Kapp Notes

JULY 21, 2011

When most people think of video games, they think of combat and battle but not all games need to include battles and many corporte games (serious games) avoid combat. So, Daniel Floyd over at The Escapist share in this video clip his thoughts on non-combat gaming and I think a few of the ideas should be incorporated into some corporate or academic serious games.

Games 243

Games Ideas Video Design 243

Kapp Notes

APRIL 25, 2011

What is a game? Famous game board. There have been many different definitions and attempts at defining the term “game” but I think one of the most appropriate definitions for application in an instructional setting was put forth by Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman in their book Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals. The only change I have made is I replaced their word “conflict” for the word “challenge.

Games 243

Games Player Score Gamification 243

Kapp Notes

MAY 23, 2011

Here are some thoughts and ideas related to Albert Bandura’s social learning theory. Bandura’s social learning theory indicates the effectiveness of human social models in influencing another to change behaviors, beliefs or attitudes, as well as social and cognitive functioning. Through processes such as observation, vicarious experience (experience gained by observing another) and social interaction, one can acquire the behaviors or expertise mediated through a human social model.

Learning Theory 240

Learning Theory Theory Social Learning Cognitive 240

Kapp Notes

DECEMBER 14, 2011

Here is a great TED Video that clearly details the ways that video games engage us, transfix us and compel us to action. Tom Chatfield also describes how video games are data collection machines and they are constantly collecting data on players. Imagine what a learner professional can do with all those data points in terms of improving learning and promoting behavioral change.

Video 236

Video Games Brain Player 236

Kapp Notes

NOVEMBER 1, 2011

Yesterday, I spent the entire day with 6th graders. It was wonderful. An alum of our program and a sixth grade science teacher, Anthony Pecora, received his Master’s Degree in 2005 and wanted to try an innovative approach of combining the topics of writing, science and scientific discovery into one activity for his students and he used part of his instructional experience at Bloomsburg to craft the exercise for his students.

RFP 236

RFP Simulations Education Exercise 236

Kapp Notes

MAY 26, 2011

Interesting comment the other day, Dianne asked: Just curious if you make a distinction between gamification and serious games. (I think getting overly wedded to terminology is a distraction from looking at the quality, or lack thereof, of particular games, but do see that the emphasis seems a bit different when people talk about the two “fields.”.).

Gamification 230

Gamification Games Wikipedia Music 230

Kapp Notes

JUNE 20, 2011

ProtonMedia Raises $4.5 Million in Series B Financing Led by Kaplan Ventures. Kaplan EduNeering concurrently forms strategic reseller partnership with ProtonMedia. ProtonMedia announced the successful completion of a $4.5 million Series B venture financing led by Kaplan Ventures. ProtonMedia will use the funds to extend its leadership position within life sciences by further integrating its ProtoSphere virtual collaboration environment with ComplianceWire®, Kaplan EduNeering’s validated cl

Kaplan 228

Kaplan Virtual World Compliance Training Microsoft 228

Kapp Notes

APRIL 13, 2011

Here is a link to the live Corporate Advisory Council (CAC) event. Enjoy! Click here to check out the live streaming event from our alumni and friends of the program. When you get to the front page, select “Spring 2011″ to see today’s presentations.

Streaming 228

Streaming Program 228

Kapp Notes

MARCH 17, 2011

One of the features video games, board games and other types of games have over traditional learning environments is the frequency and intensity of feedback. Feedback in games is almost constant. In a video game the player has real-time feedback on progress toward goal, amount of life or energy left, location, time remaining, how much stuff they have in inventory and even how other players are doing.

Games 224

Games Video Player Delicious 224

Kapp Notes

MAY 11, 2011

Image from the video game Call of Duty showing what the Navy's new Multiplayer game might look like. The military has always been a huge advocate of games for learning. They deal with life and death and are serious about training and have found that games make an impact on learners. So they use all kinds of game-based techniques for learning. If those techniques did not work, I can tell you, the military wouldn’t use them…too much is at stake.

