Incorporating game play into eLearning

Let’s face it: the com­mon per­cep­tion of eLearn­ing is that it’s about as excit­ing as filling out a tax return. Click through text; mix in a little audio, some video and a few tick-box quizzes. Not the most enter­tain­ing way to spend an hour or two. Most users plan for ’30 minutes of pain’, where their focus is simply to ‘pass the final quiz’ and then, ‘hey presto’ the deed is done and the eLearn­ing is shelved, never to be used again. But how can this kind of atti­tude stim­u­late effect­ive learning?

Com­pan­ies use eLearn­ing to up-skill, train and develop staff in a cost-effective way.  PwC recently sur­veyed 1,200 CEO’s and found that 24% were forced to can­cel or delay import­ant stra­tegic ini­ti­at­ives because of ‘tal­ent con­straints’. In other words, they felt that their work­force did not have the know­ledge and skills to deliver. Moreover, 30% of CEOs felt they could not innov­ate or com­pete effect­ively because of tal­ent con­straints within their team.

It’s a prob­lem. Most eLearn­ing does not work, and organ­isa­tions need to train and develop staff in a cost-effective way. Change is hard to achieve within organ­isa­tions. Well-intentioned train­ing and engage­ment pro­grammes often have little or no impact on actual beha­viour and money dis­ap­pears for little or no result.

So the pres­sure is on for L&D pro­fes­sion­als: what can be done to ensure that any money spent on train­ing, com­mu­nic­a­tion and cul­ture change pro­grammes delivers?

How about try­ing some­thing rad­ical?  Why not try embed­ding gam­ing con­cepts like lead­er­ship boards, pro­gress bars and badges into eLearn­ing and train­ing devel­op­ment programmes?

Here’s why:

• Gami­fic­a­tion (the applic­a­tion of gam­ing mech­an­ics to non-gaming scen­arios) ensures that the train­ing appeals to the innate human instinct towards ‘fun’. Gami­fic­a­tion lever­ages the fun­da­mental need to achieve, get rewards, attain status, engage in com­pet­i­tion, col­lab­or­ate and express themselves.

• Staff engage more with a gami­fied approach. In fact, research shows they spend over 50% longer on learn­ing and train­ing with gami­fic­a­tion features

• Gami­fic­a­tion increases par­ti­cip­a­tion – staff exper­i­en­cing gami­fied train­ing are 86% more act­ive than those access­ing non-gamified training.

The Res­ult: employ­ees train­ing with gami­fied eLearn­ing take in and retain more inform­a­tion, attain higher skill levels all whilst enjoy­ing it more!

So if you really do want your train­ing change beha­viour, focus on mak­ing it fun!

Tagged as: Academy Platform LMS, elearning, engaging learners, Gamification, Growth Engineering, Instructional Design

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