1) This Adobe publication outlines the current state of mobile. The most surprising bit: "In just three years, tablets have overtaken smartphones in the amount of traffic they drive." More people are using tablets than smartphones to browse the web, watch videos, read magazines, and read books. This aligns nicely with best practices related to mobile learning — tablets should be targeted for more formal experiences and smartphones for more transactional experiences. 2) The Art of Data Visualization is a short video that provides an overview of… well… the art of data visualization. The video’s interviews with Tufte and others are interesting, but the data viz examples are the highlights of the video. In particular, the Genealogy of Pop/Rock Music is an infographic I hadn’t seen. If you’re searching for a Christmas gift for me, look no further. The post Two for Tuesday: Mobile Benchmark and Data Visualization appeared first on Enspire.

Welcome to our foray into podcasting! Every game teaches something — beginning with this premise, The Ministry of Games podcast goes on to explore the intersection of play and learning. Game designer Matt Rhoades and instructional designer Robert Bell take a close look at traditional edugaming, AAA console games, indie titles, board games, and beyond to discuss how games can positively impact learning experiences. In this premiere episode, Robert and Matt introduce themselves and have a free-ranging conversation about games and the premise of the show. Click here to subscribe to the podcast! The post Ministry of Games #1: Welcome to the Ministry appeared first on Enspire.

2013 seemed beset by news stories of the many problems in our education system. For 2014, I want to focus my work activities as an instructional designer into creating more problems for education. I want to create interesting problems. And, I want these interesting problems to form the basis of inquiry in project-based learning experiences that require design thinking skills and the access/adoption of need-to-know information and appropriate tools. Again, those essential elements are: Learning structured as project-based work addressing interesting problems Design thinking skills as core competencies Acclimation to knowledge and tools need to do the work Whether designing curriculum and instruction for K-12, higher ed, or corporate/organizational training, these are essential elements to creating transformative and transferable learning experiences. Here’s why: 1. Project-based learning targets a specific goal and objectives, and often occurs in short, recurring (iterative) time spans. In other words, the learning experience is set up to be purposeful and concentrated. This is how most of us structure our work activities too. Rather than receiving instruction through lecture or assigned readings or other traditional "education" methods, project-based learning requires an active exploration and assessment of the knowledge and skills necessary to completing the project. Learning is applied directly to tangible goals, and therefore is more relevant, memorable, and transferable. 2. Design thinking promotes creative and integrative approaches to problem-solving. Design, as a discipline itself, requires consideration of both usefulness and appeal in solutions. Important subsets of design skills are communication — encompassing interpersonal and team interactions — and resource management, which includes time and other constraining variables. Design thinking skills are the mother of all transferable skill sets. 3. We want learners to become adept at accessing and using the resources they need to inform critical thinking and decision-making at work or in their study. I’ve written before about the importance of "distributed cognition" which proposes that knowledge is not confined to an individual, but rather it is distributed throughout an environment. We use external sources including other people, materials, and other tools and supports within the environment to help us solve problems. This applies to any task in any setting: I need to do this, so I need to know this and I need to use this. There’s a wonderful dynamism between project-based work, design thinking skills, and the ability to assimilate resources that supports — indeed transcends — the subject domain or task area. It begins by creating interesting problems: challenging, worthwhile, intriguing, surprising, complex problems that act as significant catalysts into the content and skills to be learned. The post My 2014 Resolution: Create More Problems for Education appeared first on Enspire.

Matt Rhoades and Robert Bell delve into the history of the two big "edugaming" titles from 1985, The Oregon Trail and Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?. The guys discuss these educational games to examine what they can teach us today, both as games designers and as instructors. Are our memories of these computer lab classics clouded by nostalgia? Or do these games actually hold up as entertaining and instructive experiences? Show Notes: Super Amazing Wagon Adventure Very funny spoof of The Oregon Trail that calls out the frustration of reported events arbitrarily happening to you along the trail. Indie game available on Steam. Papers, Please Unlike Oregon Trail, this game does a great job of making the player feel emotionally tied to their family characters through text alone. Billed as a "dystopian document thriller", Papers, Please had been highly rated and regarded since its release last August. Indie game available on Steam. Click here to subscribe to the podcast! The post Ministry of Games #2: The Oregon Trail and Carmen Sandiego appeared first on Enspire.

