Knowledge Guru

JANUARY 17, 2017

Yes, I know. You’ve heard that games are very useful for learning. However, it’s less about creating a game than actually understanding what it is that people find “fun” about playing games. There is power in understanding what makes games engaging to us. Armed with that knowledge, you can use it to inform your learning designs. This table offers a quick summary. Use it to inform your decisions when designing learning games or learning activities that you want to actually keep people engaged.

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Games Knowledge Benefits Summary 202

Knowledge Guru

JANUARY 31, 2018

Organizations expend constant effort to deliver information employees need to know for their jobs. And oftentimes, there’s a lot at stake. You depend on training to help your employees make more sales, provide better customer service, avoid regulatory issues, and make fewer mistakes. But training has no value if we can’t retrieve the information we’re taught. Training reinforcement is essential to ensure that knowledge and skills learned in training are applied on the job.

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Knowledge Blended Learning Augmented Reality ILT 160

Knowledge Guru

AUGUST 29, 2017

The education game market continues to grow rapidly, and mobile games are the dominant force within this market. Newzoo provides the insights for the generic games market; the Serious Play Conference released its annual report showcasing the huge growth specific to the education and corporate training sector. The compound annual growth rate in the U.S for corporate learning games will be over 20% between 2017 – 2022 and about 35% globally with the U.S.

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Games Knowledge Design Player 169

Knowledge Guru

FEBRUARY 14, 2017

I’m publishing this blog on Valentine’s Day, a day that is supposed to be all about love. This blog is about love, but not the romantic type. Instead, think about a hobby or activity that you love. Kids, for example, might love to play soccer or love to play video games like Minecraft. These types of games and activities keep children engaged, often for hours at a time. LearningWorks for Kids even created a new term for the combination of engagement and games: engamement.

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Games Knowledge Lecture Cognitive 179

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Knowledge Guru

SEPTEMBER 14, 2017

Designing a game is no easy task, but do you know what’s even more difficult? Designing a game that helps people actually learn something. The BLP team (creators of Knowledge Guru) is no stranger to the challenges that come with learning game creation. That’s why we read about it! We constantly study the research and stay up to date on the latest game-based learning and gamification trends.

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Knowledge Guru

MAY 23, 2017

You built a wonderful learning game. So why aren’t you reaping results from it? Before we dive in and diagnose why your learners didn’t learn, grab a piece of real or digital paper. I’m going to ask you to write down things and answer some questions. Before I do, take 30 seconds and write down everything you need to get done today. Then write down everything you need to do this week.

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Knowledge Guru

SEPTEMBER 20, 2016

I interviewed Bottom-Line Performance President and industry thought leader, Sharon Boller to learn more about current game-based learning trends and where this learning strategy is headed in 2017. Sharon has been writing and speaking about game-based learning since at least 2008. She hits the road this fall with Karl Kapp to deliver a series of workshops on learning game design , and rumor has it a book is on the way in 2017.

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Knowledge Games Liability Brandon Hall 178

Knowledge Guru

DECEMBER 1, 2014

I love games—but that does not mean I think a game is the appropriate option for every learning situation. I do not think it will always equal the most effective or efficient means of helping people learn. In fact, I wrote a post recently clarifying how games differ from learning games because a lot of people are thinking about commercial video games when they contemplate incorporating games into their learning strategies.

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Games Knowledge Simulations Brandon Hall 214

Knowledge Guru

OCTOBER 26, 2015

We love creating games at BLP and try to share that enthusiasm as much as we can. But we’ll also be the first to admit that designing a learning game is only the beginning. What if you design the best learning game ever, or work with a vendor who creates a great one for you, and no one plays it? Or what if the roll-out gets botched because no one can figure out how to log in?

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Speaker: Connie Malamed, Founder of Mastering Instructional Design and Publisher of The eLearning Coach

Well-designed materials can motivate learners, improve comprehension, and assist optimal retention. If you need rapid, easily actionable ways to improve your eLearning and slides, join this session to learn the power principles that will have the biggest impact on your designs.

Design

Knowledge Guru

MARCH 24, 2015

Some people cringe when they hear the words “process” or “procedure.” ” Others appreciate and value them. Either way, processes and procedures are essential to a successful organization. That’s why so much of the training organizations deliver year after year is supposed to help align employees with a process or teach them a procedure they must follow.

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Gamification Knowledge Games Help 203

Knowledge Guru

MARCH 11, 2015

At Bottom-Line Performance (owners of the Knowledge Guru platform), we have a “learning game design peer group” that meets a few times per year. I started the group three years ago to help build game design skills and to foster deeper knowledge of the power of games as learning tools.

