Can Open Government Be Gamed? If information is power, the first step to gaining power is to get the right data. The Obama administration is a big proponent of opening up government data and making it digitally available. Today at the Personal Democracy Forum in New York City, the government’s new chief information officer Vivek Kundra announced USAspending.gov, a new site which launched today that tracks government spending with charts and lists ranking the largest government contractors (Lockheed, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, etc.) and assistance recipients (Department of Healthcare Services, New York State Dept. of Health, Texas Health & Human Services Commission, etc.). There is also the Data.gov project, which is attempting to digitize government data and make it available in its raw form for citizens and companies to sift through. Digital tools are bringing participation back to democracy, or at least that is the idea.
Learning through Serious Games and “Gamification”: Try it yourself! Who said that games should only be for play? Today, games are increasingly being incorporated into learning strategies because of their numerous benefits, such as boosting learners’ motivation and engagement. This article will shed some light on “gamification” and serious games, two terms that we are constantly hearing about. Gamifi-what?
The Playpump: How a Simple Gamification Concept can Save the (third) World New to Gamification? Check out my post What is Gamification & my Gamification Framework: Octalysis Gamification visits the Third World Most of the time, we think of Gamification as a technique to get consumers to like our products more, to be more productive in life, and improve our workplace, but Gamification can sometimes be used to save an entire nation.
Gamification, Mobile Marketing and Baby Boomers - Jar Creative, UX Design and Marketing Agency In the recent blog “Responsive Web Design Best Practices for Baby Boomers” (1) we discussed the significance of the Baby Boomer demographic segment for mobile marketing. Nielson named this segment as Marketing’s Most Valuable Generation. One widely applied marketing tactic in recent years is gamification. Gamification also has many applications outside of marketing in areas such as education, employee motivation, personal fitness, or in encouraging people to save energy and natural resources. Let’s review how gamification can be applied when we target the Baby Boomer generation. According to Wikipedia (2) “Gamification is the use of game thinking and game mechanics in non-game contexts to engage users in solving problems gamification is applied to improve user engagement, return on investment, data quality, timeliness, and learning.”
Game mechanics for causes – Catalysts for Change – Evolution of Philanthropy Nothing is more captivating than a well-thought out game. That’s why more and more initiatives are building games (or using game mechanics) to create positive social change. Here’s a new one that launched today – it’s called Catalysts for Change, and it gives players a game-like competition for sharing and responding to ideas about solving the world’s social problems. It’s a bit like Quora meets Twitter meets Trivial Pursuit. Here’s a video they put together that provides a brief overview: One you sign up, you’re asked to submit “cards”, which are basically suggestions or responses to specific issues.
Essential Guide to Visual Thinking for E-Learning Here are two common challenges when building online training courses: knowing what content needs to be in the course and then having the right visuals to support the learning of that content. One way to overcome these challenges is to increase your visual thinking skills. You’ll learn to focus on the right content and then find the right visuals to support what you’re teaching. BigGames The last few years have seen the blossoming of real world computer games that allow players to learn about important global issues. Here are a bunch of them. (If you know of others, please let us know so we can post them.) Real Lives is a unique, interactive life sim that enables you to live one of billions of lives in any country in the world. Through statistically accurate events, Real Lives brings to life different cultures, political systems, economic opportunities, personal decisions, health issues, family issues, schooling, jobs, religions, geography, war, peace, and more!
Communities of Practice (Lave and Wenger) Summary: Etienne Wenger summarizes Communities of Practice (CoP) as “groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly.” This learning that takes place is not necessarily intentional. Three components are required in order to be a CoP: (1) the domain, (2) the community, and (3) the practice. Originators: Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger in 1991 and further elaborated in 1998. Key Terms: domain, community, practice, identity, learning
Introducing a Game-Based Curriculum in Higher Ed Continuing from last week’s post about “The Gamification of Education”, this week we bring you a guest post from Justin Marquis, who examines the why’s and how’s of incorporating game based learning elements into the higher education curriculum. The gamification movement is in full-effect with its fair share of proponents and opponents. Those in favor of the idea most often cite student motivation and the ability of games to simulate real world circumstances so that learners can safely explore these environments without endangering themselves or others. Those on the other side of the argument think gamification is just a fad and that there is no real transfer of what is learned in games to the real world.
Why Microlearning is HUGE and how to be a part of it Microlearning is a way of teaching and delivering content to learners in small, very specific bursts. The learners are in control of what and when they’re learning. Why has Microlearning has blown up recently? (Pardon the pun) To answer this question, you have to take a look at who comprises a majority of learners. By 2025, Millennials alone will make up that 75 percent of the workforce. The average attention span of the Millennial generation is 90 seconds. The Gamification of Education and Cognitive, Social, and Emotional Learning Benefits Guest post by Jane Wolff. The current trend towards the increased use of games and game mechanics in instructional situations could probably have been foreseen quite some time ago. Stretching right back to the primitive gaming technology of the ZX Spectrum in the early 80’s, kids were hooked. As a wider variety and higher quality of educational games have been produced, it is really no surprise that educationists have gravitated towards further use of them as tools in the learning environment.
Articulate Storyline E-Learning Demos & Training Examples Periodic Table Periodic Table by Phil Mayor, Elearning Laboratory View the Articulate Storyline example (See more examples in the Articulate Storyline showcase) View the interactive example → U.S. State Capitals Educating Players: Are Games the Future of Education? CAMBRIDGE, Mass.—Smart phones, tablets and video game systems are often seen as distractions to school children in developed countries, which tend to adhere to a strict teacher-student educational model. At Technology Review‘s Emerging Technologies (EmTech) conference here on October 25, a panel of technologists and educators posited that it’s time to embrace students’ use of such technologies and rethink learning in both developed and developing countries. “The issue isn’t education or schools—it’s learning,” panelist Nicholas Negroponte, founder and chairman emeritus of M.I.T.’s Media Lab and the chairman of the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) foundation, said. “The fork in the road is the difference between knowing and understanding.
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