (big data analytics) pode desempenhar um papel importante em sistemas gamificados. Assim, a existência de algum mecanismo de análise é essencial nestes sistemas. Um sistema gamificado pode ser visto como qualquer sistema de software que utilize elementos de design de jogo para envolver os utilizadores e mudar os seus comportamentos, a fim de melhor atingir os objetivos do sistema (ver este outro post). A forma como os utilizadores obtêm feedback sobre as atividades que realizam é crucial. Ao acompanhar algumas variáveis ​​relacionadas com as ações dos utilizadores, um sistema gamificado pode encontrar padrões, tendências e correlações e ser capaz de fornecer um feedback preciso e imediato. O sistema gamificado pode ser um simples site ou uma aplicação web. Pode ser executado num servidor e ser acedido por um computador com um navegador web ou pode ser uma app em execução num smartphone, armazenando dados na nuvem. Também pode ser uma combinação de ambos ou mesmo recorrer a dispositivos ou gadgets específicos. Os utilizadores de sistemas gamificados, aos quais se pode chamar 'jogadores', podem ter um papel ativo ou passivo na sua relação com os elementos de jogos do sistema. Para alimentar o motor de análise, o sistema também deve incluir algum tipo de gestor de atividades, um componente capaz de monitorar e ler os dados gerados pelas atividades dos utilizadores. Um sistema gamificado, dependendo do seu tipo, objetivos e arquitetura, pode usar uma ou mais das seguintes quatro abordagens para monitorar e recolher os dados para o gestor de atividades: I - Automaticamente, pelo próprio sistema: esta abordagem representa o que provavelmente a aplicação mais habitual de gamification. As ações dos jogadores num site ou aplicação web são monitoradas e recompensadas com pontos e badges. Os jogadores podem partilhar suas conquistas em redes sociais e comparar o seu desempenho com os outros consultado tabelas de liderança. O objetivo é aumentar o tráfego no site o número de páginas vistas, a duração das visitas e aumentar a fidelidade dos jogadores. É uma abordagem de marketing, onde as métricas usadas jogos sociais como o número de utilizadores ativos por mês (MAU - Monthly Active Users) e o número de utilizadores ativos por dia (DAU - Daily Active Users) assim como o nível de viralidade (referências feitas por amigos), são aplicadas ​​para medir o desempenho. Os maiores players do mercado da gamification, empresas como Badgeville, Bigdoor, Bunchball ou Gygia e outros empresas de menor dimensão como tierX, PunchTab ou Uplaude fornecem as ferramentas para dotar sites, blogs e aplicações web com estes elementos de jogos. Estas ferramentas podem ser simples add-ons ou plug-ins para monitorar e recompensar as atividades dos jogadores. Os jogadores têm um papel passivo neste tipo de sistemas, uma vez que não podem controlar o que é monitorado e apenas deixam que o sistema observe as suas ações. Os elementos de jogo aplicados são do tipo PBL (Points, Badges & Leaderboards), um tipo de elementos de jogos referido por Kevin Werbach no seu livro, , For the Win: How Game Thinking Can Revolutionize Your Business.. As atividades dos jogadores têm lugar num ambiente virtual e o contexto não lúdico onde a gamification é aplicada é a  própria aplicação web ou site. II - Usando um dispositivo externo: neste tipo de sistemas gamificados, um smartphone ou outro dispositivo específico ou gadget é utilizado para acompanhar o que o jogador faz num dado contexto de atividade. O dispositivo é sincronizado com um site para fazer o upload dos dados recolhidos e o jogador é recompensado com os habituais pontos ou badges, é comparado com outros jogadores e as suas conquistas podem ser partilhadas com amigos. O melhor exemplo e mais citado deste tipo de sistemas é o Nike +. Ao usar um smartphone, um relógio específico, um iPod ou outro dispositivo da Nike, os jogadores podem controlar atividades desportivas como  a corrida. Exemplos semelhantes, usando os seus próprios dispositivos, são o Fitbit e o Zamzee, este último dirigido a um público alvo mais jovem. Outro exemplo interessante e divertido é o HAPPIfork, um garfo eletrónico que monitora hábitos alimentares. Os jogadores têm um papel ativo no processo, uma vez que podem controlar se usam o sistema ou não, o que é monitorado, o que é partilhado ou quais as conquistas a realizar. Ao fazer isso, conseguem uma sensação de autonomia. O contexto não lúdico é um contexto no mundo real. Feedback e um sentimento de diversão são algumas das principais características deste tipo de sistemas, assim como com a sensação de pertença a um grupo e a competição saudável com os outros jogadores. A maioria desses sistemas