Gamification plays an important role in the learning technology solutions that we create here at Growth Engineering. We utilise gamification to make the process of learning more enjoyable, to engage learners, to improve motivation and increase knowledge. But we also recognise the importance of using gamification to make the process of content creation more enjoyable for eLearning developers, instructional designers and subject matter experts. We’ve written about gamification a lot - how to use it, why it rocks, how to it makes your eLearning modules more fun and boosts engagement on your Learning Management System - but we thought we’d share with you 4 fab resources for gamification so you can continue your own learning journeys! 1. Gamification Co This website is the leading source for gamification news and information. Lead by Gabe Zichermann, Gamification Co is a one-stop-shop for everything gamification, from insights, research and commentary to podcasts and events all centred around gamification and its applications. If you’re just getting into gamification, this is a great place to start. Check ‘em out on Twitter too. 2. Gamified UK Andrzej Marczewski, web manager at Capgemini UK, is a self-confessed gamer through and through. In 2011, he became fascinated with gamification, which allowed him to merge his love of games with his developer mind - a match made in heaven! Andrzej writes a lot about gaming mechanics, motivation and types of game players, and he has produced a great deck of ‘Inspiration Cards’. Don’t miss a post by subscribing to Gamified UK’s newsletter! 3. Karl Kapp Karl is an author, professor, consultant and speaker whose tagline is ‘intelligently fusing learning, technology and business’ - and we couldn’t agree more! You might recognise Karl’s name from our GE TV section, where he spoke with Juliette about gamification; what it is, its applications within learning, and what the future holds. You can watch Karl’s video here but make sure you visit his website too (and check out the books he’s written!). 4. Gamification Nation Gamification Nation specialises in creating gamification design solutions that will align with business objectives. They work with anyone, from large multinational corporations to forward-thinking SMEs. If you’re thinking of implementing gamification into your business strategy, check out their website or get in touch. The brain child of An Coppens - an award-winning business coach, L&D professional and gamification expert - Gamification Nation’s usefulness doesn’t stop there: there is a plethora of information, opinion pieces and in-depth articles on gaming mechanics, solutions for HR, for L&D, recommendations and more. An also posts on her own website, ancoppens.com, and has written numerous books on L&D and training. Want to find out more about gamification? We’ve written a white paper on how it will help set your training and development programme soaring!  The post 4 Go-To Resources For Gamification appeared first on Growth Engineering.

When you create a piece of eLearning or roll out an online training programme, you probably don’t think about how much your learners will adore it; how they’ll be overjoyed and thank you for making their lives that bit brighter. Oh, no. In all likelihood you may be thinking about how to weather the storm, how to tackle your learners’ complaints and how to handle any push-back from them. But wouldn’t it be great if instead you just had to sit back and think about what a great job you’ve done, and plan where you’ll store all your awards? The trick to creating eLearning that your learners will truly enjoy is to never stop thinking about the learner. When you’re creating the eLearning, always consider what your learners will think about it. Put yourself in your learners’ shoes and don’t create anything you wouldn’t be happy to receive! Here are some questions that will help you figure out if you’re on the right track to making your learners jump for joy: Will your learners like the way the learning content is presented? Are there enough images on screen, or is it just full of text (yawn)? Does the eLearning module look like a slideshow presentation? How interactive is the eLearning? Are learners able to input their own information into the unit, and relate what they’re learning to their own work lives? Does the eLearning refer to the learner by name? Are there images? If yes, are they plain, standard ‘corporate’ images, or more exciting images that will capture the learner’s attention and get them interested? Would they prefer yes/no questions or drag and drop answers? Can learners relate to the scenarios in the eLearning? For instance, are they culture-appropriate? Is the eLearning broken up into bite-size learning chunks, or are you forcing your learners to enter into a 6-hour contract just to learn about fire safety? Is the eLearning appropriately tracked? If the learner’s computer breaks or the internet goes down, will their information be secure? Will their results be saved, or will their progress be wiped? Is the learning content set at the appropriate difficulty level? You don’t want to teach learners to suck eggs, nor do you want to try to teach them something hugely over their skill level. These are just a few of the questions you’ll need to ask yourself when creating eLearning: does it make your learners jump for joy, or drag their heels? To find out more about creating eLearning that truly engages and motivates your learners - and has them joyously logging on to their LMS - then click here to discover Genie, our game-based authoring tool!  The post Make your learners jump for joy appeared first on Growth Engineering.

Not everyone knows this, but aligning gamification to business objectives is vitally important. There’s no point assigning badges for useless actions, or showering learners with points for displaying behaviours which won’t have a positive impact on the business. Aligning gamification to business objectives really is the only way to ensure that you’re motivating your learners to develop in ways that will contribute to business success. This is such an important topic that we wrote an entire white paper on it, called ‘Effective use of gamification in a business’. Here’s an excerpt of what you can expect if you download the white paper: Firstly, there are a few areas in which gamification can be used within an organisation: attraction retention motivation engagement productivity Using gamification within Learning and Development covers a few of these areas, from the more obvious (motivation, engagement and productivity) to less obvious. Gamification in learning helps retention because engaging learners enables them to develop in their careers, opening up more options within the organisation and showing them that the business cares about them enough to offer some really rather fantastic training. This is incredibly important to retain employees. Here is how gamification features can tie into business objectives: Levels are perhaps the most obviously useful way to align gamification with the business, as they allow you to tailor each learner’s journey to a set of parameters necessary for success. When learners first log on to their LMS, their journey is about discovery. They look around their LMS, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, and try to figure out what’s what. Using levels in onboarding shows them how to use their new learning platform, what they need to do and what’s in store for them; the scaffolding builds their skills up to the height required for them to ‘pass’ that journey, and then it is over. But, importantly, the ‘end game’ doesn’t mean their entire learning journey has come to an end. Instead, each time they hit the finish line, they discover they are able to push on further in a new race towards a different end point. Say, they finish their first journey of ‘Induction’ and then unlock the ‘Trainee’ level. Once they pass this, they’re on to the ‘Sales Newbie’ level, and so on. Each organisation can set its own levels - as many or as few as necessary - and set how many points are required to ‘level up’ and move on to the next level. At each level, learners are given access to certain learning materials, eLearning modules, groups, downloadables and further reading. They cannot unlock the next set of materials until they have satisfied the criteria at the current level and gained sufficient points to level up. Levels are superb tools for ensuring employees are sufficiently knowledgeable to lead a team, gain a promotion or move into a new department. ——————- There’s plenty more where that came from - click the button below to download our white paper and find out about badges, points, leaderboards, how to roll out an effective gamification plan, and read the case study about how Game Retail accomplished all this!  The post Be More Awesome: Aligning Gamification to Business Objectives appeared first on Growth Engineering.

