Kapp Notes

OCTOBER 6, 2014

'In their seminal work, Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals , Salen and Zimmerman discuss a wide range of topics. One topic of particular interest is the discussion of the core mechanic. Here is how they define the term. Every game has a core mechanic. A core mechanic is the essential play activity players perform again and again in a game. Sometimes, the core mechanic of a game is a single action In a footrace, for example, the core mechanic is running.

Games 217

Games Player Pattern Activities 217

Kapp Notes

SEPTEMBER 18, 2014

'Had a great time in Nashville speaking with NASBA at the conference, great times and good fun with games and gamification for learning. Here is some additional information. Videos. Games References. Zombies Run! Articles and Blog Entries of Interest. 8 Types of Stories to Effect Change. Storytelling and Instructional Design. Eight Game Elements to Make Learning More Intriguing.

Gamification 177

Gamification Resources Poll iPad 177

Kapp Notes

JUNE 20, 2014

'The other day I had a chance to catch up with my friend Sharon Boller, she and I have conducted a number of workshops together and we both share a passion for games and game-based learning. In fact, we are co-facilitating a live online course for the eLearning Guild called simply, “Game Design.” You can learn about the Game Design Course here.

Conversation 186

Conversation Games Blended Learning Corporate eLearning 186

Kapp Notes

FEBRUARY 5, 2014

'Here are the slides and some links related to my presentation at the conference. Five Things Game Designers Can Teach eLearning Designers from Karl Kapp. Here are the five elements of thinking like a game designer. Begin with Activity:Add Action and Adventure. Put Your Learner at “Mock” Risk. Create Curiosity, Mystery, Intrigue. Give Learners Choices Also related is to Create Multiple Levels of Entry into Your Instruction.

Slides 175

Slides Informal Resources Diversity Training 175

Kapp Notes

OCTOBER 10, 2013

'In video games, the player controls a great deal. He or she can decide what direction to explore, how many inventory items to gather, how to angle the bird to hit the pig’s house and other decisions. Most of the time, the player can even decide the level of difficulty he or she want to encounter in the game by choosing a specific game level like Novice or Expert.

Learner 174

Learner Education Theory Player 174

Kapp Notes

OCTOBER 8, 2013

'A sense of suspense, mystery and intrigue draws people into games, movies and novels…but rarely learning events. When playing a game, inevitably, players become curious—what happens if I go over to this place or explore this room. What if I run into the open? What if I open this door or go out through a window? Game players explore gamespaces to see what happens.

Learner 211

Learner Learning Objects Player Movie 211

Kapp Notes

JULY 8, 2013

'Here is a funny video about what happens when the schools system is totally taken over by testing as well as making an argument against compartmentalizing subjects. Scary funny. You’ll laugh and kinda cry.

Education 211

Education Video System 211

Kapp Notes

JUNE 25, 2013

'Here are four interesting videos all related to design which I have been thinking about lately in terms of designing instructional experiences that are meaningful and encouraging to learners. The first video is about “finding” good ideas. It tackles the question. “Where do good ideas come from?” The next video outlines a design sprint, I’ve done something very similar, I call it a Shazam Session where, in 5 days, you can design a fairly involved prototype of a solu

Ideas 268

Ideas Games Design Video 268

Kapp Notes

JUNE 4, 2013

'Games are emotional, in a game there are typically winners and losers. The winners feel great! The losers, don’t feel great:(. As someone creating or commissioning an instructional game, are you prepared to deal with the losers of that instructional game? That’s right, if you create an instructional game or gamification that is based on competition, some of the learners will feel great that they’ve won and some will feel lousy that their name isn’t on the leaderboard or

Games 243

Games Instructional Instruction Cognitive 243

Kapp Notes

MARCH 4, 2013

Here are four videos by some really smart people discussing games for learning, education and changing the world. Their world views on games are interesting and they all tackle the concept slightly differently. How can their ideas influence your design of games, gamification and simulations for learning and instruction? Katie Salen. Daphne Bavelier.

Games 215

Games Simulations Change Education 215

Kapp Notes

OCTOBER 24, 2012

I think this is an interesting depiction of video games in schools. From: OnlineCollegeCourses.com. Used under Creative Common Licence and with written permission.