tem como objetivo a mudança de comportamento e promove a adoção de um estilo de vida saudável. III - Contando com os próprios jogadores: neste terceiro tipo de sistemas gamificados, os jogadores têm o controle total sobre os dados recolhidos. Os dados são registados exclusivamente por iniciativa dos jogadores usando uma app num smartphone ou um website. Os jogadores têm um papel  ativo. O exemplo mais conhecido é o Foursquare. Os jogadores são responsáveis ​​por fgazer check-in numdeterminado local, partilhando com outros jogadores. A motivação dos jogadores é a melhoria do seu status social e a competição com os outros jogadores. Outros sistemas deste tipo visam o auto-aperfeiçoamento dos jogadores como por exemplo as aplicações para o iPhone, Lift.do, para acompanhar os objetivos pessoais, e Win Epic, para monitorar tarefas e lembretes num cenário de RPG. Para aumentar nos jogadores a sensação de existência de um propósito para além da componente lúdica e deixá-los sentir que estão a fazer uma diferença por algum motivo (e também como forma de os manter a bordo), há sistemas como o Recycle Bank, com o objetivo de melhorar os comportamentos dos jogadores como a reciclagem do lixo doméstico ou usando a energia de forma mais eficiente. Outros exemplos são o Pratically Green e Opower, este com o seu próprio motor de big data. Para que estes sistemas funcionem, os jogadores têm de ter um elevado nível de motivação inicial. O sistema não vai funcionar se o jogador não é um jogador ativo. Este tipo de sistemas é muito semelhante ao tipo anterior em que o dispositivo que monitora as atividades é substituído pelo próprio jogador. Os jogadores fazem mais do que simplesmente ligar e desligar o dispositivo já que têm o poder de escolher o que registar e quando registrar. Também aqui o contexto não lúdico pertence ao mundo real. IV - Contando com utilizadores que não são necessariamente jogadores: nesta quarta abordagem, as atividades dos jogadores são monitorados por um utilizador responsável por inserir os dados recolhidos. Este utilizador também pode ser um jogador com privilégios especiais. Alguns exemplos deste tipo de sistemas podem ser encontrados no contexto da educação, onde esses "utilizadores especiais" são os professores ou os pais dos alunos. Os estudantes são os jogadores e são jogadores passivos porque não podem agir sobre o que está sendo monitorado. Apenas podem jogar com as regras definidas por seus professores ou pelos seus pais. Um exemplo é o ClassDojo, um sistema em que os professores (utilizadores que não são jogadores) podem premiar os seus alunos com pontos positivos, recompensando os comportamentos desejados, e pontos negativos, punindo aqueles que são indesejados. Outro exemplo, Chore Wars é uma plataforma ao estilo RPG para acompanhar a quantidade de tarfeas domésticas feitas pelos jogadores.  Está a meio caminho entre este grupo de sistemas e o anterior. Os jogadores podem fazer login e reivindicar a realização de uma tarefa predefinida que fizeram,  ganhando pontos de experiência (XP - Experience Points). Um utilizador especial, o "Dungeon Master" escolhe que tarefas existem e os XP respectivos, mas este privilégio também pode ser dado a outros jogadores. Um exemplo semelhante é o Highscore House, onde os pais atribuem tarefas aos seus filhos e acompanham a execução dessas tarefas. Os pais também podem optar por jogar e decidir quais tarefas são atribuídas a cada jogador. Estes podem necessitar de aprovação dos pais para completar a tarefa, a fim de certificar que a tarefa  foi devidamente concluída. Também no Vivo Miles, um sistema web de atribuição de recompensas usado por escolas, os alunos possuem um cartão de recompensas pessoais para armazenar pontos eletrónicos ("Vivos"). Estes pontos podem ser trocados por bens físicos ou usados, por exemplo, para evitar a fila do almoço. A escola define quais os comportamentos que devem ser recompensado ou punidos e os professors encarregam-se de atribuir os pontos. Embora a última abordagem não esteja tão intimamente relacionada com big data, é necessária a presence de um motor de análise para lidar com os dados inseridos pelos utilizadores que atuam como mediadores entre o sistema e os jogadores. Independentemente do processo de recolha de dados, combinar elementos de jogos com dados pode representar uma vantagem importante em sistemas gamificados uma vez que estes se tornam mais capazes de dar uma resposta imediata (feedback) e precisa para os jogadores, de uma forma divertida e envolvente. E isto é certamente uma forma de promover a mudança de comportamento, o objectivo final da gamification.   Agradecimentos ao Sam Geuter, o promotor do Gamifeye.

