Some days my lunchtime blog browsing leads me to a source that triggers the phrase “JACKPOT!” in my mind. Today the word jackpot was a wonderful accompaniment to my broccoli and cheese soup! You can read through the feature articles of the 2008 Training Industry Quarterly Electronic Magazine, which thoroughly discuss simulations in this edition. I only read the article “Games and Simulations” by Bjorn Billhardt and Allison Kolb but the rest of the articles look interesting as well.
“Games and Simulations” brought up the recurring theme of learning through failure… that one of the beauties of simulations is that they can create situations where people can fail without serious consequences or blows to the self-esteem. The article mentioned Oregon trail and how most people learned through losing wagon members to disease or exhaustion or through over-hunting the bison population. I remember that too!! You definitely didn’t want to lose wagon members.
Another take-home message from the articles dealt with effective feedback mechanisms… something that is prevalent whenever technology is concerned. In this article “effective feedback” meant making players aware of their status in the game as either winning or losing. Feedback could also mean knowing how well the technology is communicating the learning points, or getting feedback from students about their satisfaction (or lack thereof) with the learning tool, or creating an interface to allow faculty to distribute feedback quickly and efficiently through technology.
Finally, the ever recurring theme of life in 2008 right now … the importance of CONTEXT (a.k.a. design). “Having the right kind of context and content is imperative in securing learner interest and establishing the relevance of learning objects”(Training Industry Quarterly, p. 18, article by Bjorn Billhardt, CEO of Enspire learning). Thank you Bjorn, well said!
I’m going to follow up the design theme with a quote from Daniel Pink’s “A Whole New Mind”.
Design – that is, utility enhanced by significance – has become an essential aptitude for personal fulfillment and professional success for at least three reasons. First, thanks to rising prosperity and advancing technology, good design is now more accessible than ever, which allows more people to partake in its pleasures and become connoisseurs of what was once specialized knowledge. Second, in an age of material abundance, design has become crucial for most modern businesses – as a means of differentiation and as a way to create new markets. Third, as more people develop a design sensibility, we’ll increasingly be able to deploy design for its ultimate purpose: changing the world. (Daniel Pink, A Whole New Mind, p. 70).
Horray for optimists! Let’s change the world one context at a time 