How the Austin Hackathon Turned into Gamified Courses by Cole Leslie

“Design aspects such as having a consistent structure, implementing content driven games, fostering social learning, and applying immersive media techniques proved to be pillars for the course to stand on.”

In November 2014, Certification Game held a hackathon with the intent of finding the best course design methodology for immersive and gamified eLearning. Participants came up with some very intelligent ideas that were valuable in the design process. Nearly as valuable was the participants’ collaborative brainstorming that identified general likes and dislikes in eLearning.

After combining the formal ideas with the brainstormed best practices, Certification Game identified key elements of engaging eLearning that would be the pillars for a gamified course design. Current industry trends, as well as tried and true methods, affirmed these pillars. The development team, which includes two veteran instructional designers and an experienced game developer, was able to implement the design pillars in our first course. Here’s the story: I hope it will be useful to others going down a similar path.

It became evident that there are ways to promote engagement with process and structure elements that are completely independent from the content. Some of the best practices for structure and process we have identified and implemented are:

Creating short, manageable pieces of learning sets up learner engagement. Grouping learning objectives and inserting mini-games every few minutes facilitates sectioning the course. Because they are content-driven and serve to review the just-completed content, mini-games are a great place for a learner to pause or resume a course. Templates gave critical structure to the course, ensuring consistency in content delivery. For example, templates included set-up and review slides, as well as tutorials.Good editing enhances the flow of the course, and removes distractions and errors. Quality assurance and beta testing help make sure everything is edited properly.

The concept of learning games, sometimes called game-based learning, is not to be confused with gamification. Gamification is a huge buzzword in the industry right now, and for good reason. When implemented properly, gamification can drive engagement by effectively using extrinsic motivators. Learning games are games in the traditional sense, and have the learning objectives of the course integrated within the gameplay. Learning games can also be designed to simulate the real-world environment that the learner is preparing to enter.

The core of Certification Game’s eLearning courses are original, content-driven games, but the courses will use both learning games and gamification.

Leaving gamification strategies aside, I’d like to highlight two lesser known concepts and implementation strategies for learning games that emerged as design pillars: simulations and mini-games.

Consider how NASA, the military, and commercial airplane pilots train for the high stress environments in which they work. They use high powered simulations. I cite those three partially because the organizations are well-known, people can immediately picture them, and the way they use simulations is familiar to many.

Simulations are useful in many different situations. They can be as informal as rehearsing a speech in the mirror, or playing out a scenario with colleagues.

Simulation games can do more than just provide an environment for making choices. Incorporating game dynamics and game mechanics that let the learner practice broader business skills, and using content directly from the learning objectives, provides a trifecta of learning happening simultaneously: making the choices that they will need to make in real-world situations, reinforcing broader business skills, and reviewing the specific content.

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