When you create tutorials  for a software product, it is very natural to capture the following: Description about the product features All tasks that one can do with each of the product features Steps to complete each of the tasks Most software product tutorials are product feature centric. Here is an example  of a product feature centric tutorial for Camtasia. The very title of the tutorial indicates it is about adding a callout and setting callout properties in Camtasia. The tutorial above tells you all that you can do with the callout feature in Camtasia. The tutorial talks about placing callouts, resizing callouts, the different kinds of callouts and so on. When you work with callouts in Camtasia, you are likely to get flustered trying to manually resize the callout in the timeline. The callout will refuse to get resized. This is such a serious usability issue. People spend hours figuring out how to resize callouts in the timeline. If you notice, this particular tutorial above, which is about callouts, never ever once mentions or captures this usability issue. So imagine if users trying to figure out how to increase callout length in Camtasia, go through this particular tutorial, how frustrated they would feel, when they discover that this tutorial has no solution to their problem. Product feature centric documentation and tutorials are good to have because they give a nice overview of the product features. But then it is even more important to have tutorials that will focus on the problems users  might face while they are using the product feature, especially if the problem is not going to be fixed in the product for sometime. This is where user centric tutorials for software products work wonders. Here are some examples of user centric tutorials for Camtasia : How to increase callout length in Camtasia How I learnt to work with Camtasia  How to achieve smooth visual effects in videos using Camtasia When you look at the user centric tutorials above, they capture : Real use cases Real problems Solutions for all common problems Well, such kind of information might go into the troubleshooting guide. But then it again takes quite a lot of effort for users to search for the problem and solution. Instead if you have short tutorials on common problems that users might face, it will save so much of their time. It really makes a lot of sense to include such user centric tutorials in  help manuals or user guides where the user is likely to check for help.  If a software product is complex or has an usability issue, the users will appreciate if it is revealed upfront and the solution is disclosed. After all users want to effectively use the product and not get surprises or shocks while trying to use the product What do you think?

