As the protagonist goes on a journey, the story unfolds. We travel with the protagonist, helping and guiding them as they face challenges and take critical decisions.
Agenda:
Learn how to plot a narrative simulation
Define your characters and storyboard the journey
Bring your narrative simulation to life using GamifyEasy
Use AI and free tools to design and bring your game to life
Time: 1 hour
Date: March 15, 2023
Time: 5.00 pm to 6.00 pm IST
Medium: Zoom
About the Facilitator:
Ajay Dasgupta is a storyteller, game designer, and the founder of Skills Cafe’ and The Kahani Project. He has designed many learning games and has facilitated over 100 gamified and game-based learning workshops. He is also the product head for GamifyEasy, a tool created to make VILTs highly interactive, gamified, and engaging. You can connect with Ajay on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/ajaydasgupta
If you have questions regarding this webinar, please email ajay@skills.cafe
ITC Limited, one of India’s foremost private sector companies with presence in FMCG, Hotels, Packaging, Paperboards & Specialty Papers, Agri & IT Businesses recently used GamifyEasy to successfully gamify its Management Trainee induction program. The program saw 100+ campus hires work in teams to compete in an online tournament over 3 days.
Reach and scale: 60+ participants, 3 days, 3 gamified sessions
Target Audience: Campus hires
Devices: Windows desktops
Gamified Session Format: Virtual tournament
Learning Objectives: The objectives of the gamified learning sessions were:
Getting to know the vision, mission, and values of the organization
Explore the businesses and products of the organization
Discover the various sustainability measures taken by the organization
Getting to know other participants and batch mates
How was the program delivered?
The program was designed in a tournament format. Participants were divided into 10 teams. Teams were required to collaborate and solve quizzes, case studies, and solve an escape room puzzle on each day. The tournament was divided into 3 rounds which were played over 3 days. Each round was played after each day’s workshop and learning sessions.
Tournament schedule:
Day 1: Product and brand quiz
Day 2: Escape rooms
Day 2: Interactive case studies
The scores for each day were captured and reported on a leader board.
Feedback: The tournament format was hugely successful with participants rating the program highly engaging and effective.
One of the largest and most innovative science-led global healthcare companies in India, used GamifyEasy to successfully deliver live, virtual, gamified learning sessions to its large team of medical representatives spread out across India.
Target Audience: Medical Representatives and Team managers
Audience Size: 2500+ participants spread out across India
Devices: iPads and Windows desktops
Gamified Session Name: Self Leadership
Learning Objectives: The objectives of the gamified learning sessions were:
Appreciate the importance of working with a growth mindset
Identify the ‘Leading Self’ behaviours
Develop appreciation for the the key behavioural attributes of self-led individuals:
Be Professional
Clarify Goals
Seek Delegation
Ask for Help
Invite Feedback
Develop Expertise
Work with Others
How was the program delivered:
The learning team at the client’s end designed the game from scratch. They wrote the cases studies and decided the game mechanics. The GamifyEasy team helped design the game UI and artwork. A team of 12 internal facilitators were then trained to deliver the gamified learning
sessions. Over 70 sessions, covering 2500 medical representatives were delivered by the 12 facilitators over 6 days.
Feedback: The gamified learning programs received an average feedback rating of 4.8/5 from the participants.
One of the many use cases for gamification is a new hire orientation program. Since organizations are conducting new hire orientation sessions virtually, the questions being asked:
How can we make the orientation program more exciting and engaging?
How can we enhance peer-to-peer interaction between new hires?
How can we develop a sense of camaraderie and belongingness amongst new hires?
ITC Limited, a large conglomerate based in Kolkata, India, recently conducted a virtual orientation for 110 new hires. Using GamifyEasy, the learning team deployed short quizzes at the end of each orientation session. The quizzes were played in teams, increasing peer-to-peer interaction, generating healthy competition, and gamifying the knowledge check at the end of each day.
Why was this better than regular quizzes?
Regular quizzes allow little or no peer-to-peer interaction possibilities. With GamifyEasy, learners not only participate individually but interact and take decisions in groups. This interaction enables participants to learn from each other and drives a sense of camaraderie and belongingness.
How long did the games last?
The game sessions lasted 45 minutes and were scheduled towards the end of each day’s sessions.
What were the outcomes?
The game sessions were keenly contested, and participants discussed questions, scores, and results long after the sessions were over.
How did team members interact with other team members?
The game sessions ran over Zoom. Team members worked in team breakout rooms and could interact through the text chatbox.
What devices were participants using?
Most participants were on laptops. Few participants joined through smartphones and iPads.
Learner’s interaction in learning environments can be broadly categorized under the following types:
Learner-Content
Learner-SME/Facilitator
Learner-Learner
Virtual, self-paced learning mostly utilizes learner to content interaction modalities. These interactions range from quizzes, case studies, and scenarios to complex games and simulations. Typical live, virtual, synchronous learning on the other hand, is driven largely through learner to expert or facilitator interactions. Typical virtual conferencing platforms are built for and around a facilitator/presenter who runs a sequence of slides, engages the audience through polls, or takes questions through Q&A tools.
Spotlight on Learner-Learner Interactions
Learners have rich set of experiences, stories, and wisdom that any learning environment must leverage. In addition, learners like to discuss, share, argue, debate, reflect, and construct their own meaning. Most live, virtual synchronous learning events narrow this interaction down to the Q&A session (which too is mostly one-sided), timed breakout room discussions, or to learning summary and reflection sessions.
However, there is strong evidence to support the claim that collaborative interaction with peer learners enhances learning engagement and learner satisfaction. This can both have an ultimate impact on learner performance and learning transfer.
“ONLINE COLLABORATION, IN THE FORM OF PEER WORK GROUPS AND LEARNING COMMUNITIES, INCREASES ENGAGEMENT IN THE LEARNING PROCESS” (MOLLER, ET AL., IN PRESS)
What if we could design virtual learning environments that maximize learner-to-learner interactions and bring those interactions to the center stage?
A clutch of fantastic tools like Miro, Google Jamboard, Docs, Mural, and others provide feature and mechanics to support live, learner-to-learner interaction and collaboration. These tools offer a whiteboard style interface where learners can work together, collaborate, problem-solve, and create digital artefacts.
Games offer a dynamic environment for problem-solving and collaboration. GamifyEasy is built keeping in mind the instructional potential of live learner-to-learner interactions within games and gamified content.
Learner-Learner Interaction in GamifyEasy
The first thing that learners experience when they log in to a GamifyEasy session is that they need to work in a team. Often team members are drafted from across the organization and may constitute colleagues they may have never interacted with. This setup creates an environment of peer interaction and group decision-making from the word Go.
Most games have multiple rounds and decisions to be taken in each round. These decisions can include allocating resources, choosing from available options, selecting a response or simply answering questions. Learner-to-learner interaction is at the center of all these decision-making processes. Team members use the chat function to collaborate, decide, and act or use the breakout room feature of the virtual collaboration tool.
The live game board interface acts both as a scoreboard and a single view to show relative progress of the teams. The game board keeps the action alive as learners motivate each other and ensure all team members are participating, thinking, and contributing. As the game proceeds, the chat rooms start buzzing with activity, questions, counter questions, resolutions, sadness, and ecstasy of losing and winning rounds.
As learning increasingly becomes virtual, we believe that significant advances will be made in enabling and supporting learner-to-learner interactions and collaboration. Serious games and gamified learning environments like GamifyEasy will enable facilitators, learning designers, and educators to design rich learner-to-learner experiences.
Here is some contemporary research in the field of gamification in learning. This list is a work in progress and we will keep adding resources and citations to it.
