Playing with Media-Savvy Learners

Tony DiRomualdo's article on Wisconsin Technology Network makes some really insightful comments, connecting game-based learning and "media-savvy workers," who turn out to be not only the young, but also people like us! Let's face, you don't have to be a Gen X'er to be bored by traditional eLearning.

And it's not just eLearning, I'm seeing this trend in the corporate workplace, as well as academia, where I teach online Humanities courses to a lot of media-savvy students. Basically, they're connected big time. They're posting to MySpace, they're blogging, they're hooked wirelessly, and yet when they come to work or school, they're feeling inhibited. I even had one of my student volunteer to digitize some History channel documentaries and host the streaming video. Why? Not because he was a techno-geek, but because he wanted an engaging learning experience that included more resources than I, his teacher, could provide. Learning becomes a collaborative experience, which media savvy people demand.

In the last 15 years of doing eLearning development, I've seen the growing fear of technology from those who are afraid to relinquish their control -- whether it's control of information or control of the classroom. But the media savvy natives want the ability to free-form their way through work or school. They want to collaborate and contribute.

So what does all this have to do with game-based learning, or eLearning in general? We need to stop following the paradigm of the classroom -- forcing learners into the "click next to continue" model -- which is basically saying: "I know what and how you need to learn this content, so l sit back and watch." That model is dead, or at least it should be.

Unfortunately, too often eLearning management systems are helping to keep this model alive. With early SCORM conformance standards often dictating a simplisitic linear approach, learners aren't finding engagement. True, the latest versions of SCORM are allowing some non-linear approaches to eLearning development, but you have to be a rocket scientist to figure them out.

Game-based eLearning Approaches

So what does this trend mean? Sure, we need to adhere to eLearning standards, but designers need the ability to push themselves to create more engaging eLearning, using game strategies to increase collaboration, competition and self-directed learning.

What should eLearning look like? To find out, we need to stop exerting total control over the learning process and stop using standards issues as an excuse to produce linear learning. It's time to get as creative as those media-savvy workers and give them what they want -- engagement.

Okay, so from doing speaking engagements at conferences, I've attended quite a few on eLearning -- and sat in on some sucky presentations, as I think we all have. You can usually tell, right? These people look good, have an impressive bio, a clever presentation title (!), open strong, and then... well, nothing. It usually takes about 12 minutes, in my opinion. At the 13 minute mark, that's when you look around and realize you made the critical error: you sat way too far from the door to slip out, discreetly.

Anyway, in those cases, what can you do? Sometimes, (rarely with the really sucky ones), the presenter will start out by saying: "Hey, if you start to realize this presentation is not for you, feel free to leave. It won't hurt my feelings!" But I think it would rarely occur to a really bad presenter to start out this way.

I know a lot of people who just bolt, but being a presenter -- and having taught at the college level for 10 years, I guess I'm a little more sympathetic. You can learn from anybody, right? -- even if it is learning how NOT to run a session.

But I just learned that the Training Conference has taken a really interesting approach to this. They contacted me because of a presentation on Game-based Learning I did at a Training Conference a couple of years ago. They said that based on the participant feedback, mine was judged as one of the "Best of the Best," and they want me to speak at the next Training conference in Utah, this October.

Okay, so this is smart on so many levels. (1) You appeal to a presenter's innate pride -- okay, ego -- and I'm sure they'll pull in a lot of the presenters they've contacted to do their sessions. (2) The folks who put on the show are going to see an increase in their tradeshow business. As a small business owner, we don't have the deep pockets that some of these large monster companies have. The best opportunity we have to meet people (aka. prospects) interesting in Game-based Learning is to speak at a session and then do 'booth duty.' Yes, I confess, I can be a shameless sales guy. Finally (3), the participants at the conference get better quality sessions. Hopefully, they really mean it, when the folks at Training say this is the "Best of the Best" and all of us can benefit from a great learning experience.

I guess we'll find out in October. Just in case, make sure not to sit too far from the door.