Ever feel like your online learning just isn’t working? You think you’ve done the right things and created the best training for your employees, but something’s just not right. Maybe it’s the topic? Is it too difficult? Or perhaps the images you used are a bit too corporate, or the tests too tricky to decipher? Perhaps the problem lies with your Learning Management System - could it be faulty? Maybe it doesn’t display correctly on your employees’ computers? Whatever the reason, you’ve taken the first step towards awesome online learning by recognising that yours needs improving. Hurrah! But we know you’re busy, and if you’re stuck with your current LMS provider for a while, you can’t exactly overhaul your entire online learning programme! So here are 5 little changes can you make to seriously improve your online learning, without ditching your LMS vendor right now (leave that for later!): 1. Improve internal marketing Can you expect your employees to be excited about their online learning if managers, the L&D department and senior management aren’t passionate and invested too? Certainly not! When you roll out a new L&D programme you need to make sure you market it to your employees correctly. They need to understand why they’re being asked to take part, over and above the obvious ‘to become better at their jobs and make the company more money’ answer! Marketing - in the form of email campaigns, meetings, conferences, presentations, videos - should show employees what’s in it for them. Why they should commit to improving their skills and making the most of the training that’s available. Why they should approach it passionately and with determination, rather than seeing it as an annoying inconvenience. Check out the video below we created to show you how to expertly market your online learning roll-out to your employees! 2. Gamify your training While it’s much more effective to use a gamified Learning Management System (i.e. one which has been built from the ground-up with gamification features), there are applications that can add an element of gamification to your existing LMS, such as Badgeville. Gamification will boost learner engagement on your LMS, though you’ll need to bear in mind that you can’t simply dump badges on your learners without a proper gamification plan in place. Read more about using gamification correctly here! 3. Link training to real-life rewards If your LMS doesn’t support gamification, then one of the ways to keep employees engaged is to reward learners with real-life rewards. It’s not the perfect solution (aligning gamification to business objectives within the LMS would be) but awarding a restaurant voucher or gift card to employees who do particularly well in their training can be a motivator for them to engage with their training. Though we should point out that this isn’t enough on its own! 4. Take a break If you’ve already rolled out your training programme and it’s proving entirely unsuccessful, then a hiatus can be useful to reignite employee interest in the programme. Close the LMS and put up a holding page saying something along the lines of, "Your new and improved LMS is on its way!" Behind-the-scenes work to add elements of gamification, change branding or alter the layout of your LMS can then be completed while employees wait to restart their training. Using tip #1, you can market this ‘new’ online learning roll-out to drum up some excitement. This way, when you ‘relaunch’ the LMS, employees will be more interested in checking it out and taking part in the training. 5. Evaluate eLearning Maybe the problem isn’t with your LMS, but with the eLearning units themselves. Take a step back from being an L&D professional and put yourself in your learners’ shoes: open up an eLearning unit and really try to experience it in the same way as your employees do. Would you enjoy this training? Would it excite you, or put you to sleep? Don’t be precious with it just because you created or commissioned the eLearning - be honest and ruthless in your evaluation. And if you realise that your eLearning is the problem, do something about it! These are just 5 little steps you can take that will make a big difference to your online learning training programme. We go into more detail about how to create an awesome eLearning plan in our ‘Secret of Engagement’ white paper - download it for free below and continue your own learning journey!    The post 5 Little Changes That Will Make a Big Difference to Your eLearning appeared first on Growth Engineering.

Gamification is a hot topic - not just in eLearning, but in all industries and areas of life. From marketing to fitness, gamification is coming to the fore to increase engagement and engineer results. There’s plenty written about gamification (like here and here), but if you’re not a fan of reading, you’re in luck! We’ve selected five great videos that will help you get to grips with all things gamification: Extra Credits: Gamification - How the Principles of Play Apply to Real Life At 6 minutes long, this is a great, light-hearted approach to explain what gamification is and how it works in real life. Bonus: photos of puppies! Importantly, Extra Credits doesn’t shy away from the bad side of gamification - that there is the potential for misuse, such as through reinforcing negative or socially unacceptable behaviours. Check it out below! Gabe Zichermann: Fun is the Future - Mastering Gamification If you’re after something a bit more in depth, Gabe’s video, recorded at Google Tech Talk, is for you. At just shy of an hour long, it’s a fantastic way to get a deeper understanding of gamification and all that it can do to improve engagement and enjoyment. Gabe is a great presenter and it’s clear to see that he’s passionate about gamification. Grab a brew and watch below: Karl Kapp: What is Gamification? A Few Ideas You may recognise Karl from an interview we conducted with him for our own channel, GETV. In this video, Karl gets right into the nitty gritty minutiae of gamification. He also explains who coined the term ‘gamification’ and how its use is changing. It’s 10 minutes long - the perfect thing to watch while waiting for your dinner to cook! Eran May-raz and Daniel Lazo: Sight [A Futuristic Short Film] This one is slightly different… If you’re anything like us, you’ll go from ‘Ooh, how cool!’ to ‘That’s a bit weird…’ to ‘Oh… Oh dear…’ Sight, a graduation project for Eran and Daniel, is a brilliant but somewhat disturbing film about the future of augmented reality and gamification. What would it really be like if everything was gamified, from chopping cucumber to going on a date? This video documents the negative side of gamification: Back to something a bit more academic now: Janaki Kumar: Gamification at Work [TEDx Talk] In this TED Talk, Janaki asks listeners to think about what it is about games that we like (competition? Feedback? Challenge?) and add these elements to non-game concepts to reinforce and engage. Janaki highlights the assumption that the opposite of ‘play’ is ‘work’, but she suggests that it doesn’t have to be that way - in fact, research shows that the polar opposite of ‘play’ is actually ‘depression’. So unless you’re suffering from depression (click here for resources on that), there is no reason why your work can’t be enjoyable! Anyway, check out the video below: We hope you liked our selection of gamification videos! After watching these you should have a great understanding of what it is, how it can be used and also understand any potential pitfalls that await incorrect use of gamification. If you do fancy reading a longer article on the topic, check out our white paper below on how to use gamification within businesses to engage and motivate employees:  The post Become an Expert on Gamification by Watching These 5 Videos appeared first on Growth Engineering.

Leaving your current Learning Management System to make the transition to a new, state-of-the-art, next-gen LMS can at first seem quite stressful. You might be wondering how you’ll get to grips with all the new features and functionality, how your learners will receive their new training platform, and whether it will be worth the time and effort to make the switch. It can help to think about the reasons why you’ve decided to make the change - because we’re sure the decision comes after much consideration and weighing up of various options. Here are a few reasons you might be choosing to move from a traditional LMS to a next-gen LMS, like the Academy LMS: You want more functionality Your old Learning Management System may have suited your needs when you got it, but things change. Maybe your organisation has grown, your business model has changed, or you simply have a larger budget now to splash out on awesome features that were previously out of your reach. Or perhaps your LMS is simply so old that all its features are outdated! Technology has come a long way in a short space of time - what might have seemed cutting-edge two years ago is basic and ‘as standard’ now. These days, you’ll want an LMS that is truly at the forefront of development; gamification and social learning features should be available, reporting should be a breeze and learners should be engaged with their training. Which brings us on to the second reason you might be looking to ditch your legacy LMS… You want to engage your learners Traditional Learning Management Systems often struggled with engagement. LMSs were seen as a vehicle of delivering learning content - nothing more, nothing less. All that was required of an online learning platform was to host content and allow learners to download files. Oh how things have changed! Gone are the days when an LMS’s sole purpose was to disseminate information. Now, next-gen LMSs like the Academy LMS are designed with the express aim of engaging learners, getting them motivated and helping them to achieve their goals. You want to improve your ROI If your current training programme is about as useful as a chocolate teapot, you’ll be wondering what can be done to generate a return on investment you can really write home about. Changing your LMS is one of the ways to ensure you’re getting the most out of your training spend - an up-to-date LMS that utilises all of the great functionality we mentioned earlier will set you up on your way to achieving an impressive ROI. An LMS with gamification and social features will engage learners, which in turn will get them working harder for longer. This means they’ll be learning more and improving their knowledge, which is something that will be obvious all the way to the bottom line. When an employee’s skills improve, so does their performance - and we all know an improved performance results in a boosted return on investment. Your reporting is a pain in the beehive Do you want more information in your reports than ‘Learner X downloaded Y’? We don’t blame you! You can’t improve what you can’t monitor, after all. Luckily, the Academy LMS’s robust reporting suite makes monitoring learner activity and progress a doddle. Admins can set up automatic reports to push weekly or monthly, can filter by department, location, and more, and can report on things as far-ranging as number of unique log-ins per month, time spent on the site, and even how many badges and points a learner has accrued! Being able to report on the gamification functionality on the LMS makes it easy to see just how engaged learners are. Picture this: two learners both complete the same piece of eLearning - let’s call it Fire Extinguisher 101. Learner 1 then logs off their LMS and doesn’t return until it’s time for their next piece of training. Learner 2, on the other hand, continues to explore their Academy after they complete the eLearning. Reports show that they joined the Fire Extinguisher group, posted 12 comments, shared 3 links and gained 2 extra badges. Whose knowledge and skills do you think increased more? Who would you put more trust in to put out a fire? We think the answer is clear! If you’re wondering about whether it’s time for your to ditch your old LMS and start a journey to the next dimension of Learning Management Systems, sign up for a demo of the ultimate next-gen LMS - the Academy LMS:    The post Next-Gen LMS: Why You Should Make the Change appeared first on Growth Engineering.