Call for Papers: e-virtuoses 2013   International Scientific Symposium "Games for all purposes? Appropriation, Repurposing and Rejection" On 4 and 5 June 2013 in Valenciennes, during the "e-virtuoses" scientific convention, dedicated to the use of games and play (digital or not) for utilitarian purposes, we will host a scientific symposium entitled "Games for all purposes? Appropriation, Repurposing and Rejection".The objects of study will include in particular: Serious Game: the combination of a serious intention - education, information, communication, marketing, ideology, coaching or data collection - with a game including rules and targets. Serious Play: the combination of a serious intention - education, information, communication, marketing, ideology, coaching or data collection - with a toy. Serious Gaming: the process of repurposing a game via all kinds of different methods, in order to offer activities that go beyond mere entertainment and that had not been initially intended by the author of the game. Gamification: use of game design to gamify objects and originally non-playful contexts. These objects challenge the notions of prevention, training, knowledge assessment, coaching, communication, data collection, etc. in various fields such as education, healthcare, marketing, safety, culture... The purpose of this Symposium is to present approaches, paradigms and feedbacks using theoretical frameworks and methodologies that help observe, measure and analyse the impact of these objects and of the resulting transformations: acceptance, appropriation, resistance, repurposing, rejection... Different types of analyses can be suggested for different types of purposes, uses and scopes:  Analysis of products Analysis of policies Analysis of designs Analysis of practices  ... This Symposium is intended to encourage reflection that will be fuelled by inputs from various disciplines such as education, information and communication sciences, management, IT, neurosciences, psychology, sociology, medicine, arts... Schedule : Paper submission (2,000 to 3,000 words): 3 March 2013 Reading committee announcement of selected papers: 31 March 2013 Symposium: 4 and 5 June 2013 (informação partilhada por Sylvain Haudegond em gamification-research@googlegroups.com)

by ruparajgo | Create your own Cartoon at www.toondoo.com Have you seen a kid take a toy apart and fix the toy together again?  This might seem like a childish act of taking things apart just for fun. But then this childish act of taking things apart can also be a huge learning process.  Here is someone who talks about how he and his son break down a musical piece and  learn to put the parts and phrases together: Just like working through a reverse engineering problem, my son and I first break each piece down into its individual phrases.  We then experiment with different strategies for learning each phrase, often further breaking a phrase down into smaller parts.  We finally "solve"  a piece by slowing putting its parts and phrases back together. I have also seen people who have no knowledge in HTML design web pages by just analyzing how other web pages have been designed. When you are trying to learn Instructional Design, you start with the concepts and then go on to do practical exercises on analysis, design and storyboarding. Well, how about breaking any training material or e-learning course apart before you actually learn to create one? Yes, I am talking about reverse engineering an e-learning course or any training material to learn how to do Instructional Designing. Before we proceed further, let us understand what reverse engineering is all about. What is Reverse Engineering? Wikipedia defines Reverse Engineering as  the process of discovering the technological principles of a device, object or system through analysis of its structure, function and operation. In simple terms, reverse engineering is breaking an object into its basic parts in a logical fashion. It is the process of analyzing and learning how the object was put together. What does reverse engineering an e-learning course or any training material mean? Reverse engineering an e-learning course or any training material means analyzing, finding and documenting the following: Who uses the information in the course and for what purpose? What could have been the results of the requirements gathering phase? What could have been the development process for the course? What has been covered in the course? How is the course structured? How is the information structured? How is the course flow designed? What are the course objectives and learning objectives and how have they been derived? What is the instructional approach used? What are the  instructional strategies used and how or why were such strategies used? What could be the visualization  for each slide? How are the assessments designed? How did the Analysis and Design document look like for the course? How did the storyboard for the course look like? How is the course layout and navigation? Questions as listed above and many more such questions will help you reverse engineer an e-learning course or any training material.When you are reverse engineering an e-learning course you are not trying to create but trying to think how the course was created. You are not exercising your mind to come up with new ideas. You are thinking hard how ideas for the course have been derived. The next question is how can such an exercise help you gain Instructional Design skills. How reverse engineering helps? Most freshers feel lost while doing instructional designing because they fail to understand the basics and the essence of instructional designing. Freshers feel less confident because they lack basic skills and fear making mistakes. When you reverse engineer an e-learning course or any training material: You gain basic instructional design skills with great ease You get to understand all Instructional Design concepts instantly You understand the