Problem 215

Problem Gamification Player Games 215

Kapp Notes

APRIL 6, 2011

Here are some books that can be read that discuss different elements of “Gamification.&#. Total Engagement: Using Games and Virtual Worlds to Change the Way People Work and Businesses Compete by Byron Reevers and J. Leighton Read. Published by Harvard Business Press. This book primarily focuses on massively multiplayer online role play games (MMORPGs) and is focused toward a business audience.

Gamification 211

Gamification Press Virtual World Games 211

Kapp Notes

MARCH 2, 2011

To many, the difference between a game and play is the introduction of a goal. Sure, you and your friends can casually splash around the pool and swim a few laps but when someone says “I bet I can beat you to the other end of the pool&# suddenly play time is over and a game has been formed. Image from Dragons Lair laserdisc video game published by Cinematronics in 1983.

Games 209

Games Video Player Learning Objects 209

Kapp Notes

JUNE 9, 2011

Once again, hats of to Chris St. John and the group for a wonderful conference at George Mason University. The Innovations in E-Learning Symposium is really a top notch conference, small, intimate but with great attendees and speakers and I really like how both industry old timers (like me) and Ph.D. candidates both get a chance at the podium, good mix of professionals in our field.

Simulations 204

Simulations Resources Innovation Virtual World 204

Kapp Notes

JANUARY 24, 2011

Here is a table with some tools for social learning, short description of the tool, the best use for social learning for the tool and some examples. Web 2.0 Tool. Definition of the tool. Best Use of Tool. Examples. Wiki. A wiki is a self-organizing knowledge web site. A wiki is a discussion. Wiki software allows users to create, edit and link web pages easily.

Social Networks 201

Social Networks Wiki Authoring Tools Social Learning 201

Kapp Notes

JUNE 29, 2011

Abstraction of Concepts and Reality. Vintage SimCity. Imagine trying to duplicate all the complexity of running a major city, creating an amusement park or gearing up for a military assault. These are involved and complicated processes and the backdrops for a variety of engaging and fun games. Games based on this complex subject matter work, not because they include all the complexities, but precisely because they reduce the complexity and use broad generalizations to represent reality.

Games 199

Games Player Quality System 199

Kapp Notes

DECEMBER 5, 2011

Here are two tools that can be used for creating effective and engaging simulations. Let me know of other tools. SimWriter. Screen Capture from SimWriter simulation creation software. What started as a tool for internal simulation development is now a patented authoring tool available to license and use for your own e-learning simulation development.

Simulations 197

Simulations SimWriter Authoring Tools Software 197

Kapp Notes

FEBRUARY 7, 2011

Well, you knew it was coming, one more reason to send out a card. First the gift card companies invent valentines day and then father’s day and now “Say No to PowerPoint&# week which is, I assume, an effort to sell more cards in a time of declining sales. As a Fastcompany short article states: Suffering from PowerPoint fatigue? You’re not alone.

PowerPoint 197

PowerPoint Slides Brain Sales 197

Kapp Notes

JANUARY 25, 2011

I was reading through the May 2008 Harvard Business Review and came across a fascinating article called “The Science of Thinking Smarter&# –a conversation with brain expert John J. Medina. Here are two questions and his responses that I thought were insightful especially when he talked about the convergence of memory and learning and the ability to recall information better when it is recalled in a similar environment in which it was learned.

Brain 195

Brain Virtual World Environment Conversation 195

Kapp Notes

NOVEMBER 28, 2011

A report in the Huffington Post revealed that ” Air Force researchers recently learned that they could cut training time in half by delivering a mild electrical current (two milliamperes of direct current for 30 minutes) to pilot’s brains during training sessions on video simulators.” Ok, so it’s not a big shock but, still learning through electrical stimulation of the brain is an interesting but scary proposition.