Games 252

Games Video Creative Commons Education 252

Kapp Notes

OCTOBER 5, 2012

Here is part two of a great discussion with Reuben Tozman about his book, Learning On Demand. If you missed the first part check it out here. KK: How do you think “Big Data” is going to impact the learning and development field? RT: What I’m hoping for may not be what actually happens… What I would like to see happen is that we begin to explore Big Data and begin to design our interventions with an intentionality for creating data streams that allow us to determine the ‘value&#

Metrics 180

Metrics Conversation ROI Sales 180

Kapp Notes

OCTOBER 3, 2012

Met some wonderful people and had a great time at the inaugural SPBT event The medical Device and Diagnostic Trainers Summit. The presentation was a great deal of fun. We played “Fact or Fishy” which resulted in a tie between team A and Team B. We had a wonderful tour of Princeton (lot of smart people used to live and still live in the area) and we had a delicious dinner.

Simulations 187

Simulations Resources Comparison Games 187

Kapp Notes

APRIL 23, 2012

TODAY’S STOP: Clark Quinn Learnlets. Clark is not necessarily a fan of the term “Gamification” and provides some powerful reasons why in his post. And his suggestion of “Beyond Gamification” would have been a really good title. This week promises to be an exciting second week of the Gamification Blog Book Tour. Here are the stops for this week.

Gamification 133

Gamification ASTD Instructional Instruction 133

Kapp Notes

APRIL 21, 2012

Week One Recap. The first week of the blog book tour has ended and it has been a fantastic week with informative blog posts, information and opinions about gamification and even a bit of controversy. The week opened with a posting of the tour stops on the Learning Circuit’s Blog and the Kapp Notes blog and then introduced everyone to the Facebook page for the book and then the discussion really ramped up with Jane Bozarth talking about the how the book takes a common sense look at the subject.

Gamification 264

Gamification Blogging Instructional Instruction 264

Kapp Notes

MARCH 20, 2012

Tonight I am speaking at the IMU Learning Webinar Series. The series is about “connecting inspiring and exceptional educators around the world to share their knowledge, best practices, experiences and wisdom to IMU and educators attending from around the world.” My talk this evening is on the topic of “Games, Gamification and the Need for Engaging Learners.” Here are notes and resources from the presentation.

Simulations 165

Simulations Resources Comparison Virtual World 165

Kapp Notes

MARCH 20, 2012

Again, when things come together it is rather interesting. Here is a video from Designing Digitally that combines the Kinect with instruction. It is a perfect fit for this instructional application and I am sure more “natural fits” will be found over time. Now here is one with some interesting augmented reality concepts from 2011. I really like the like the pinwheel.

Augmented Reality 198

Augmented Reality Training Train Instructional 198

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

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

OCTOBER 4, 2011

As someone who has been actively running for a year or so I know how difficult it is too get motivated to wake up on a cool rainy morning and go for a run. Still this year I managed to run 3 sprint-length triathalons, a couple of 5Ks and one half-marathon (it wasn’t pretty). All this exercises is great but motivation is still an issue for me that’s why I sign up for the races so that I am motivated to practice so I don’t fall over in the race but…I’d like more motiv

Exercise 165

Exercise Gamification Games Issue 165

Kapp Notes

OCTOBER 3, 2011

At Bloomsburg University, twice a year we have our Corporate Advisory Council (CAC) meeting and representatives from corporations all over the country come and evaluate the students as the students present and they take some time to show off some cool things that they are doing. One of the companies that has consistently presented to students over the years has been The Phoenix Group which does outstanding design and instructional work and they have a really cool facility that students and facul

Site 164

Site Instructional Design Instructional Instruction 164

Kapp Notes

SEPTEMBER 13, 2011

Ragnaros the Firelord is an incredibly powerful Elemental Lord and master of all fire elementals from the popular RPG Game World of Warcraft. Facing him is a difficult challenge. People who play video games are used to challenges, they need to figure out how to navigate a level, they face a “boss&# who wants to destroy their character and force them to start a level over again and they are challenged by increasingly difficulty activities in a game based environment.

Learner 182

Learner Classes Instructional Instruction 182

Kapp Notes

AUGUST 29, 2011

Civilization V is a turn based strategy game where players attempt to lead a civilization from prehistoric times into the future on a procedurally-generated map, achieving one of a number of different victory conditions through research, diplomacy, expansion, economic development, government and military conquest. A player wins by achieving the highest-scoring civilization.

Strategy 164

Strategy Teach Player Diversity Training 164

Kapp Notes

AUGUST 25, 2011

Matching the right type of game-thinking and mechanics to the right type of content to be learned, is the right way to design an instructional game. Declarative knowledge is taught with simple games like Jeopardy-type games, matching games, hangman-type games, sequencing game and multiple choice games which reinforce declarative knowledge (information that needs to be memorized).