relevance and importance of creating any training material You understand what goes into creating an e-learning course or any training material without racking your brain You get to know how a storyboard is related to the end product (e-learning course/training material) You get the essence of visualization and its importance in creating any training material The end product (e-learning course/training material) is your reference and guide so there is no fear of making mistakes You are focused and learn faster There is no information overload In short you gain a lot of confidence to do instructional designing on your own. My experience When I read this training material on the web: CSharp for Kids, I tried to reverse engineer and find out how story has been woven so well to teach a programming language.I tried to figure how things have been made so simple when the subject is a complex programming language. I was amazed at the use of cartoons in the book and I studied how they have been designed to fit with the story. Well, this was indeed a great experience and great learning too Have you tried learning Instructional Designing or anything for that matter through reverse engineering? Please share your thoughts and experiences

I am glad to announce that I am an independent professional now. This is something I always wanted to do and it has finally happened now. I launched my site: http://thewritersgateway.com/ that gives an overview of the kind of services I will offer. Of course, there are some pages to be updated. The site will look complete in the coming days. I just wanted to share this piece of news with my readers and please wish me good luck in my venture. In case you are interested in my services, please feel free to contact me I will continue to share useful information in this blog. So keep reading! Cheers, Rupa

Mitch Resnick é o responsável pelo grupo de investigação que desenvolve o Scratch, um ambiente gráfico para ensinar programação a crianças. Nesta TED Talk, defende a importância de ensinar programação a crianças, não porque programar venha a ser uma necessidade para as suas profissões futuras (nem todas se tornarão programadores ou profissionais na área das TIC) mas porque programar permite desenvolver a sua criatividade e capacidade de resolver problemas. Resnick neste vídeo refere ainda ser crítico do rótulo de "nativos digitais" atribuído às gerações mais novas. As crianças e jovens são fluentes a "ler" tecnologias" mas menos capazes de "escrever" tecnologias. A este propósito, ler o que já se escreveu aqui. O vídeo refere ainda outras plataformas já mencionadas aqui como o Codeacademy. Um bom vídeo que reflecte sobre como a aquisição de competências digitais importa para a aquisição de outras competências, para o desenvolvimento da criatividade e para a capacidade de resolver problemas.  

Call for Participation Workshop on Interaction Design in Educational Environments
, ICEIS 2013 Workshop. TOPICS OF INTEREST:     •    Conceptual models for educational applications     •    Educational pervasive environments     •    Educational Interface design     •    New devices and interaction techniques for educative environments     •    Instructional and Interaction design     •    Student/Teacher centered design     •    Educative Ambient intelligence     •    Human factors in Educative UI design     •    Collaboration, cooperation and coordination     •    Design patterns in collaborative educational environments     •    Classroom teaching techniques     •    Model-Based Development Environments IMPORTANT DATES:     •    Paper Submission: April 9, 2013     •    Authors Notification: April 30, 2013     •    Final Paper Submission and Registration: May 13, 2013

This month’s game was suggested by Jacob Everist.  The game Time Fcuk as Jacob puts it is  really good mind-twisting game. It is perplexing and a lot of fun. This is what Jacob has to say about the game: I played it through and I’m not sure if there’s more than one ending. Basically I like the innovative puzzler gameplay of shifting gravity and shifting dimensions.  I also like the psychotic stream of consciousness you get from text messages of your past and future self.  Just the main screen tells you what kind of game it is.  Just look at.  It looks like the deranged writings of schizophrenic neighbor I once had.  I also like the intentional use of pixelated graphics. My views about the game I really think Time Fcuk is a complicated game and I would not play this game for fun because it taxes your brain a lot. I am still figuring out what  this game is all about. I also see I enjoy playing it even without making much sense of the story or concept. I like the changing perspectives when you press A in your keyboard. This is something innovative.  I also like the background score which gives an eerie feeling. However I feel this game is not so easy to play. Let me know what you think

"What if our world would be turned into a game - indeed, what if?" Esta é a pergunta que surge no blogue de Sebatian Deterding na antevisão do que será um livro de que é co-autor a lançar em 2013: Steffen P. Walz, Sebastian Deterding (eds.): The Gameful World: Approaches, Issues, Applications. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. O livro tem já o seu próprio site onde é possível registar um endereço de email para notificação quando o livro for lançado e uma conta no Twitter: @gamefulworld. O livro pretende lançar alguma luz no debate sobre as consequências de introduzir elementos de jogos na vida quotidiana (a gamification of life), ou seja, criando um "gameful world". As consequências sociais, éticas e políticas e ainda as consequências para cada um de nós são discutidas por um conjunto de pessoas, umas contra outras a favor, que apresentam os seus depoimentos no livro a par de aplicações concretas e abordagens teóricas a esta tendência de evolução para um "gameful world". Sem dúvida, um debate interessante e a acompanhar.