Cognitive 194

Cognitive Simulations Brain Library 194

Kapp Notes

MARCH 16, 2011

Working in the space of 3D virtual immersive environments (VIE) is a small, but dedicated group of people who are creating some really wonderful and powerful learning. The other day I had a chance to virtually catch up with Andrew Hughes who is the president of Designing Digitally, Inc. and an instructor at the University of Cincinnati. Andrew is very passionate about creating engaging, educational, and entertaining learning experience through web-based training and simulations.

Conversation 194

Conversation Simulations Virtual World Augmented Reality 194

Kapp Notes

OCTOBER 10, 2011

You do something great in a game, you get rewarded. In fact, you even get rewarded if you do something simple like bump into a gold coin. If you bump into it, you collect the coin and eventually you’ve bumped into or walked through enough gold coins to purchase something. Games provide incentives for doing what they want you to do. The search for gold coins, for example, encourages the player to explore the environment and learn more about the game-space in which they are playing.

Games 192

Games Providers Player Develop 192

Kapp Notes

AUGUST 15, 2011

Hey, I am doing a Web Chat on Wed in anticipation of my presentation at Training Magazine’s Learning 3.0 Conference. If you can join us for the conference, if you can’t join us for the webinar, if you can’t join either don’t worry and audio recording will be available shortly after the webcast. Reminder: Your WebChat is on Wednesday, August 17 at 10AM Pacific / 1PM Eastern.

Google 192

Google Games Webcast Conference 192

Kapp Notes

JUNE 14, 2011

Stories are an important element in instructional games and are critical for fostering higher order thinking skills. But it is not the outcome of the story where the learning occurs, it is through the process of the story unfolding. As the leaner journeys through the story, the decisions that are made, the objects chosen the questions asked or unasked are moments of opportunity for learning.

Case Study 191

Case Study Cognitive Games Alternatives 191

Kapp Notes

MAY 27, 2011

Recently, I posted about Bandura’s Social learning theory , this posting continues the discussion and relates it specifically to instruction involving avatars. Social Learning Theory. Robert Bandura in the late 1970’s articulated the concept of social learning theory as a method in which individuals learn from one another in the context of a social situation through observation.

Learning Theory 190

Learning Theory Theory Social Learning Social 190

Kapp Notes

AUGUST 23, 2011

For a while now, new technologies have been made available to help deliver training in small chunks, little bits of information delivered just when they were needed…just-in-time training. These are great but, they have their limits. I am speaking with more and more people who tell me that employees go through all kinds of training but then they can’t “put it back together&# they don’t know what to do on the job or apply the “chunks&# they’ve learned.

Integrate 190

Integrate Learning PowerPoint Classroom 190

Kapp Notes

OCTOBER 14, 2011

Recently, on one of my blog postings Design e-Learning Like a Game Developer: Provide Incentives for Good Work , I received a response related to the fact that “gamification” is the easy-way-out and that we need to be careful about extrinsic motivation, that I was not correct in my posting about the use of extrinsic motivation. To gain the full context, read the comments on the posting listed above and then come back and read this post.

Gamification 189

Gamification Wikipedia Journal Games 189

Kapp Notes

FEBRUARY 10, 2011

Ok, once again someone has brought up the argument that just because there is a lot of information on the web about ID and that the tools are “so simple to use even a SME can create a course&# that a degree in instructional design is not really needed by everyone. Please, this argument drives me crazy. While Tom Kuhlmann does a great job of providing a balanced approach to having or not having a degree, I must weigh in with an unbalanced view because, a degree, in my opinion makes our fiel

Instructional Design 190

Instructional Design Cognitive Theory Learning Theory 190

Kapp Notes

MAY 31, 2011

The table below compares the affordances of 2D Synchronous Learning with 3D Synchronous Learning. Sensibility. 2D Synchronous. Learning. 3D Synchronous. Learning. Sense of Self. Emoticon. Avatar. Death of Distance. Same Time. Same Website. Same Time. Same Place. Power of Presence. Disembodied. Embodied. Pervasiveness of Practice. Exercises. Role Plays.

