corporate strategy
is a bit of an afterthought. At Amuzo the fun comes fi rst. I asked Mike Hawkyard, Amuzo’s CEO and founder how they start the process.
This is what he said. “As is important for any piece of commercial communication, games are designed to target very specifi c demographics. Not only do we need to know what best motivates them and where and when they would engage with a game like ours, we must also consider the level of diffi culty that appropriately tests their ability to create a craving to play and improve and play some more.” One technique Amuzo recommends is to fl ip the objective. Instead of trying to do something as well as possible, challenge the learner to do it as badly as possible. Remarkably the learning is often the same, and retention much higher. For example, we have all seen Health and Safety e-learning courses that ask the learner to explore a virtual work environment, tapping on any safety hazards they can identify – fi re doors propped open, trip hazards, and so on. Put that into the hands of Amuzo though and what you get is a game. For the sake of this exercise let’s call it ‘Kill Bill’, where the objective is to cause as much damage as possible to poor Bill on his fi rst day at work by – well actually by doing exactly the same as in the fi rst version – identifying safety hazards that you can expose Bill to. Create a trip hazard, leave open a fi ling cabinet drawer or a waste paper basket
next to a fi re hazard etc. As you score points, Bill’s state of health deteriorates. The same learning outcomes, you learn about the safety hazards at work, but which would you rather play/study? Which one would you be more inclined to revisit to see if you can beat your previous score or move up the leaderboard? Of course that example also illustrates one of the diffi culties in introducing games in a corporate environment. Would your H&S executives sanction a course that teaches staff how to maim and kill other members of staff? Probably not!
So what is possible? At one end of the spectrum, it is increasingly common to see end-of-course tests presented in quiz format. This is nothing new. Those who have been in digital learning as long as I have will recall many examples of this approach from 20 years back. Jeopardy and Who Wants to be a Millionaire seem to be favourites, and there are plenty of templates out there to make this an easy approach to adopt. These can certainly add a bit of fun to an e-learning module and can be effective in the right context, but it is still just a quiz.
Corporate learning is not primarily about entertainment, so how do we introduce that spirit of fun into e-learning without it becoming a distraction rather than an asset?
At the other end, ‘Learning Games’ do not have to be fully immersive 3D environments with the production standards and budgets of Call of Duty. We believe there is a fertile middle ground, where the best principles of engagement from the world of casual gaming can be applied in a way that complements and enhances the learning experience without breaking the budget. Here are a few of the principles that underlie Amuzo’s approach to game design. All have relevance to learning:
Know your audience Challenge the learner, make them think Set achievable goals/challenges Allow the user to be smart Introduce skills individually, over time Ensure skills previously learnt are used again Try and die, then try again Reward the player time after time . . . and then some more Leave them wanting more.
In the meantime, in our fi rst few months working with Amuzo, we have already won some large, innovative projects and created our own fi rst pilot ‘snackable’ game for smart devices. We hope these will prove to be fun to play. They are certainly proving to be fun to build.
e.learning age september 2015
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