When you create training material or an e-learning course, you do a target audience analysis. You basically think from a learner’s perspective while  designing a training.  You do this so that the learning process is effective. Now when it comes to creating help manuals or user manuals for applications, do you apply the same principle?  I have heard people say that when you do Technical Writing, you do not have to understand the user’s mind. All that you have to do is understand how the application functions and document all the tasks and procedures to work with the application. I partly agree with this. However I believe there is much more than understanding the application and features when it comes to creating  user manuals. When you create user manuals, target user analysis is extremely crucial. When I say target user analysis, I do not mean that you need to interview prospective users of the application. Target user analysis for user manuals has got to do a lot about determining how a user would use the application or product. How does this matter?  How does it help? Before we  proceed, download this  N73 user manual. The  N73 user manual is : Nice looking Covers all features Has all the instructions to use the features Well, is that not enough? Let us look at the Table of Contents (TOC)  of the manual. Here is a snapshot of  the Table of Contents  (TOC) of the N73 user manual:   When you check the TOC closely: Topics such as Camera, Media Applications have been given maximum priority because they are placed in the first page of the TOC. Topics  such as Making Calls and Messaging have been placed in the second page of the TOC. Topic such as Support has been placed in the first page of the TOC.  Let us shift our focus on the user. When a user uses any phone, what does he/she use it for?  Let us list a few things for which a user might use his/her phone for: Make Calls Message Listen to Music/Radio Take Pictures Things listed above form the natural workflow of a phone. In any phone, the priority is to make a call and then may be to send an SMS. Music Player and Camera are nice to have, cool features. Now imagine a user looking for information on how to make calls using N73. He/she has to go to page 63 to learn how to make calls when ironically anyone will want to first make a call using a phone. One reason why the N73 help manual gives a lot of priority to extra features in the phone is to bring those features to the user’s attention. Many people today buy a phone for its additional features like music player, camera etc. This is valid.  N73 is fairly easy application/product to use and you do not need a help manual to teach you how to use it. So may be it does not matter how you structure information in user manuals for such products. You have other complex software applications and people feel completely lost and clueless about where to begin and how to proceed.Most people scan user manuals or look for the information they want. In such cases, when the information structure in your user manual reflects the product’s natural workflow, it helps a great deal. Users instantly get a clue about the logical order of working with the features in the product.  I have tried this and it really works well. Please leave your comments/thoughts. I would love to hear from you

Foi publicado na Revista Iberoamericana de Evaluación Educativa o resultado de um trabalho de investigação sobre os fatores facilitadores do uso de recursos educativos digitais pelos professores do ensino básico e secundário. O trabalho é da autoria de Cornélia Castro, António Andrade e José Lagarto. Resumo Este estudo exploratório e descritivo procurou determinar empiricamente o grau de concordância, através de um questionário e-Delphi que decorreu em três etapas com 40 participantes de instituições de ensino superior e outras, relativamente aos fatores facilitadores do uso de recursos educativos digitais pelos professores do ensino básico e secundário. Os participantes foram cooptados em universidades públicas e privadas e em outras instituições, em áreas de conhecimento relacionadas com a educação, nomeadamente em investigação, na utilização das tecnologias e da informática em particular. Os resultados obtidos indicam algum grau de concordância na comunidade de participantes na investigação sobre os fatores facilitadores da utilização de recursos educativos digitais pelos professores. Estes resultados preliminares desafiam-nos a desenvolver o mesmo estudo junto dos professores do ensino básico e secundário, de forma a confrontar as perspetivas das duas comunidades que desempenham um papel preponderante na área da educação em Portugal. Pretende-se, desta forma, apresentar um contributo para que a prática da adoção e utilização de recursos educativos digitais nas escolas portuguesas seja sustentada. Está igualmente disponível o Abstract (in english). Neste trabalho de investigação foi usado um questionário e-Delphi. O método Delphi, citando o próprio trabalho, é definido como uma atividade interativa desenhada para combinar opiniões de um grupo de especialistas (grupo específico de pessoas especializadas no tema estudado) denominado de painel Delphi, para obtenção de consenso em torno de um problema complexo. Tive a oportunidade de participar no painel de especialistas do questionário cujos resultados foram usados por este trabalho. A análise dos resultados do inquérito revela que o fator considerado mais importante foi Usabilidade - qualidade científica e o fator considerado menos importante  foi Usabilidade - durabilidade. O trabalho pode ser consultado em formato HTML ou PDF. Referência Castro, C., de Andrade, A. M. y Lagarto, J. (2012). Identificação de Fatores Facilitadores da Utilização de Recursos Educativos Digitais pelos Professores: A Perspetiva de Especialistas num Estudo e-Delphi. Revista Iberoamericana de Evaluación Educativa, 5 (3), pp. 161-178. http://www.rinace.net/riee/numeros/vol5-num3/art10.pdf

