111 Playing the Game: Getting Leaders and Learners to Go for Gamification
10:45 AM - 11:45 AM Tuesday, March 26
Salon 17
You know that making your online training more interactive could produce tremendous results. But maybe your company is very conservative, maybe a previous gamified training went horribly wrong, or maybe you’re just not sure how to make existing material more engaging. How can you get the leaders and learners at your organization to trust you to turn training content into meaningful game-like experiences?
This session will equip you with resources you can implement immediately to bring effective gamified training to your audience. You will get inside the mind of your audience by considering how unstated goals and assumptions might be blocking their ability to accept gamification strategies. You’ll discover how to grab your stakeholders’ attention by linking gamified training methods involving feedback, challenges, and interactivity to business improvement. This approach guides expectations toward learning outcomes and results, opening the door to 10 creative learning opportunities that promote engagement, motivation, learning, and problem-solving. Regardless of your authoring tools, you can design countless variations of these methods to customize effective game-based instruction.
In this session, you will learn:
- How to recognize and address your audience’s current expectations about gamification
- What game-like concepts most impact business results
- About 10 computer-based techniques to improve learners’ satisfaction: chat, choices, contests, evaluation, graphic text, interviews, simulations, stories, videos, and writing
- How to achieve real-world learning by applying game thinking to your design process
Audience:
Designers, developers, and managers
Technology discussed in this session:
Jabber and other chat apps; Articulate Storyline, Adobe Captivate, and other eLearning tools; Adobe PowerPoint and Illustrator; GoAnimate and VideoScribe; LMSs
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Michelle Monroe
Training Developer
Baker Donelson
Michelle Monroe, a training developer at Baker Donelson, is an advocate for experiential learning with an MEd and more than 15 years of experience. As a trainer and designer, she has worked with subject matter experts from sole proprietors to Fortune 100 companies, distilling valuable information into meaningful classroom and online solutions. She uses every project to combine an artist’s creativity with pedagogical methods, making subjects engaging and interactive. Her goal is to inspire every potential student to love learning.
311 Best Practices for Implementing Gamification in Learning Programs
2:30 PM - 3:30 PM Tuesday, March 26
Salon 4
Gamification is an important and powerful strategy for influencing and motivating people. Unfortunately, many people think that gamification means just adding a game to their learning program or making a computer or video game. Because of this confusion, combined with a lack of real-life case studies of gamification successfully applied to learning programs, most L&D professionals do not understand how to deconstruct games to effectively drive the learning and behavior they want or need.
Using case studies from real-life programs for organizations such as Brown University, Amazon, Wyndham Properties, and ATB Financial, you’ll learn how and why gamification works, in what context it is most effective, and what the limits are to this approach of employee engagement in corporate learning and talent development. Through hands-on application combined with anecdotal and empirical data, you will experience the good, the bad, and the ugly of gamification strategy design.
In this session, you will learn:
- How to create a fun, collaborative gamification experience to achieve business objectives
- How gamification tackles challenging problems and captures measurement, behavior analysis, and engagement in ways that can provide a real-time understanding of performance
- How to use gamification mechanics and motivators to generate needed change and enable your organization to meet your business or learning objectives
- How to map a practical method for approaching gamification in your organization
Audience:
Designers, managers, and senior leaders (directors, VP, CLO, executive, etc.)
Technology discussed in this session:
Simulations, immersive games, and gamification
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Monica Cornetti
President
Sententia
Unlike other gamification practitioners, speakers, and consultants, Monica Cornetti has focused intensively on the latest immersive engagement techniques and the latest research in the adult education, corporate training, and talent development fields. A gamification speaker and designer, Monica was recognized as #1 in the Most Influential Women in Gamification who have created a legitimate impact in the gamification industry. At the intersection of learning and play, she is leading a team of trusted, cutting-edge curriculum designers and developers to improve the performance of individuals and organizations across the globe.
615 BYOD: Game Changer: Playing Your Way Through Niche or Dry Content
1:00 PM - 2:00 PM Wednesday, March 27
Salon 2
Your employees did the compliance training, the required certification, the new module, etc., but a week later you realize that they retained nothing. They were watching Netflix on their other screen, or they only remembered the content long enough to take the quiz at the end. Companies often overlook content that begs to be gamified—the very niche, complex, or boring content. Your new-hire orientations, compliance training, required or annual certifications that your employees are completing because they have to, are the exact trainings that require your game design investment to ensure the content isn’t glossed over—and that your employees actually learn and retain the content and skills they need to succeed at work.
In this session, you’ll learn how a three-day PowerPoint lecture series for new-hire orientation was revitalized by building a two-day immersive board game, leaving lasting impact on its learners and making waves in the L&D field. You’ll learn all the game elements that you need to take niche or dry content and turn it into engaging in-person or online games that your employees will talk about for months. You’ll walk away with ways to break major functions of your organization into a game that feels both approachable and grounded in reality. Design an unforgettable experience that will promote your learning objectives and have sustainable impact.
In this session, you will learn:
- Why learning games are so effective for making niche or boring content accessible and engaging
- How to select the right programs for your game design investment
- How to choose and use the best game components, mechanics, and dynamics to drive successful gamified learning experiences
- How to build an effective game with limited resources at your disposal
Audience:
Designers, developers, and managers
Technology required:
Smartphone, tablet, or laptop with browser and internet connection
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Marci Morford
Learning Strategist
MarSea Consulting
Marci Morford is a learning strategist and leads MarSea Consulting, which builds custom training for companies that have outgrown their startup phase and are ready for streamlined, scalable, efficient training. She develops programs based on business goals, with laser focus on the ROI that growing companies require. Marci is also the director of programs of ATD Puget Sound, where she is currently overhauling traditional monthly lectures into a series of learning games, workshops, and parties. Marci writes for TD Magazine and won DemoFest at DevLearn 2017 (Best of Show - Non-Vendor) with the immersive, blended-learning onboarding game she developed for a global health non-profit.
904 Best Practices for Developing, Implementing, and Supporting Serious Games
8:30 AM - 9:30 AM Thursday, March 28
Salon 4
Many people in the eLearning field are trying to use gamification and serious games to spark employee engagement and drive learning retention. Everyone is working to make the best serious game that will enhance the learning objectives and retain learning. The biggest setbacks for some of these serious games and gamified learning experiences have been little to no planning, tough-to-pinpoint metrics, little to no implementation strategy, and insufficient or nonexistent post-deployment support.
There are many serious games that are built for companies and for internal use within the eLearning industry. This session will discuss what makes a serious game a success or a failure. You’ll hear about planning, developing, implementing, and supporting serious games for companies that have never gone down the route of serious games and gamified learning experiences. You’ll also learn the proper steps to take throughout each phase of the project to ensure success, including best practices and pain points you may have to deal with when going down the route of gamification and serious games.
In this session, you will learn:
- Best practices to ensure a successful serious game implementation
- How these serious games are living, breathing things
- Best practices taken by other organizations in regard to phases of the effort
- A framework for how to start thinking about game design as an educator
Audience:
Designers, developers, managers, and senior leaders (directors, VP, CLO, executive, etc.)
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Andrew Hughes
President
Designing Digitally, Inc.
Andrew Hughes is the president of Designing Digitally, Inc. and has over a decade in the strategical planning and development of enterprise custom gamified learning solutions for government and Fortune 500 clients. Andrew is also a professor at the University of Cincinnati and prior to this was a contractor for the US Department of Education, Ohio Board of Regents, and General Electric. Andrew oversees a team of 30 employees and is focused on ensuring the clients’ challenges are met with engaging, educational, and entertaining learning experiences.