The 70:20:10 theory of formal and informal learning is an ‘interesting beast’, according to Charles Jennings, member of the Internet Time Alliance. In an interview with the Corporate Learning Consortium (view it here) Charles explains that while 70:20:10 is intended to extend learning and improve performance within organisations, it is just a scaffolding - a ‘framework for change’ - and companies shouldn’t focus too much on the specific numbers. Rather, the importance lies in ensuring a combination of learning techniques - both formal and informal learning ؘ- are used in the workplace to upskill employees. There are four main ways to learn, all of which are touched upon with the 70:20:10 framework: Rich and challenging experiences One of the best ways to learn is to stretch and challenge ourselves by applying newly-learnt knowledge to tasks that might be new to us, slightly above our skill level, or might be problematic rather than straightforward. Opportunity to practise Practising what we learn is essential to ensure it is embedded in our minds, not forgotten. Allowing employees the opportunity to put new ideas and skills into practice will benefit the employees and the organisation and result in some solid learning. Meaningful conversations How do you test if you really understand something, without actually taking a pop quiz or completing an assignment? See if you can explain it to someone else! It’s all well and good being able to select the correct option from a multiple choice question, but you’ll only know that you really understand it when you can chat about it with others. Taking time out for reflection It can be tempting to jump right into the next topic after learning something, but it’s important to take stock of what you’ve learnt, see how it links to other learning topics you’ve taken recently, how it can be applied to your work and whether there is anything you need to clarify before you move on. If you rush through learning topics in a hurry to complete training, you might come away with huge gaps in your knowledge. But if you take the time to reflect on learning, you’ll cement the content much more deeply. Those are the basic four ways to learn outside of ‘formal’ training, and you can see how they contribute to continued success. Indeed, it’s been suggested that the highest performers within an organisation in any field, within any industry, have a few things in common - five characteristics that reflect the most important ways we learn: 1. Mastery High performers master the basics in a structured way. They know how important it is to understand all that their role requires of them, and they seek out careful guidance to make sure they have mastered the basics. 2. Guided practice The practice that high performers do - i.e. applying what they’ve learnt to their roles - is carried out under guidance. They seek out someone more experienced to coach them through, keep them on track and guide their work. 3. Social learning High performers are embedded in the work ‘community’. They know what others are doing, they understand what ‘good’ looks like in their organisation, and they can learn from others to improve their performance. 4. Tools They have access to right tools and the right people at the right time. High performers have performance support at their fingertips when they need it - for example, they know they can call someone right now to answer a question, they know where to go to learn more, and they know have access to a suite of performance management tools to keep them on track. 5. Extra practice Not only are high performers guided by coaches, but they usually have had thousands and thousands of hours’ practice in the context of work. They’ll actively make the effort and seek out opportunities to use their new knowledge. It’s easy to spot these high performers. They don’t stop learning once the training is over, and they spend hours putting their new skills into practice - cementing the learning thoroughly and supercharging their performance. Are you a high performer, or do you recognise any within your organisation? It can be tempting to rush employees through training as quickly as possible to get it done, but since a large part of learning takes places outside of formal training, it’s so important to encourage these less well-known informal learning techniques. Find out more about informal learning and the 70:20:10 framework with our free white paper below:      The post 70:20:10 - Just a Framework for Change? appeared first on Growth Engineering.

Gamification is a word that conjures up images of adolescent boys holed up in their bedrooms, empty cans of energy drink discarded on the carpet next to them, crumbs on their T-shirts, playing computer games into the early hours. ‘Gamers’ are often seen as lazy, antisocial, obsessive types. So with the term making us think in these ways, it is perhaps no surprise that organisations are quick to dismiss the adoption of gamification techniques into business functions. "It’s not for us," they think. "We don’t ‘do’ games here - we’re a serious organisation." But the thing is, gamification doesn’t really have much to do with video games. What gamification does is take the best parts of ‘games’ - the metaphors and mechanics which engage and motivate us to play them - and use them in other contexts to motivate us to change our behaviours. Let’s repeat it: gamification is not the same thing as games. It’s quite simple to see how gamification works in terms of training. We might find it hard to stir up any interest in compliance training, for instance - it’s often boring, samey, can be aimed at a lower level and generally is about as much fun as pulling teeth. Yet when we bring gamification features into compliance training and reward employees with badges, points and achievements for the work they do, it suddenly doesn’t seem quite so painful. These gaming mechanics are things which keep us progressing through video games and motivate us to carry on trying to defeat the ‘boss’, even when we’ve failed ten times in a row. We know we’re so close to completing the level - there’s just one more stage to get through, then we’ll have achieved it. Similarly, gaming metaphors are what keep us repeating levels, exploring video game landscapes and searching for secret items long after we’ve completed the level and can move on to the next: we want to fill that progress bar completely and bask in the glory of achieving a perfect kill-death ratio, getting a 100% completion rate, maxing out our ‘skills’ and unlocking all the hidden gems. That’s not to say that games don’t have a place in learning. Actually, game-based eLearning is become ever more popular, perhaps partly to cater to employees’ natural affection for video games (because, really, it’s not only youngsters that are ‘gamers’!). But everything in its right place, as the saying goes - game-based eLearning is not the same thing as gamification. It’s about creating learning games to engage, rather than supplementing learning content (e.g. eLearning modules and Learning Management Systems) with gaming mechanics. There’s a huge difference, even if the disparity isn’t that clear through the terms used. You can find out exactly what game-based learning entails by hopping on board our webinar tour of Genie, our game-based authoring tool. Alternatively, click the button below to learn more about gamification and how it can be used in organisations. And just to reiterate - gamification is not gaming!  The post Why we love gamification - but not necessarily the word! appeared first on Growth Engineering.

Work-based learning is a fantastic way for employees and organisations to gain access to higher education in a more flexible way. Rather than taking employees out of work and enrolling them on a course to gain a qualification or certificate, organisations can instead set up the working day for employees to complete training little and often during working hours. There are four ‘pillars’ to consider when rolling out work-based learning: the learner, the academic environment, the workplace and the external context. The learner Getting learners to engage with the training might be difficult at first, especially if online learning is new to them, they have been out of the learning game for a good few years, or they aren’t sure why they are being asked to undertake training - it can be a bit insulting to some! It can also include anything that might hold an employee back from learning (previous negative experiences, illnesses, availability) or boost their motivation (say they are looking for a promotion or want to gain a qualification in order to get a new job). Academic environment By which we don’t mean classroom or college, but the virtual learning environment (VLE). For example, the VLE (or Learning Management System) can include eLearning courses supplemented by online learning forums, chat threads and web conferencing. Workplace This includes the actual place of work - not always the same as the place of study - and all that it entails. Here’s a tip: if you expect your employees to undertake training, don’t expect them to do this on top of a hugely packed-out work day. Don’t spring tasks on them. Don’t move deadlines. Don’t ask them to take on the work of someone else who has gone on holiday. Respect the commitment they are about to make to improving their knowledge, as it will surely benefit the company. External professional context Can the company afford to put employees through training? It is an investment both in terms of actual training costs (paying for a VLE) and potentially lost revenue from taking employees away from their daily tasks. However, online learning does mitigate both these issues somewhat as online training is more cost-effective and requires less time away from work-based activities than traditional classroom training. It’s also important to consider not just the employee’s immediate workplace - the office where they work - but also the organisation as a whole. Are all stakeholders eager to push the initiative forward? Does senior management recognise the importance of work-based learning? Research has shown that while expectations of various stakeholders of online learning environments can vary greatly, they are rarely addressed, which can result in ineffective training roll-outs. For instance, the perception of user-friendliness of online learning varies hugely. While employees and learners themselves are happy to use online learning portals to take their training and engage with their fellow learners, other stakeholders - senior management, directors, training admins, etc - find the technology not very user-friendly at all. This means they may not be as engaged with the whole idea of work-based learning, which can filter down to learners. Of course, one reason that the perception of user-friendliness varies so drastically is that learners and training admins use the Learning Management System/online learning platforms in different ways. Learners don’t have to see what might be a complicated back-end, while admins have to access the LMS in different ways and for different purposes; uploading files, for instance. If a Learning Management System is built with just the learner in mind, the experience for admins and other stakeholders will be negative, which will have a detrimental impact on the effectiveness of work-based learning as a whole. If stakeholders don’t truly believe that it’s the best way for their employees to learn, employees will realise this and will become demotivated and disheartened. Luckily, not all LMSs are built this way. The Academy LMS - our very own gamified social LMS - is built with both the learner and the admin in mind, so that the entire process (from uploading content and managing users to taking eLearning courses and conversing with others) is streamlined and engaging. Want to learn more? We can give you a personalised tour of the Academy LMS, ranked the world’s #1 LMS for 2015. Just click the button below!    The post The Latest Must-Have for Your Organisation: Work-Based Learning appeared first on Growth Engineering.