Games 174

Games Simulations Cognitive Content 174

Kapp Notes

MARCH 7, 2011

Mission-based levels serve several purposes within the design of a game. One purpose is to keep the game space manageable. Early level.simple and easy.but wait, it gets harder. Developing a game in which a player wanders through one vast level accomplishing hundreds of objectives and interacting with dozens of non-player characters is a daunting programming task and is intimidating for the player.

Games 173

Games Player Wikipedia Problem 173

Kapp Notes

MARCH 4, 2011

While not all games have a story narrative behind them, storytelling is an essential part of the gamificaiton of learning and instruction. Simple games like tic-tac-toe are not guided by a story. Neither are games like hide and seek, freeze tag or word searches. But a surprising number of simple games have more story behind them than you may think. Chess uses terms like knight, king and bishop to evoke a backstory of two warring factions, the kid’s game Capture the Flag has a similar underlying

Games 269

Games Instructional Instruction Player 269

Kapp Notes

MARCH 3, 2011

Time is an element that has many dimensions as it relates to instructional game design and game play. Dude's running out of time to do tricks on skateboard. The most obvious is to use time as a motivator for player activity and action. As soon as that timer appears in the upper corner of an instructional video game screen and starts to count down (or in some cases up), it raises the stress level and motivates action.

Games 150

Games Instructional Instruction Video 150

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

MARCH 1, 2011

Congratulations to ProtonMedia who recently (this week) won the Enterprise Connect 2011 Innovation Award. Here is some of the information from the ProtonMedia blog. Enterprise Connect has selected ProtonMedia for its prestigious Innovation Showcase… the Innovation Showcase competition recognizes four innovative start-up companies that are taking enterprise communications and collaboration to a new level.

vendor 140

vendor Enterprise Innovation Communication 140

Kapp Notes

FEBRUARY 28, 2011

I was looking for some resources on Gamification and found a talk by Sabastian Deterding who presented a fasinating and thought provoking Google Talk called “Meaningful Play: Getting Gamification Right&#. He makes a few excellent points about Gamification: 1) Having a make-believe story wrapped around an experience and adding rules and challenges to make an experience more interesting. 2) Setting goals and having feedback. 3) Having a free, safe play space and shared toy objects that can b

Instructional Design 179

Instructional Design Sound Gamification Instructional 179

Kapp Notes

FEBRUARY 8, 2011

Fascinating video related to stories in games.

Games 186

Games Video Interactive Guide 186

Kapp Notes

JANUARY 31, 2011

One of the problems with things that are well executived and flawlessly performed is that they tend to look too easy and, therefore, anyone thinks they can do it and, in reality, they can’t. Take for example, Shaun White’s performance on the second run at the X Game s, he performed effortlessly and with tricks and air that is unmatched. That is why he is a four-time champion.

Simulations 133

Simulations iPhone Games Player 133

Kapp Notes

SEPTEMBER 15, 2010

Here is a collection of several game design documents and information about game design documents. If you are considering creating a "Serious Game" or an instructional game, one of the first place to start is a great game design document. But how to write one? These samples will give you some ideas. Chris Taylor Game Design Document Sample : As the web site says, "for all of you who have ever wondered what they look like or need one for your own personal game project, check out Dungeon Siege cre

Examples 194

Examples Sample Games Design 194

Kapp Notes

SEPTEMBER 14, 2010

What? You say, teachers have limited time? Yet, they still need to keep up with kids, administrative rules and technology? How can they do all that? Mark discusses a Office 2007 Screen One way is through a unique offering by the Training video production company - The 8.45 Club. The company creates 15 minutes of education in a video and screen shot format that can be viewed when convenient for the learner.

Training 162

Training Train Module Sound 162

Kapp Notes

SEPTEMBER 13, 2010

A great deal seems to be happening in the e-learning space and I've been getting a number of press releases and information about product, events and other great happenings so I thought I'd share some of that information in this post.

Press 145

Press Informal News Industry 145

Kapp Notes

SEPTEMBER 13, 2010

If you are doing a formative or summative evaluation of instruction or doing a needs assessment or a program evaluation, sooner or later you are going to need a Likert-type scale. You also may have a question about using odd or even numbers in the Likert-Type Scale, here is some insight on that. Here are several types of scales that you might find handy.

Examples 172

Examples Sample Informal Evalution 172

Kapp Notes

SEPTEMBER 9, 2010

According to Fortune , Bill Gates (yes, that Bill Gates) his favorite teacher is named Sal Khan. Sal teaches at his own online university called khanacademy.org which is a vast digital trove of free mini-lectures all narrated by Khan. See the article Bill Gates' favorite teacher The Khan Academy is the most popular educational site on the web. As Fortune says, "by any measure it is the most popular educational site on the web.

Lecture 172

Lecture Tutorial Course Site 172