I just finished a demo for a mobile application for a client and the good news is that he is really impressed. This demo was to introduce people to a particular feature in a mobile phone. It also had to cover the steps to use the feature. The objective was to make an impact and to draw people’s attention to a cool mobile feature. I am happy with the success of this particular demo. There was also so much learning that it prompted me to write this post. Before we proceed here is a sample demonstration of a mobile application: The video above is a nicely done demonstration for Gmail for Mobile. The demo has a host and captures actions done on the real mobile. You can also see fingers pressing the mobile key. I was very impressed with this demo for Gmail for Mobile. I have done a lot of tutorials and demos for software applications. With tools like Camtasia, you can very easily capture tasks done on a software application. When I was given a mobile application, I was a little uncomfortable because I had to do a demo for a physical application. I wanted to do something like the Gmail for Mobile demo but then budget was a constraint. Also I was worried about executing any idea that I had only because  of the fact that it was a physical application. My Experience With all the constraints in my mind, the first question that came to my mind was "How do I shoot the movie?" Some options were: A camcorder A web cam A SLR We did actually shoot a real movie using a camcorder. The quality was really poor. I was not convinced. Then I discovered that there is something call emulators for mobile phones. Using the emulator, you can project the mobile screen on your computer screen and you can use your keyboard keys to control the keys on the mobile phone. This sounded amazing. I suggested to my client that we ditch the movie taken using camcorder and try using an emulator. My client agreed and finally gave me the mobile screen captures in the from of avi videos. My plan was to use Camtasia to edit the avi videos and include my voice narration. When I saw the avi videos, I discovered that the videos showcased only the mobile screen. Something like shown in the image below: It did not make any sense just to show the mobile screen. I had to show the entire mobile. "Now how do I do this?" -  This was my next question. I had raw avi videos and some ppt slides. I did not think about execution first. It was important to plan the video before anything. How  my Instruction Design skills helped me My Instructional Design skills helped me visualize and plan the video well. I decided to use the powerpoint slides as my introductory slide. I displayed the output in the beginning itself. Then I showcased the steps to achieve the output. The feature was about transferring a particular image from one phone to another. So I made sure the workflow was right. I made sure every action and the expected result was placed one after the other. I removed all unnecessary portions of the video and focused on what is most important. I had to keep in mind that the video had to be not more than 2 minutes. Execution After I was sure about the storyboard, the next challenge was the execution part. I edited all the raw avi videos using Camtasia. I recorded my voice also using Camtasia. Since this was my first  voice recording, there were lot of retakes and it was lot of effort to achieve perfection. I decided to use a static background image of a mobile phone and wanted the movie to play in the mobile screen area. Something as shown below:   Crescent Shopping Centre Mobile Application by MobaNode from MobaNode on Vimeo.  Camtasia failed me here  because it did not allow me to include any background image. I realized that rapid e-learning tools have their own limitations. Finally I got my friend, a graphic designer to help me. I sent him the voice over files, the avi files and told him what he needs to do.  The video that I edited and exported using Camtasia did not play in my friend’s machine. That was the camtasia codec problem.  Despite downloading the codec, the problem persisted. Then I settled for taking screenshots from the avi video and sent all the images to my  friend. He used Flash to execute the whole video. The output was fantastic.  The demo was simple, appealing and the message was very clear. All our efforts got paid. I was happy with the design of the demo and surprisingly my voice was not  bad at all. Lessons Learnt Rapid Elearning tools have their own constraints Quality need not suffer because of budget You do not need a professional artist for voice over all the time It helps to visualize and plan your video Coordination skills help you execute well Please check the demonstration that I created below: Please visit: http://aquilonis.com Meanwhile, please leave your thought

A EDULEARN13 - 5th annual International Conference on Education and New Learning Technologies terá lugar em Barcelona (Espanha), nos dias 1, 2 e 3 de julho de 2013. DEADLINE SUBMISSION: 27th March 2013 É possível nesta conferência a apresentação virtual de artigos que evita a deslocação ao local onde se realiza.