Gamification in learning isn’t just a fad. It’s not just a ‘nice to have’ to make your learners happier or to satisfy your bosses. There’s so much more to gamification than a feeling of fun, as these six psychological theories of gamification show: The perspective of interest This theory highlights the importance of individual preferences and content in learning. Interest is incredibly variable and personal, which is why it’s important to create gamified learning environments that will interest all kinds of learner. We become motivated through interaction with the gamified learning environment, which ideally leads to complete immersion in a task (or ‘flow’). There are a few ways in which gamified learning environments motivate us, according to this perspective: It interests us and sparks our interest in the situational context - stories within the eLearning can help in this instance. It enhances feelings of ‘flow’ by providing direct feedback for our actions - progress bars and performance graphs can provide this feedback, points function as immediate reinforcement, and the use of personalised avatars also contributes It enhances feelings of ‘flow’ by providing a clear goal - badges, quests and progress bars help to set goals (we know what we have to do to achieve the badge and can see how far we are from completing the level) It enables feelings of ‘flow’ by adapting the difficulty to a learner’s skill level - levels unlock certain learning content that’s suitable to that learner’s ability level The perspective of emotion We are emotional creatures! Our emotions interest with cognitive and motivational process and are certainly influenced by instructional strategies. We’ll be motivated if our gamified learning environment decreases negative feelings like fear, envy and anger, and if it increases positive feelings like sympathy and pleasure - in general, gamification creates positive, happy feelings. It can also get rid of negative feelings by encouraging learners to continue and persevere with their training even when they have failed a test or are finding the topic difficult The perspective of self-determination This theory states that there are three universal psychological needs: the need for competence, the need for autonomy, and the need for social relatedness. If these are fulfilled by the gamified learning environment, we’ll become intrinsically motivated to complete our training - and as we’ve seen before, intrinsic motivation is what we aim for. We’ll be motivated if our gamified learning environment: increases feelings of competence - badges and leaderboards can help with this increases feelings of autonomy - avatars and varying choices for game play contribute to this increases the feeling of social relatedness - team leaderboards make us feel like an important part of a group The trait perspective The idea behind this perspective is that motives and needs evoke motivation. Motives - which are individual characteristics that stay relatively stable over time and context - have a strong influence on behaviour and include achievement, a need for power, and a need for affiliation. When it comes to a gamified learning environment, motivational mechanisms include: A strong sense of achievement, whereby we’ll be motivated if the gamification emphasises achievement, success and progress - leaderboards can give us a sense of achievement A strong sense of power; we’ll be motivated if the gamification emphasises our status, control and competition - badges work as virtual status symbols, as do leaderboards A strong sense of affiliation, i.e. membership - badges can function as a kind of group identification by communicating shared experiences and activities ("Oh, I have that badge too! That must mean you took the Health and Safety eLearning unit, right?") The behaviourist learning perspective This theory states that our motivation results from past experiences - both positive and negative. Any kind of reinforcement we had in the past will influence the probability of future behaviours, which is why performance-related feedback is absolutely essential in gamified online learning environments: We’ll be motivated if gamification provides immediate feedback in the form of positive and negative reinforcement - points cover this We’ll also be motivated if gamification offers the opportunity for rewards (that we consider important) - again, points can be seen as virtual rewards provided for specific actions The cognitive perspective Finally, this perspective says that motivation is the result of a means-end analysis. In other words, we use our knowledge and other internal processes (expectancies, estimations, assessments) to work out whether something is worth doing. In a gamified environment we’ll be motivated if: the goal is clear and achievable - quests, progress bars and specific tasks make goals clear, as do badges the resulting consequences of a goal are highlighted; we know what will happen once we achieve the goal - again, quests and specific tasks show us what the results of our actions will be the importance of our actions are emphasised - quests, again! As you can see, the different psychological perspectives on why gamification motivates us to behave in certain ways is varied. But it’s important to note that these aren’t conflicting or contradictory theories - they are simply different ways of looking at how motivation is influenced by gamification. Taken together, it can be seen how all kinds of gamification will increase learners’ motivation in various ways. Want to learn more about gamification and gamified learning environments? Download our free white paper below!    The post Kick Your Motivation Into Overdrive With Gamification appeared first on Growth Engineering.

Creating engaging eLearning is hard - unless you know a few of these secrets… 1. Scrap the slideshows While they may have their place in meetings and at conferences, slideshows don’t belong in eLearning units. Not only are they dull to look at, but they just don’t engage learners or promote thorough understanding. So skip the slideshow format and your learners will thank you. 2. Use all the tools available to you Sure, it’s easier to just copy and paste a load of text into your authoring tool, but if you’re able to call on videographers, voiceover experts and designers, you really should. It’s much more engaging for learners to watch a video presenter talk through the topic rather than stare at reams of text and try to decipher the meaning. 3. Make it look good They say don’t judge a book by its cover, but when it comes to eLearning, first impressions are important. Poorly laid out eLearning will be confusing, clashing colours will jar and tiny text will be even more difficult to read. 4. Keep it bite-size If you want your learners to take eLearning, don’t make them commit to 3-hour long modules. Chunk it down into information that can be consumed within, say, 20 or 30 minutes and they’ll be much more likely to actually sit down and take the training. 5. Test it! Have you actually sat down and tried to take the eLearning as a learner would? Really think about the user experience you’ve created. Are you having fun? Are you bored out of your mind? Is the subject matter presented in a compelling way, or would you benefit from more images, a shorter video, or bullet points instead of paragraphs? Think about what you’d like to see - and then make it happen! 6. Add personality Just because its purpose is to impart knowledge doesn’t mean the eLearning has to be boring, monotonous or filled with jargon. In fact, it’s more likely that learners will remember what they’ve learnt if a few jokes or light-hearted witticisms are sprinkled in here and there. What’s more engaging to you: a scenario where Colin has to sell £500 of coffee to hit his target, or where he has to sell £500 of toy spaceships in order to secure his spot on the next flight to Mars and start a new colony? 7. Market it If you do nothing else to improve your eLearning, you should still learn how to market it properly. When you roll out training, learners will only be receptive if they know what’s in it for them. That’s where marketing comes in: shout from the rooftops how the eLearning will benefit learners. Send out newsletters, emails and Vines from senior management saying why they’re backing this exciting new scheme and what great things can be achieved. Don’t just plonk the eLearning unit on your Learning Management System or intranet and expect employees to flock to it - it’ll never happen. But once they know what’s in it for them, you may have to increase your server capacity… We’re in the process of writing a whole new white paper on how to create engaging, compelling eLearning. In the meantime, click the button below to download (for free!) a white paper on how to make the process of content creation fun for developers.    The post 7 Quick Changes to Ramp Up Your eLearning appeared first on Growth Engineering.