Synchronous 188

Synchronous Exercise Website Learning 188

Kapp Notes

FEBRUARY 2, 2011

Episodic memory is information stored in person’s long term memory that receives and stores information about temporally dated episodes or events and temporal-spatial relations among those events. In other words, episodic memory contains information about life experiences–information that is associated with a particular time or place. The information that you were in Philadelphia for New Years eve celebrating at Penn’s Landing is episodic memory.

Cognitive 188

Cognitive Virtual World Wikipedia Association 188

Kapp Notes

OCTOBER 5, 2011

Here are my slides and relevant resources from my Chicago presentation at Learning 3.0!! I love Chicago, such a great city and relatively close by air travel. Great seeing old friends at the conference and meeting new ones. Hope you find these resources helpful. Here the slides from my presentation: Learning 3.0 gamification. View more presentations from Karl Kapp.

Slides 187

Slides Conference Resources ASTD 187

Kapp Notes

JUNE 15, 2011

Mark R. Lepper at Stanford University is a leading theorist in social psychology and has written numerous academic papers, one I came across the other day is titled “Motivational Considerations in the Study of Instruction&# that was published in the journal Cognition and Instruction (1988), 5(4) 289-309. In the paper he discusses some principles for designing motivational instruction that I found useful.

Study 186

Study Instructional Instruction Cognitive 186

Kapp Notes

FEBRUARY 17, 2011

By now you have heard about IBM’s super computer, Watson is a modern day wizard answering questions that seemed impossible for a computer to answer only a short while ago. Why? Well until the Waston, Jeopardy problem, one of the ways that it was thought computers could answer questions was to follow rules. So the goal was to create a branching tree with enough rules and if-then-else statements for the computer to look up and answer any question that it encountered.

Instructional Design 186

Instructional Design Instructional Instruction Design 186

Kapp Notes

JUNE 13, 2011

There are several ways to look at games and motivation. One way is to examine games through the four factor model developed by John Keller , this model is well known in the field of instructional design and is used as a framework in creating e-learning and courseware. The model is called ARCS with the letters represent Attention, Relevance, Confidence and Satisfaction.

Games 186

Games Design Simulations Courseware 186

Kapp Notes

MARCH 22, 2011

Looking through my old “Learning and Instruction:Theory into Practice&# book by Margaret Gredler, written in 1997, I came across an interesting comparison of novice vs. expert thinking (page 188). Novice. Knowledge structures are organized around the main phenomena in a domain. Expert. Knowledge structures of experts represent phenomena in the domain in relation to higher-order principles.

Comparison 184

Comparison Expert Games Pattern 184

Kapp Notes

JUNE 27, 2011

Here are some random game development considerations pulled from research: The beneficial effects of games and simulations were most likely to be found when specific content was targeted and objectives precisely defined. Games can provide knowledge increases in learners. Games tend to be more motivating than traditional instructional design. Instructional games should be embedded in instructional programs that include debriefing and feedback so the learners understand what happened in the game a

Games 184

Games Instructional Instruction Simulations 184

Kapp Notes

JULY 28, 2011

Reports, factors and the current market conditions strongly indicate that elearning is going to be a growth industry over the coming years. As Tony Bingham, president and CEO of ASTD states, “Today, we actively pursue content based on search terms and our preferences [while in the future]…content will find you – rather than actively seeking it, your activities and interests will determine what finds you, be delivered how you want it, and to your preferred channel.

Industry 183

Industry Social Networks ASTD eLearning 183

Kapp Notes

APRIL 20, 2011

Studies on infant brains have shown that knowledge retention is only possible when accompanied with personal interaction or activity, but this becomes even more important as people get older. Adults must be socially stimulated to learn, which is why language retention is usually only successful for adults when they are immersed with other language-speakers.

Brain 183

Brain Cognitive Instant Messaging Multitasking 183