By ruparajgo | View this Toon at ToonDoo | Create your own Toon In school I am sure all of us have go through reading comprehension exercises. I am not sure how many of us enjoyed it though All of us understand what Reading Comprehension means. The web definition of Reading Comprehension is the level of understanding of a writing. Most of us have grown up reading a lot. We are used to reading novels, stories and magazines. We have honed our reading skills over a period of time. Yet there are times when we do not understand something or we might not be able to focus. If you are reading a novel or a story and it does not make sense, you can afford to keep the novel aside. What if you are an Instructional Designer dealing with content/information? If you are an Instructional Designer, I am sure you read content/information all the time. Content is King in any training material and Instructional Designer have to read/understand/evaluate the content before proceeding any further. Instructional Designers cannot afford to skip any subject matter. Instructional Designers cannot be choosy about what they want to read or work on. Instructional Designers have to deal with any subject. It could be algebra, biology, personality development, leadership, software, technology and any thing and everything. Imagine how much Instructional Designers have to read and grasp! Here are some questions with relevance to what an Instructional Designer do with content/information and what are the challenges he/she might face: What do Instructional Designers do with content/information? Read volumes of content/information and glean what is most important to learners. Read every bit of  information and identify which bit of information will make sense to learners. Read  information from different sources and present it in a logical and engaging fashion. What’s the challenge? Instructional Designers might have to read volumes of content within a short span of time. For example, if you have to convert a book to an online training material, you might have to read about 150 pages of content/information  in 6 hours or so and come up with the content outline.The challenge is not just reading the content but internalizing the information and looking at the content in terms of creating value for learners. What does this indicate? Instructional Designers must have Enhanced Reading Comprehension Skills. By enhanced, I mean not just superficial reading and understanding but getting to the essence of the subject matter. As an Instructional Designer, you must be able to go through volumes of content and glean the essence of the content in a short span of time. This is because project deadlines are always tight and you will not have the time you actually require to read up all the content. Well, gaining this enhanced reading comprehension skill is not so impossible as it appears. You can master any skill through a systematic approach and through a lot of practice. Here are some tips for budding Instructional Designers to gain enhanced reading comprehension skills: Before you start reading the content/information: Keep the objective of the training material/e-learning course in mind. Keep the target audience in mind. When you read the content/information from different sources: Scan through the content the first time. This way you will get comfortable with the content. Do not attempt to read line by line or word by word. You will waste a lot of time by doing this. Make sure you read all the content atleast twice. This will help you get a good grip of the content. When you read the content/information the second time, read closely. If you do not understand something and you have no external help, quickly google for the keyword. Again do not spend too much time researching if not required. If there is something you have no clue about, raise the alarm and get your superiors to attend to the problem. When you go through every page, make notes of interesting/important information. Make sure you note down the page numbers. Go back to the notes, examine the notes carefully and try to arrange the information in a logical order. By the end of this exercise, you will be able to visualize what the course outline must contain. As you work on the training material, keep going back to the source content every now and then. With this I end my post here and leave it open for discussion. What do you think? Do you think Instructional Designers must have excellent reading comprehension skills? As an Instructional Designer do you find any challenges reading content/information? What tips would you give for budding instructional designers to read/understand content/information well