With research showing that 80% of learners say their productivity would increase if their organisation was more game-like, and 89% would be engaged with a Learning Management System that had a points system, now is really the time to embrace gamification in your online learning. Far from being a ‘nice to have’ or a ‘we’ll get round to it one day’, gamification - in all its points-allotting, badge-awarding glory - is becoming something that your learners demand. A survey conducted by eLearning expert Craig Weiss - CEO of E-Learning 24/7 - revealed that 98% of his social media followers, readers of his blog, etc had heard of gamification: 86% of respondents wanted badges on their Learning Management Systems, with 45% of those wanting a built-in badge library 82% wanted a leaderboard 76% wanted points And 72% wanted game templates These are very high percentages! Yet, as Craig points out, only 40 out of the 590 LMS vendors he surveyed in 2014 had at least three gamification features (a leaderboard, badges, points). That’s just 6% of Learning Management Systems with the gamification features learners are wanting… However, it’s not all bad news. In 2015, 202 LMS vendors have these three gamification features - and as Craig says, that’s "definitely an improvement from 2014". But are three gamification features sufficient to placate learners’ demands? We think not. Once they have a taste of the gamified life, they’ll start thinking about all the other possibilities out there that their LMS isn’t making available to them. Craig’s article highlights some of the ‘next gen’ gamification features that learners are coming to expect on their Learning Management Systems: A leaderboard on the learner’s dashboard, allowing them to see both the top few learners, as well as their individual ranking (it can be very motivational to see where you stand in comparison to your colleagues!) A built-in badge library (as Craig says, this one’s a ‘no-brainer’) The ability to create your own badges within the system Social learning and collaborative gamification features The ability to link to real-life rewards and remuneration And more! Of course, it’s not just about gamification on the LMS. eLearning courses themselves can be gamified to boost engagement and learner delight. You can read more about creating game-based eLearning here! So if you only make one change to your L&D training plan, make the switch to a gamified Learning Management System. Your learners will thank you! Ps be sure to check out Craig’s blog. He posts regular articles that will most definitely get you thinking - and he’s not afraid to say it like it really is. You can find out why Craig Weiss, #1 on the eLearning Movers and Shakers list for 2015, says Growth Engineering has gone ‘super speed’ on gamification by taking a tour of our Academy LMS - just click the button below!    The post Stop and listen: Your learners are demanding gamification! appeared first on Growth Engineering.

Everyone and their auntie seems to be jumping on the gamification bandwagon these days. The number of stores offering reward cards for regular buyers has increased - though admittedly this is a ‘light’ form of gamification - and an increasing number of apps are taking advantage of the engagement gamification creates to keep users playing games, buying clothes, sharing photos and checking in. But just because gamification is a popular addition in a variety of domains, that doesn’t mean it’s easy to implement or get right… Don’t add gamification for gamification’s sake If your app, website, Learning Management System or other product, service, shop, or other isn’t suited to gamification, don’t try to cram it in there. A funeral services website will be an absolute laughing stock - not to mention incredibly offensive - if it awards users with points and badges for navigating around, placing orders, or leaving reviews! Do align gamification to objectives It’s highly unlikely that adding gamification to your Learning Management System or other platform willy-nilly will actually achieve what you want it to. To get the results you want, you’ll need to align the gamification to your objectives. So think carefully about what behavioural outcome you want to encourage in your learners or users. If you want them to keep coming back, logging on, loading up the app, shopping in your store, etc, then give them points or badges when they come back or buy something else. By rewarding their return behaviour, they’ll be more likely to come back again and again because they associate your product or service with a happy, accomplished feeling. Don’t use the wrong gamification features A leaderboard of Viagra.com’s top buyers will not go down well - yet a points-based system, which is anonymous and offers real-world rewards (1,000 points gives you a free packet) will work. Similarly, a fitness app which awards badges to you and your friends, but which doesn’t show the top achievers on a leaderboard, won’t be engaging or motivating. Do shake things up (sometimes) If users know exactly how many points they’ll get for each activity, which badges are on offer, and so on, things will soon get stale. Shaking things up by offering sporadic bonus points, new badges, or flash sales - whereby their points buy a lot more for a short time - will keep things fresh and engaging. Users will never know when these things will happen, and the unpredictability can be exciting. Don’t give up If you think your website, LMS, etc is perfect for gamification but you aren’t seeing any positive benefits yet, persevere. Of course the leaderboard will look sparse at first and people won’t be all that motivated to reach the top. But here’s where flash points sales and bonus badges can work to generate initial excitement around the LMS or other platform. Do give up "But you just told me not to give up…!" Sorry, but if you feel you’ve given it your best shot, it may be that gamification just isn’t suited to your organisation, product or service. In this case, we’re afraid that gamification will be more of a hindrance than a help. However, before you strip gamification from your offerings, have another look at your strategy. Could it be the kinds of gamification you’ve implemented aren’t suited to your website, LMS, store, etc? Perhaps you’ve gone about things the wrong way and have just lumped gamification on top of your pre-existing service? To fully take advantage of the engagement and motivation that gamification generates, you need to fully integrate it into whatever you’re offering. Whether you’re trying to gamify a supermarket, an app, an LMS or a business, there are certain things you’ll need to consider to truly create an effective union. Click the button below to find out more about how to align gamification to your business’s strategy!    The post 6 Gamification Dos and Don’ts appeared first on Growth Engineering.

‘Gamification’ is more than just the latest buzz word in the Learning and Development world. It’s an incredible engagement-boosting tool that can be used to achieve spectacular organisational changes and overcome a whole host of challenges. But there’s a catch (isn’t there always!?): not all gamification is created equal. If you don’t take the time to strategically align gamification to your business goals, you’ll become marooned in the hostile land of ‘well, it was a nice idea, anyway…’ Sometimes, in their excitement, newbies are guilty of cramming every possible gamification feature into every possible aspect of their business, training, marketing, and so on. They may not be quite sure what gaming mechanic - badges, points, leaderboards, levels, and so on - is suitable for which area, so they just chuck everything into the mix together. Now, it’s great to show enthusiasm, but you don’t want badges coming out the wazoo! Without a strategy behind gamification, you’ll end up in a swamp of muddled points which ultimately doesn’t do anything to move the business forward or achieve any of the fabulous outcomes you expected from gamification. All this can give gamification a pretty bad reputation. If you went full-out with your gamification plan, expecting the best, but found it really didn’t work - who or what do you blame? Yourself, for adding gaming mechanics where they don’t belong and without a strategy, or the concept of gamification itself for not doing what it is ‘supposed’ to do? Unfortunately, too often if a gamified plan doesn’t work, it’s the gamification itself that gets the brunt of the complaints. But, as the old saying goes, a bad workman blames his tools… Luckily, we know a fair bit about what is involved in implementing gamification in an organisation - and it’s not as simple as throwing badges at employees! Essentially, you’ll want to figure out what your business objectives are, select the kinds of gamification features which will work in each instance, and then strategically bring gamification into the mix. Want to find out more? Download our free white paper below to discover: What exactly gamification is What business objectives gamification can help with How to launch your gamification strategy and more!  The post Is gamification at fault? A bad workman blames his tools… appeared first on Growth Engineering.