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Games Knowledge Design Player 203

Knowledge Guru

MARCH 25, 2020

Thank you for your interest in Knowledge Guru, someone will reach out to you soon! The post Request a demo – Thank you appeared first on Knowledge Guru. Quick Tip

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Knowledge Tips 100

Knowledge Guru

JUNE 27, 2017

Few topics get people less excited than insurance. Some cringe in frustration. Others yawn with boredom. Yet we all know in our heart of hearts that insurance is a necessity. This is especially true if you have experienced a major “hometrastrophe,” been rear-ended or needed an expensive medical treatment.

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Policies Coaching SharePoint Training 145

Speaker: Don Schmidt - WW Sales Enablement Director, Inside Sales MongoDB

The power of video is working for a growing roster of organizations, whether working with a live mentor or scaling programs with artificial intelligence. Take advantage of this exclusive webinar to learn how to use video coaching to your advantage!

Video

Knowledge Guru

SEPTEMBER 23, 2015

I was speaking to a client the other day who said only 10% of her workforce completes the training they are supposed to take on the LMS. She thinks training completion is low because the content isn’t engaging and wanted to know if a learning game could fix it. I told her that there is no “easy button,” and games are not a cure-all for for boring content or bad learning design. Game-based learning can improve learner engagement, but only if you start with a strategy.

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eLearning Strategy Knowledge Games Strategy 174

Knowledge Guru

APRIL 28, 2014

You want to use games for learning, but you need the games to fit the unique requirements of your organization. You believe that serious games can increase engagement and retention, but you are not so convinced that a platform can allow you to create games with enough variety to please your learners. Most of all, you need to prove to key stakeholders that your learners, and your organization, are actually benefiting from the serious games your team creates.

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Knowledge Guru

MARCH 21, 2017

Every year, the NCAA invites people from all over the world to participate in one of college sports greatest spectacles: March Madness. If you are reading this from the United States, chances are high that you have filled out a NCAA men’s basketball bracket before. You know how it works: participants are given an online tool that lets them create bracket groups so they can compete with friends, family and colleagues.

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Knowledge Gamification Games Player 144

Knowledge Guru

APRIL 12, 2017

Your manager decides to include games and gamification as part of this year’s training strategy. As the instructional designer, she expects you to create the learning game. You’re already on staff and it’s your job to create training content… so it seems natural that you would have the skills to design a serious game or gamification system as well. But do you know where to start?

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Speaker: Stephen Baer - Chief Creative Officer, ELB Learning

In this fireside chat, leading L&D expert Stephen Baer will discuss the exciting technological advancements in eLearning and how you can choose and implement the right technology for your company.

Technology

Knowledge Guru

APRIL 28, 2015

You need to deliver training to your employees and want it to be “engaging.” ” You’ve read articles and attended webinars that discuss making learning experiences engaging, yet most of the advice seems vague. What is an engaging learning solution? Why do some learners find a certain type of training engaging, while others do not? The challenge you face is even more difficult when your content does not exactly jump off the page.

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Productivity Product Knowledge Player 180

Knowledge Guru

NOVEMBER 10, 2015

The corporate training world has come a long way over the last several years. While unwieldy Powerpoint slides and lengthy webinars are still out there, most organizations know better. The important message that “one and done” is never a sound training strategy is getting through to people, which explains the uptick in interest in learning products designed to improve knowledge retention. When knowledge retention is the goal, the mobile phone is often the delivery method of choice.

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Knowledge Guru

FEBRUARY 19, 2014

Organizations of all sizes are turning to game-based learning , serious games , and gamification to solve a range of learning and development challenges. For some, the challenge is one of engagement; learners are tired of traditional eLearning and programs are seeing diminishing returns. For others, it’s about retention ; learners do not remember what they learned after completing training, therefore wasting its value.

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Enterprise Knowledge Games Cognitive 204

Knowledge Guru

APRIL 2, 2014

In serious games, story is a narrative that either weaves through an entire game or sets up the reason you are playing the game and elaborates on the theme. The type of story and level of detail you need will depend on your learning goal. Some in the corporate learning field get nervous about using “too much” story for obvious reasons. Will the story be too “out there” for some learners?

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Speaker: Tim Buteyn - President of ThinkingKap Learning Solutions, Inc.

In this webinar, Tim Buteyn of ThinkingKap Learning Solutions will explore how to optimize learner engagement with scenario-based training. You'll learn what makes up scenarios, how they benefit the learner, and why this is important to your organization. You'll also dive into real-world examples across a wide range of budgets and look at how typical training content can be completely transformed.

Budget

Knowledge Guru

OCTOBER 4, 2016

Product managers are passionate people. They are passionate about the products they create and the problems they solve for their customers. Product managers spend thousands of hours researching, testing and developing their products before its time to commercialize. But then it’s time for the hand-off. The success (or failure) of the new product is in the hands of the sales reps, not the people who so carefully and thoughtfully created it.