There are few expressions that irk me more than "It’s only a game." Ironically, the phrase is tossed around by both detractors of games and apologists, and it’s equally misplaced by both groups. You’ve almost certainly heard it used in at least one context: someone is getting mad during play and one of the other players tries to soothe that anger by reminding everyone that "it’s only a game." The phrase gets bandied about when the highly contentious topic arises as to whether games are capital-A "Art" or not. Often passionate gamers will reply (presumably with eyes rolling in contempt) that "they’re only games," because, as we all know, Art is Not Fun. Film critics will sometimes refer to a movie as "like a video game," and they never mean it in a complementary way (they are not, for example, lauding how immersive and engaging the film is). Instead, they’re almost certainly referring to how shallow and meaningless it feels. In each of these cases, it seems to me that games are being taken for granted. Maybe that’s natural - after all, for many of us, our earliest childhood memories probably involve playing games. We DO take them for granted. And for some of us, the transition to the serious business of adulthood (sadly) has involved setting games aside. After all, capital-A Adulthood (like Art) is Not Fun, apparently. But games deserve better than to be denigrated with a word like "only." Let’s take a moment to look at what people are actually saying when they say "it’s only a game," and let’s give the humble game its due! Let’s start by looking at the situation with the angry player. He’s losing, or has already lost. His competitive nature is getting the better of him and now he’s upset. "It’s only a game," someone says. But what that well-meaning person is really saying is that games are a safe place where you can make mistakes and fail without consequence in the real world. Far from being something trivial, this is one of the most magical and wonderful things about games! It’s OK to fail and learn from that failure because we’ve all agreed that what happens within the game has no bearing outside the game. It’s OK. It’s a game. Games, by their nature, impose artifice on the real world - a set of rules that is arbitrary, but consensual among those playing. To be bound by those rules is, at the same time, to be liberated from the rules of everyday life. That’s magical - like the sense of being transported that comes from reading a book or watching a film, but with the added sense of participation that only engaging directly in an activity can provide. Since we’ve returned to the subject of films, let’s revisit our film critics. I think many of these critics haven’t played many (if any) video games, and that bothers me, but let’s give our hypothetical critics the benefit of the doubt. When they draw comparison between a game and a film, they are almost always describing a film that is kinetic, violent (or at least dense with action), limited in terms of plot, and probably laden with special effects and computer animation. To be fair, that description probably applies to a large percentage of video games available today. And yet, games like that can still be richly engaging and almost hypnotically immersive in a way the film being described almost certainly is not. Maybe our critics are really saying, "I wish I was playing instead of watching this." Because the missing element is interactivity. Games by their nature demand to be picked up, played with, experimented with. When that element is missing, the magic can vanish. This is the eternal bane of game marketing people: many games aren’t much fun to watch. To an outside observer, without the element of interaction, the game becomes confusing, boring, or both. This is also why you’ll often hear people struggle when trying to describe the experience of playing a game, sometimes falling back on "you just have to play it." It IS experiential, and for the observer, the experience is incomplete. This brings us finally to our game aficionados discussing whether games are Art or not. If you aren’t living and breathing the world of games on a daily basis, it might shock you how often this topic emerges and how heated the discussions can become. Many who claim to be the most dedicated and most invested in games are the most passionate that games are NOT art, while many others who have aspirations for the medium beyond Call of Duty 12 are equally passionate that they ARE. I’m going to sidestep the question (take THAT, internet!) in order to focus on why it is that this discussion is so intense. Games are personal. I talked earlier about how early in our lives our first experiences with games occur. Games have been with us as a species for almost as long as we have BEEN a species, and playing games is woven into our DNA on some level. Add to this "genetic proclivity to play" the fact that the player’s experience with a game is shaped by his or her interaction with the game - the player provides the input, and that makes his or her experience with the game in some ways unique, even if modally those interactions with the game are limited - as well as the fact that the player is immersed within the game, and the result is an experience that is intimate and personalized. So when people passionately argue that "they’re only games" in this context, they are really arguing that "they’re my games." Maybe that personal experience doesn’t bear out the thesis that games are Art, or maybe the ardent defender of games feels that external forces are trying to change or redefine what that profoundly personal game experience is and has been for the player. In any case, that personal connection to games is powerful. So, games are experientially safe, immersive and interactive, and intensely personal even when they are shared communal experiences. They are powerful vehicles for transporting us as players. They stir passions. Not bad, considering they’re "only" games. The post It’s Only a Game appeared first on Enspire.