When speaking to potential clients, we often hear a variation of the following claim: ‘Our audience is young. They’re tech-savvy. They need gamification. It’s a perfect fit for our audience.’ This never fails to trigger my curiosity: do they realise why gamification works in learning? Are they receptive to the idea that gamification can be an effective motivator for those who are knee-high to a grasshopper and those who have been there, done that and bought all the t-shirts? Picture the brain as a big, soft, lovely, pink sponge. As we move through the world it soaks up a huge amount of information. Unlike a typical sponge, however, it filters the information into various channels by chunking the information into relevant categories. This frees up space and focus for us to learn new things. When faced with a new learning challenge, we turn fresh information (or brain data, if you like), over in our head and try to attach it to one of our existing mental frameworks. It’s like a giant jigsaw puzzle. Our brain starts with the corners and works its way inwards, transforming newly grasped patterns into comprehensible chunks of knowledge. Whilst I’m sure that you, dear reader, already have mighty mental capacity, I still thought you might be interested to hear the three quickest ways by which your brain absorbs new information. Through experience. Like when you learn that standing on a nail hurts, because you just stood on a nail. Through stories. Jurassic Park has taught us that it’s probably not a good idea to create a wildlife park full of living, breathing dinosaurs. Through games. A good game is like an interactive story. It’s a low-stakes way of learning by experience and it can be super effective. In the world of games, you can make mistakes, test boundaries and try out new strategies. It’s like a play-pen for your soft, spongey brain. They are a break from a reality, but they still contain patterns of information that link to the real world. They may be an abstraction, but this, if anything, just makes it easy for our brains to absorb the information that they contain. Games are puzzles for our brains to solve. As with every other aspect of our lives, we manage to get ahead once we have learned the pattern of the game and have comprehended the concepts within it so thoroughly that they become second nature. Progress in the game is usually the result of us chunking away information (for instance: that putting hotels on all of your properties in Monopoly is a good way to get ahead) and accessing this data when needed. You’re aided, of course, by the fact that games provide you with ample opportunities to practise and run different permutations. Fun is all about feeling good, which is, in turn, linked to the release of endorphins into our system. We get this mad rush whenever we master a new task. This is our body rewarding us for learning something new. Fun arises out of the mastery involved in solving a new puzzle. Boredom is the opposite. It’s fun’s evil twin. When we’re bored, our brain is desperately seeking new information to feed the sponge. Like a plant, our brains need regular watering. This partly explains why games are such a great way of learning. But that’s not to say that all games are effective learning tools. For example, if a game is too easy we get bored very quickly. You don’t see too many Chess Grandmasters challenging random adolescents on the street to a break-out game. Likewise, if a game is too deep or challenging, we tend to switch off (which is a more genial way of saying, ‘give up’). It all boils down to this: if you are looking to stimulate learning, a clear sign of failure is that your target audience has found the experience boring. Well pitched games are a great way of learning, regardless of the age of your audience. If you can create a fun learning experience, you will have, in turn, created an effective learning experience. It’s a bit like magic. Now you just need to get your hands on an ‘I Heart Gamification’ t-shirt and you’re good to go. Unfortunately, we’re all out of t-shirts. Luckily, you are able to download our wildly popular white paper, ‘The Business Case for Gamification’, which contains a treasure trove of stats, facts and case studies about one of our favourite topics!  The post Why YOUR Brain Can’t Get Enough of Gamification: appeared first on Growth Engineering.

Nobody likes to be different or unique. We all just want to be the exact same as our peers, working as one unit to bring food back to the colony and to look after the pupa. Oh, sorry - that’s ants, isn’t it? People aren’t entirely dissimilar to ants. We like to work as a team towards the same goal but, unlike ants, we value our individuality. In this consumerist age, it’s never been easier for us to pursue our individuality and to sculpt the world to our own preferences. We’re now so used to getting our own way that we expect custom-tailored service wherever we go. Your learners are also people and, whether you like it or not, they have the same expectations. If you want to help your learners get the most out of your learning content, you need to make it about them. Be Flexible With so many custom options available in the world and only a limited time to avail of them, it doesn’t take long for your schedule to fill up. Your learners have the same problem and you can’t expect them to be in the mood for training all of the time. A fully online learning solution lets you hand that responsibility over to the learners themselves. This means that they aren’t tied down to a specific time and place - they can access their learning material from the office or, if they prefer, they can take their training on a Sunday morning in their undies with a bowl of corn flakes. Custom Journeys With some instructional design knowhow (and the right authoring tool), you can craft a piece of learning content that really speaks to the learner. To do this effectively, you need to create a journey that the learner can identify with and tell a story that they can relate to. Your aim, as a learning professional is to highlight the learning objective and deliver it to the learner, but your strategy should be more learner-centric. The key with these journeys is to take every opportunity to put the learner at the centre of the action. With a game-based eLearning template, your options increase even further. Here you can build so much more into the content than mere facts, figures and learning objectives. With the Genie Content Authoring Tool, for example, you have the freedom to create badges that celebrate your learners’ successes in a meaningful way. The Discovery Method But you want to do more than just build eLearning that your learners can identify with. At Growth Engineering, we’ve developed a learning methodology that can suck them into the eLearning like Jeff Bridges in Tron! We call it the Discovery Method and it’s a way of tailoring the journey for the learner. Instead of asking the learners to complete a multiple choice question, or to read a hypothetical scenario, the Discovery Method asks them to examine their past and to think of how they dealt with similar situations. This taps in to a whole repository of learning material - the learner’s own experience - and it helps to create a bridge between that and the learning objective. This functionality can also be used to recall their responses in the learning itself. Here, you can do fun things like addressing the learner by name or referring to their job title - if the learner can type it, you can substitute it within the content. With the challenge of creating effective eLearning, your success depends on how well you engage your learners. If you give them an experience they can relate to, there’s a much better chance that the learning will stick. The next time you’re planning an eLearning project, don’t just give the learners an eLearning unit - give them their own personal learning journey! If you want to wield the power of the Discovery Method, and captivate your learners with exciting game-based eLearning units, why not give Genie a spin? Start your free demo today by clicking the lamp!  The post Make It Personal And Engage Your Learners appeared first on Growth Engineering.

Learning technology is surging forward at an impressive rate, offering more and more opportunities to roll out truly effective training programs. One such innovation is the eLearning game template - a simple way to create engaging learning journeys. Could these be the future of online learning? Engagement is the most important element when it comes to delivering a successful learning campaign. If the learners aren’t engaged with the training, it will have minimal effect, if any at all. Employee engagement has always been a big concern for organisations. Although engagement levels have been gradually improving, recent studies have shown that the majority of employees are disengaged. The Rise of the Millennials Out of the switched-off masses, the largest demographic is made of millennials. This is a significant issue already, but it’s projected that these millennials will make up 75% of the entire workforce by 2025. If they can’t be engaged in time, we’re all surely doomed to a zombie learner apocalypse! By some lucky coincidence, this very same demographic accounts for the largest share of the gaming industry. 30% of gamers are aged between 18-35 and they’ve grown up speaking the language of games. If L&D professionals want to engage the leaders of the future, they need to adopt the same vocabulary. A step towards gamification Creating a game-based learning solution will help you communicate with game-savvy learners, but on its own, that’s hardly a good enough reason to invest in it. The fact of the matter is that gamification is a proven method of engaging people and getting the results you need. Our own clients have reported massive overnight surges in engagement simply by applying gamification to their learning platforms. Game-based eLearning templates can be a good foot-in-the-door for those looking to implement gamification in their training. Aside from creating a learning unit that reflects the gaming culture the learners are used to, you are also encouraging behaviours that can ultimately change your organisational culture. By placing the learning in the framework of a game, the material feels more like a challenge they need to overcome, rather than a necessary evil. The number one element that gamers look for is an interesting story or premise. If you go a step further and incorporate some good storytelling, you can increase the engagement by getting the learner emotionally involved in the process. If you’re looking for an exciting and flexible alternative to humdrum, click-through slideshows, Genie is a game-based content authoring tool that’s perfect for L&D departments of any size. Give it a spin for yourself on unleashthegenie.com - just give the lamp a rub!  The post Are game templates the future of eLearning? appeared first on Growth Engineering.

