E-learning Through Games
I hear and I forget, I see and I remember, I do and I understand. Confucius. It is a well known notion that doing is the best way of learning. It is not for nothing that experience is considered to be the best teacher. But allowing corporate learners to learn through experience could spell doom for the organization. Hence this is not a feasible option. Games and simulations are an answer to this problem. In a game or a simulation of a working situation, the employee can be put through the same situation and taught ways to handle it without affecting the business right away. Hence this is the best, as well as the safest method to make your employees learn. Also e-learning is ridden with the malady of high drop out rates because of the lack of engaging content in the learning initiative. Games overcome this obstacle by presenting an engaging, interactive, and fun environment, and make it extremely difficult for the learner to leave the game halfway through.
Game based e-learning Little wonder then that game based e-learning has caught on like wild fire among e-learning circuits. Games make the learning experience emotionally rich, compelling, and relevant. By incorporating multidisciplinary, authentic and challenging tasks, games are the best platform that can be provided to learners for developing professional skills.
If the game incorporates such tasks that correspond to the actual workplace scenario, then they are authentic. Memorizing content becomes easier if you are absorbed in the learning process, as compared to listening or reading it. Game based learning nurtures creative and holistic solutions, stimulating commitment and making participants feel quite close to business environment by experimenting with new ideas.
How do games enhance learning? Learning, which inherently involves, lengthy, monotonous and uninteresting tasks, can be made easier by incorporating them in a game or a real life simulation. This does not, in any way, demean the achievements of e-learning, which provides anytime anywhere learning to learners - at a reasonable price. But, it is also important to take care of providing an engaging and rich learning experience along with considering its economical benefits. It also saves the learners from following instructions just for the heck of it, without being absorbed by the concept, which is the major reason for the failure of numerous e-learning initiatives.
E-learning initiatives must incorporate graphics, interaction and skill building challenges to provide a compelling, informative and fun session of learning. A beautifully designed learning structure comprising of interactive exercises that are both relevant to the learning objectives and engaging for the participants. All in all, the e-learning experience must allow the participants to make choices that have a direct impact on the outcome. And this is undoubtedly the strong point of game based e-learning.
Presented here are ways to designing a learning initiative which seamlessly blends learning with interaction and fun.
Decide upon the theme of simulation The simulation theme is one of the most important ingredients of an interactive e-learning session. Valuable issues can be learnt through the simulation or game, wherein participants solve problems and deal with challenges to strut their stuff in the market. The experience gets ingrained in the learners’ mind, thus making them more efficient in dealing with real life situations. Keep the simulation easy to comprehend, and make provision for its collective use by employees. This will also encourage collaboration through collective playing. Make the game interesting by rewarding efficient decisions on the part of learners and making them suffer for the bad ones.
Encourage interaction Interaction and communication is the key to learning. Fellow players encouraging each other can immensely boost learner morale. Using web postings, e-mails or chat rooms to take tips from fellow learners, discuss outcomes or review strategies. Interactive exercises stimulate discussions, like participants like to discuss the after-effects of an important business decision taken during the course of the game. The outcome of such a learning environment has a greater impact on learners than a textbook or conventional classroom teaching can create.
Provide live feedback Live feedback to the learners can be provided through written reviews or expert guidance. Queries could be posted by learners, which can be answered by subject matter experts. E-mails or live chat rooms are the best platforms for encouraging providing feedback. Apart from this interaction with the manager, too should not be under rated as an efficient means to provide feedback.
Incorporate excitement Instead of simply debating upon the effectiveness of e-learning vis a vis classroom based training, it is important to understand that e-learning can be made powerful enough if the engagement in learning can be somehow given a fillip. Power point slides containing learning material do not engage learners because they become monotonous, and do not call for active learner participation. The gaming scenario, on the other hand, harnesses technology to provide a complete fun experience while keeping participants glued to their seats.
Provide for online instruction Make place for incorporating guidance and feedback in the gaming environment, just as it is done in the traditional form of learning. Classify the feedback into general, contextual and expert feedback. General feedback must comprise of short tips, or a debrief, while contextual feedback could contain images and video, and expert feedback could be through online chat rooms. Efficient online instruction comprises of anticipating common issues and incorporating methods for redressal of the uncommon one.
Conclusion While making learning synonymous with gaming is not wise, escalating the fun element in learning could take it a long way.
About the Author
<p>Viswanath Shankar has been managing and maintaining online learning management system for the past decade and a half in tandem with experts in web development services. A storehouse of knowledge about LMS (Learning Management Systems), he is aware of the impact aicc LMS distance learning can have on the academic as well as corporate learning. He has been working in close co-ordination with organizations offering web design services to develop user friendly distance learning programs.</p>
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