Matt and Robert start their ongoing discussion of genre in this episode. As shorthand for "design choices", the guys examine how genre allows us to group games by the characteristics they share. They also dive into the first genre of this series: action games. What lessons can designers take from the features of action favorites like Space Invaders and Street Fighter? This episode is a companion piece to "The Lexicon of Games" conference session Matt and Robert delivered at ASTD TechKnowledge 2014 and Training 2014 Conference, so if you missed them in Las Vegas and San Diego, here’s your chance to get a taste of their talk! Show Notes: Divekick Matt recommends this as an exemplar of the action genre; "Divekick is a fighting game, but it is played with only two buttons (not even a joystick) - it’s really stripped down and funny, but it still preserves the essence of fighting games." Indie game available on Steam. Click here to subscribe to the podcast! The post Ministry of Games #3: Let’s Talk Genre appeared first on Enspire.

1) Here’s a feature that all learners skip, all designers dislike, and all project stakeholders insist on: the nav tour. We spend 30-60 seconds saying, "Here’s the help button… here’s the resources button… here’s the menu… etc." First, let’s stop doing that. Second, think about how they do this in games and mobile apps — they provide in-app tutorials. When you first launch an app, you don’t get a prolonged tour of the interface — you start using the app. Then, the first time that the user might need to click a certain button, the app says, "Hey, it’s your first time doing this, so Imma help you out. Click this button." That’s what we ought to do more often. 2) I won’t overburden your working memory by going on and on about this chunking post from Connie Malamed. Just know that it’s helpful information. The post Two for Tuesday: Nav Tours and Chunking appeared first on Enspire.

Matt and Robert discuss systems, the essence of why games make sense as a learning tool. The guys will speak to assigning values to reward behaviors, emergent gameplay, and Michael Jackson’s Moonwalker arcade game. Matt also demonstrates the importance of testing your games as he reminisces about his fatally flawed homemade Miami Vice role playing game. Show Notes: "A Theory of Fun for Game Design" by Raph Koster Robert brought up theories found in this book, which "…teach[es] interactive designers how to create and improve their designs to incorporate the highest degree of fun." Robotron: 2084 The classic two-joystick arcade game, which is incredibly difficult and designed to eat your quarters. The system in this game allows players to choose whether or not they want to save the family that is under attack. Since saving the family is not required to finish the level, but has an extra point value incentive, the behavior of helping people is encouraged but the game gives players enough space to choose that behavior for themselves. Click here to subscribe to the podcast! The post Ministry of Games #4: Games as Systems appeared first on Enspire.

1) Many of you are probably familiar with the Oatmeal, where Matthew Inman regularly posts hilarious and insightful comics on a variety of topics. This story about running really caught my attention, though. It’s funny, memorable, and a pleasure to read. Why isn’t more online learning like this? What’s wrong with simply telling a story in an engaging way? Here’s my pitch to you: ask your learners for actual stories about the next learning need you’re trying to tackle, then create a comic around that story. 2) This one’s for the geeks… We’ve all heard about the importance of white space in graphic design. How about the importance of white space in our code? I’ve certainly worked in plenty of XML files that were created with no white space, indenting, or nesting — it ain’t fun. The post Two for Tuesday: The Oatmeal and Readable Code appeared first on Enspire.

1) I’ll be honest. I’m mostly curious to see if a link to an "Elearning Bullshit Quiz" will make it through our marketing department and onto our public website. If you’re reading this, I’ve won! 2) It really is amazing how putting notes, ideas, drawings, and tasks on a wall can get a project moving. Just this week, we had a design workshop that didn’t really gel until we started moving sticky notes around a whiteboard. Once we all had something to touch and move on the wall, we really started cooking. The post Two for Tuesday: B.S. and Working Workshop Walls appeared first on Enspire.