Can you hear that? Sounds like a drumroll… That must mean only one thing! That’s right, we’ve filled up another spot in our ever-growing awards cabinet! This time we’ve made an appearance in Training Industry’s Top Learning Portals Companies Watch List. That’s quite the mouthful, but it basically means that they consider us to be one of the best companies in the world to turn to when you need a learning portal. Of course, this is down to all the blood, sweat and tears we’ve poured into our gamified, social Academy Learning Management System. Our development team constantly works its socks off to make sure it’s the most engaging learning platform you’ll find in this end of the Milky Way! Training Industry spotlights the latest news, articles, case studies and best practices within the training industry. They’re constantly monitoring the training marketplace for the best providers and services to highlight in their various Watch Lists. Here’s what the Learning Portal judges were looking for: New and innovative service Unique approach to delivering learning solutions Commitment to improving learning through technology Quality of clients Our Managing Director Juliette Denny has been bouncing around the office all day. We managed to talk her down from the ceiling briefly so that she could share a few words: "We couldn’t be happier to make this list! It’s simply awesome that our company is making such a massive impact on the world stage. We’re living up to our name and growing quickly as a company at the moment, so we’re looking forward to countless bigger and better things to come." If you’d like to find out what the Training Industry judges saw in our Academy LMS, why not take a free tour for yourself?  The post Big Training Industry Watch List announcement! appeared first on Growth Engineering.

We’re feeling extra generous today, so we’ve got a special treat for you. We’re giving you not just one, but TWO brand new case studies! You can’t say we’re not people pleasers! These two case studies will give you valuable insight into how our clients are putting our gamified, social Academy LMS to great use. You’ll also get a sneak peek at some of the amazing ROI stats they’re getting out of their programmes. Holcim Australia Sales Academy We might be based in the UK, but there are few places around the globe that we can’t reach! Despite being based on opposite ends of the planet, Holcim got in touch with us to help them with their training needs. They knew they could trust us because of the bumper work we had already done with their UK sister company, Aggregate Industries (you can read their case study here). Holcim’s case study is an excellent example of how our platform can be used to organise a truly blended learning solution. You can read about the robust five-stage learning programme each of their learners goes through. It’s also a great case study of the value of our sales training content, all accredited by the Institute of Sales and Marketing Management. Find out how motivated their learners have become by the prospect of earning real, internationally recognised qualifications! Check out the Holcim Australia Sales Academy case study here! GAME Learning Zone GAME’s case study is a fantastic example of how to engage your learners. Seriously, these learners are so engaged they’re willingly visiting the platform on their days off! Read all about the staggering number of learner logins and the wealth of content that each user is completing on the platform. We’ve even captured a few of the hundreds of comments they’ve been leaving all over their platform to show you exactly which Academy features they’re loving the most! Check out the GAME Learning Zone case study here! Bet you’re eager to find out how our Academy LMS could work for you! Why not sign up for a free tour today?  The post Two brand new case studies: Holcim Australia and GAME Retail! appeared first on Growth Engineering.

We’re gonna need a bigger awards cabinet… Just two days after announcing that we’ve been listed on Training Industry’s Top Learning Portal Companies Watch List, we’re now absolutely over the moon about being shortlisted in THREE categories at this year’s Training Journal Awards! We’re reaching dangerous levels of excitement here in the office, as our diaries are filling up quickly with swanky awards shindigs. It’s always nice to hear that other people think our gamified, social Academy LMS is as great as we know it is. But we can’t take all the credit, because it’s only through the fantastic partnerships we build with our clients that we create really magical learning programmes. Our Managing Director Juliette Denny hasn’t stopped dancing since she heard the news. We caught her while she was in the middle of the waltz to grab a few words: "This just proves that we’re working with some of the biggest rock stars around! It’s awesome to be shortlisted alongside some of the most recognisable companies in the world. We’re going for gold in the next stage of the competition, and we’ll definitely be giving everything we’ve got to win!" So what have we been shortlisted for this time? TD Academy TD Academy was a joint effort, built by Growth Engineering, Hewlett-Packard and Azlan, the Enterprise Division of Tech Data Corporation. It’s been used to train Azlan’s 4,000 sales partners, spread all across Europe. These guys are such superstars that they’ve been shortlisted in TWO categories at the Training Journal Awards - ‘Best Sales Programme’ and ‘Best Use of Technology in Learning’. And they’re in good company, as they’re shortlisted alongside some big names, including Toshiba and British Telecom. The main goal of Azlan’s programme was to outgrow the market and all competition. Sounds easy enough, right? Well despite setting such an ambitious target, since launching in 2013, the partners who are making the most use of TD Academy are now outperforming the rest of the market by a whopping 70% year-on-year growth. Read more about TD Academy and its incredible ROI figures in this case study. Steinhoff Learning Store Steinhoff Learning Store has been built by Growth Engineering and Steinhoff UK Retail, and it’s shortlisted in the ‘Best Training Partnership’ category. It’s used to train the 2,300 salespeople across Steinhoff’s UK businesses - Bensons for Beds, Harvey’s and Cargo. We’ve worked very closely with Steinhoff to fully brand and customise their learning platform so that it’s just right. But what sorts of results has it achieved? Well since launching, Steinhoff’s three UK businesses have increased sales revenue, reduced staff turnover, and cut down the time it takes to train new starters by a third. No-one can grumble at that! Read more about Steinhoff Learning Store and its awesome ROI figures in this case study. What next? We’ve got to fight our case in front of judges over the next couple of months, and then on November 25 we’ll be off to The Brewery in London for a glitzy gala dinner to find out who’s won! You can sure we’ll be in it to win it! If you’d like to see how our Academy LMS could deliver results for you, why not sign up for a free tour today?  The post We’ve been shortlisted for THREE Training Journal Awards! appeared first on Growth Engineering.

The internet has changed almost every facet of our lives. There isn’t a whole heap of activities that remain untouched - Monopoly can be played online; shopping can be done solely online; jobs are found online; and even dating happens online these days! It is not surprising, then, that education has also been impacted on by the internet. Gone are the days when employees had to travel hundreds of miles to a training centre in order to learn the skills their jobs require. Now, they can simply open up their laptops, log on to their Learning Management System and take training - all from the comfort of their office, home, or public transportation. It seems too good to be true - and for some, it will be. eLearning might not necessarily be suited to every employee, every organisation or every situation. Here are the pros and cons of online learning to help you see if eLearning is right for you: Pro: easily accessible Employees can log on to their LMS anytime, anywhere, anyhow. All they need is an internet connection and the means by which to take eLearning (a desktop computer, laptop, tablet or even a mobile phone). Con: requires technical skills Now, learners don’t have to know how to code, but they will need to understand the very basics of using computers and the internet, and basic trouble shooting. For instance, how to take a screenshot when submitting a bug report, or how to use a mouse/trackpad to drag and drop quiz answers within a time limit. Some more sophisticated software might require a steeper learning curve over and above what employees might feel comfortable with, but LMS creators like yours truly realise not everyone will have experienced using these kinds of systems before - that’s why we offer full Admin training and advice! Pro: can be used to supplement classroom training Going for an online learning option doesn’t mean you’re never allowed to see your learners in person! A ‘blended’ learning approach can be very useful as it can ensure a deeper level of understanding is achieved. Employees can take training online under their own steam, then come to a training workshop event fully armed with the knowledge they will then be discussing. This can really help to cement the training more deeply. Con: face-to-face training will always be costly You might be thinking about moving your training online because of the costs involved in classroom-based training. There’s no denying that it’s expensive to put employees through face-to-face training, and we’re not just talking about paying a tutor and booking a venue. You’ve also got to think about the costs involved in taking employees away from their desks for a day or two, travel expenses, food and drink costs, and any other costs that might crop up. Unfortunately, blended learning is associated with similar costs. After saving money using online learning, you’ll still have to spend the cash to bring your employees together. However, there’s no denying that blended learning is a cheaper, more effective option than solely classroom-based training - the amount of time spent away from the desk is reduced, fewer workshops are required, and information is reinforced in learners’ minds more thoroughly. Pro: no waiting around Employees who wish to take training won’t have to wait around for the next training event or sign up months in advance. Instead they can simply express their desire to undertake the eLearning, log on to their LMS, access the content and go for it. This results in a workforce which is much more skilled and ready to take on challenges. It also means that learners can progress through training at the own speed - so, for instance, a part-time worker can still take advantage of the training, but take their time over it. Compare this to a part-time worker having to attend the same training course as a full-time worker and you can see the benefits. Con: dragging it out Although employees being able to take training as and when needed is a huge benefit, it’s not without its problems. For instance, some employees might not be as dedicated to their eLearning as others - meaning that while most employees have completed all the required work and passed their course, some are lagging behind. It can then be difficult to motivate them to carry on and pick up the pace. This last point highlights the importance of securing learner buy-in. Without learners’ dedication and engagement, you can’t be certain they will complete their training in the timeframe you hoped for. There are ways to overcome this issue, though - we make sure learners are engaged with their training through the use of gamification (badges, points, levels, leaderboards) to make online learning more fun. Check out how we do this below!  The post The Pros and Cons of Online Learning (is it right for you?) appeared first on Growth Engineering.