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Productivity Product Sales Management 143

Knowledge Guru

OCTOBER 11, 2016

Have you ever heard the phrase, “Those who can, do; those who can’t do, teach”? If you’re a sales manager, you’re living proof that this is often far from the truth. Lots of companies take their top performing sales reps and turn them into sales managers at some point in their careers. These new sales managers have to then transition their role from the doer (selling products) to the teacher and coach (managing sales reps). It’s not always an easy transition.

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Sales Coaching Knowledge Management 142

Knowledge Guru

MAY 18, 2016

Over the last five to ten years, corporate learning professionals have scrambled to engage their learners in an increasingly digital world. Learning trends such as mobile, gamification, game-based learning, performance support, use of learning science and interactive video are all attempts to capture learner attention and engage them on a deeper level. With so many distractions to compete with, learner attention comes at a premium. Training has to be engaging for it to stick.

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Resources Knowledge microlearning Micro-Learning 149

Knowledge Guru

JUNE 19, 2013

Last week’s post gave an overview of the entire process for getting started in learning game design or creating game-based learning. This post focuses on Step 1, which is to play and evaluate games. If you don’t like playing games, don’t try to design a game because you’re going to hate this step. Game design is a bit like writing a book; you’d never attempt to write a book if you first hadn’t spent time reading and evaluating several books.

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Games Evalution Knowledge Design 213

Speaker: Cara North - Learning & Development Consultant, Speaker, & Researcher | Maggie Quigley - Senior Account Executive for US Market Userlane

In this webinar, L&D professionals Cara North and Maggie Quigley will discuss the various factors that affect training and how you can stretch your budget to create an effective L&D program.

Budget

Knowledge Guru

FEBRUARY 5, 2014

Thinking about using games for learning? You might want to question your motivations, first. Using a serious game or gamification platform in corporate learning, can be a great option, but it’s not the the right solution for every situation. We often ask our customers and clients some simple questions to determine if a game fits their needs: Are your current learning solutions presenting challenges to people? Do your solutions provide strong feedback?

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Games Knowledge Corporate Learning Behavior 195

Knowledge Guru

APRIL 17, 2014

First impressions matter in almost every situation – including game play. Aesthetics are a huge part of the game play experience. If the game doesn’t LOOK appealing, then players won’t want to play even if the game has a great game goal and rules. Conversely, a game that may be “just okay” from a game play perspective can be elevated by strong aesthetics.

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Games Knowledge Player Templates 186

Knowledge Guru

OCTOBER 14, 2014

Last weekend, I was with friends and I introduced them to the game Forbidden Island. I figured they would enjoy it as much as me. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. The game is a cooperative one rather than a competitive one. Players have to work together to locate hidden treasure and fly off the island before it sinks. The focus is on problem solving, strategy, and cooperation as you work together to figure out the best moves for each player to make. To me, the game is a lot of fun to play.

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Games Player Score Strategy 175

Knowledge Guru

JANUARY 28, 2015

Sales people live in the moment. They need to hit this month’s numbers. They have a demo in 10 minutes. Their manager wants an update on their biggest account. They are paid on commission and they probably do not feel they have time to take your training! Salespeople probably have the most single-minded focus of any role in your organization: activities that are directly linked to making a sale are top priority and everything else is just details.

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Sales Games Case Study Brandon Hall 168

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Program

Knowledge Guru

JANUARY 7, 2015

You want to include a serious game in your training… but can you use an inexpensive game template or do you need a more expensive custom game? Here are questions you need to consider as you decide: What are you trying to achieve? How much budget do you have? How much time do you have to design and build it? How much skill do you have in game design and instructional design?

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Knowledge Guru

NOVEMBER 25, 2013

Product knowledge training is one of the most common types of training in many organizations. Some companies release multiple new products every month, whereas others have so many different products that getting new hires up to speed can turn into a nightmare. The problem with product knowledge training is that we need to take lots of it to really know the facts… but memorizing content is not fun to do.

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Knowledge Case Study Productivity Product 190

Knowledge Guru

OCTOBER 5, 2013

A while back we did a post listing 100 Great Game Based Learning and Gamification Resources , and since then we’ve done an occasional series called GBL Picks to try and curate information for you. Like we’ve mentioned before, we are out to educate the whole community as much as possible on using games for learning—from designing your own learning game to case studies on the efficacy of games.

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Write Blog Knowledge Blogging Gamification 193

Knowledge Guru

MARCH 14, 2017

What percentage of your learning content are you okay with people forgetting? This is a question we often ask our clients. We ask this because we often see companies that want to take massive amounts of content and squeeze it into a 30-minute eLearning course. Or organizations who want to squeeze a 30-minute eLearning course into a 5-minute “microlearning experience.” ” Organizations expect their employees to learn and remember everything. And we get it.

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Knowledge Cognitive Brain Study 126

Speaker: Shannon Tipton, Chief Learning Officer, Learning Rebels LLC

Today's work culture requires giving people the ability to control when and where they participate in their professional development. Learn how you can provide valuable, self-directed bites of learning content (and strategies to make that content stick) in this webinar!

Content