A lot of people think that work and fun are two separate things, but at Growth Engineering, we know different. Fun makes people happy, happiness creates engagement and engagement is the fuel that boosts productivity and lets your business grow. In essence, we don’t think that fun and work are distinct from each other - we KNOW that a little bit of fun can make a huge difference to your work. Don’t just take our word for it - we’ve done the research and we’ve put this video together, just for you, to show you why happiness at work is so important. As we’ve said, we’re advocates of enjoyment in the workplace - you could say that we believe it’s a FUNdamental part of our values (sorry). If you’re wondering how to engage your team, your learning and development is the best place to start. If you have a learning management system, it’s likely to be one of the few platforms that you have to reach out to all of your employees. If that’s the case, it’s hugely important that this platform embraces your company’s values in every way but this will count for nothing if you can’t engage your learners. Check out this article to find out more about the importance of engagement in your online learning. You don’t need a bunch of statistics to know that everything just feels easier when you’re happy. When you’re up against the clock with deadlines, the last thing you need is an attack of glumness. Unhappiness is like a thick, gluey mess clogging up the gears of your business. Not to worry. If you want to keep your people shiny and happy like an R.E.M. song try our 5 tips to workplace mirth and turn your productivity up to eleven! Finally, if all of this talk of engagement and productivity has left you gasping for more, here are 5 great TED Talks that explore the subject of happiness from all angles. At Growth Engineering, we want to help you engage your people and turn them into superstars. If you want to know how we do it, check out our Archives of Awesome to choose from our massive library of white papers!  The post Happiness creates Engagement (Video) appeared first on Growth Engineering.

What a month for awards this is turning out to be! Last week we announced that we’ve been listed on Training Industry’s Top Learning Portal Companies Watch List, and that we’ve been shortlisted for three Training Journal Awards. Well it seems we just can’t help but storm the awards scene, because today we’ve been shortlisted for three e-Learning Awards! But what are these e-Learning Awards? Well, they were established in 2005 to recognise and celebrate e-learning excellence, and have since evolved into one of the most celebrated, independently judged awards schemes within the sector. This year attracted more entries than ever, and a huge panel of 35 judges had to whittle down more than 400 entries to a shortlist of just 145. So we’re extra proud of having beaten off the competition to reach these lists! Here’s what we’re in the running for: Growth Engineering That’s right, we’re in the running ourselves! We’re one of just six organisations to make the shortlist for ‘e-learning age Outstanding Learning Organisation’. We’re actually the reigning champs in this category since we won it last year, so we’re absolutely thrilled to make the shortlist once again! This year’s entry focused on our unprecedented growth as a company, the new features we’ve added to our gamified, social Academy Learning Management System (such as the Performance Centre), and the launch of our game-based content authoring tool Genie. Genie Speaking of Genie, it’s also up for an award and has been shortlisted in the ‘Most Innovative New Learning Product’ category. Genie’s template system lets you easily build game-based learning projects by slotting in your assets and questions. It’s also perfect for collaborating with your team, letting your work together to produce learning content. Though Genie has only recently been released to consumers, our Academy LMS clients have already been using it to deliver impressive ROI! GAME Learning Zone Built by Growth Engineering and GAME Retail Ltd, GAME Learning Zone has been shortlisted in the ‘Best Learning Management System Implementation’ category. Though it only launched in April 2015, it’s already delivering made an impact on GAME’s sales figures. Their learners have also shown enormous levels of engagement with the platform and its social features. They’re actually using the platform as a social network so that they can communicate and share with their colleagues nationwide. Chloe clearly loves GAME Learning Zone’s social features! If you fancy finding out more about GAME Learning Zone, check out its brand new case study. Interested in finding out more about why we keep winning awards? Why not take a free tour of our Academy LMS?  The post We’ve been shortlisted for THREE e-Learning Awards! appeared first on Growth Engineering.

If you’ve read any of our articles on gamification, you’ll more than likely have come across the term ‘Game Mechanics’. Now, we’re not talking about a car mechanic simulator here - Game mechanics are the tools that bring gamification to life. To help you get your head around the idea of game mechanics, we’ve pulled together some of our previous articles. We hope that, by the time you reach the end of this list, you’ll be able to win Mastermind with game mechanics as your specialist subject! Before you get stuck in, it’s worth mentioning that most of these articles include links at the end to our extensive library of white papers. If bitesize blogs don’t satisfy your appetite, then our Archives of Awesome should serve as a full-course banquet! Anyway, on with the show! POINTS Any game you can think of, from tennis to Tetris, will use points to decide the best player. This game mechanic has become a huge part of the real world with things like frequent flier points and store reward cards. In both of those cases, more points are awarded to those who engage with the initiative the most. On the Academy LMS, points can be assigned to different pieces of content. For example, if a certain test is particularly challenging or important, it would have a higher points value. This is a really simple way to engage your learners and to spark behaviour change. Find out more: Why Points Motivate Us To Change Our Behaviour Gamification Is Not Just About Points!  BADGES Remember when you won that medal for acing the egg and spoon race at the school sports day? It feels great to win something, but it’s even better to have a token of your victory - something that you can show off to your peers so they know that you are a winner! Virtual badge cabinets have become a standard feature of most video games and they’ve even been used by non-game businesses like Foursquare and Samsung to engage their users. Using badges and achievements on a learning management system is a great way to award your learners and to satisfy their natural desire for recognition. Find out more: The Psychology Of Badges And Motivation 5 Reasons Badges Motivate Your Staff! LEADERBOARDS There’s a huge difference between being good at something and being the best. We might not like to admit it, but we all love a bit of competition. As soon as you show everybody where they rank against each other, a curious thing happens - their engagement levels go through the roof! We have incorporated leaderboards into various areas of both the Academy LMS and Genie, our game-based authoring tool. They show off who has earned the most badges or points, who contributes the most to discussion boards and who has been most active in building game based eLearning units. Find out more here: How Leaderboards Create Excitement On Your LMS! Gamification: Is Competition Engaging Or Demotivating? PROGRESS BARS   Finally, progress bars are everywhere, from your social profile to your bank statement. This visual cue does two things: it shows you how far you have come in a particular task and it adds an element of motivation. These unassuming creatures exploit our compulsion to complete the incomplete - that itch we simply have to scratch when we see a puzzle that’s missing a piece. This game mechanic is particularly useful when it comes to online training. It gives the learner much more visibility over their professional development and it spurs them on to complete more content, earn more points and badges, and of course, reach the top of the leaderboard! Find out more: The History Of The Humble Progress Bar  If you want to know more about how gamification can make a difference to your business, download our white paper by clicking the button below!  The post How to boost learner engagement using game mechanics appeared first on Growth Engineering.