Game-Based E-Learning Gets Real
By Davis Klaila

Want to unlock the mystery of effective e-learning? Think design. And fun!

Trainers, facilitators, e-learning designers, and others engaged in knowledge development could take a lesson from the computer games industry. Gaming shows us that long, traditionally tedious, and difficult tasks can be engaging and fun when they're part of a good story.

There's no question that--when harnessed effectively--e-learning can be a faster, more cost-effective way to provide consistent information to people wherever they are and whenever they need it. The challenge is to strike a balance between cost-effectiveness and an engaging learning experience.

Initially, cost has seemed to overshadow content. Most early e-learning efforts have been adaptations of text-based training delivered electronically. These types of programs represent the worst of all possible alternatives--they deprive participants of interaction while reducing them to reading "green screens" of scrolling text. These electronic textbooks don't make use of the interactive power of electronic delivery, such as video, sound, and simulations.

E-learning consumers should expect programs that incorporate the same innovative tools and techniques used in the computer gaming industry--such as graphics, interaction, and skill-building challenges--to deliver an educational experience that's compelling, informative, and fun. The learning experience should be designed with a clear story line and interactive exercises that are engaging and relevant to course objectives. Ideally, computer game and other e-learning experiences should leave participants free to make choices that directly impact the outcome.

For example, Riven is a complex and challenging commercial computer game that offers puzzles to solve as you move through a series of locations to complete a quest. The choices you make lead you to a variety of outcomes. Each time you play, you learn, and ultimately master the game. Riven makes full use of animation, sounds, and videoclips. The result is an experience that draws you in completely. Should we expect any less from a business e-learning program?

The next generation of e-learning has arrived; here are four ways you can design e-learning with interaction and fun in mind.

Choose your own adventure. A strong story line is key to the success of interactive e-learning. Working through a story or simulation gives participants context for learning valuable lessons as they address business challenges, resolve workplace issues, and move ahead in the marketplace. It's the experience of working through the issues that remains with learners, so they're better equipped to handle real-life situations.

For example, an e-learning program might establish the following scenario: Your business is at a crossroads, and you must select a strategy that will help differentiate it in the marketplace. The strategy you select will suggest the investments you need, the employees you hire, and the customers you pursue. As events unfold, you may rethink your strategy, suffer the consequences of poor decisions, and reap the rewards of good decisions. Despite the outcome, the story line provides common frames of reference for all participants and can facilitate individual or group learning at any scale.

Build in e-facilitation. In a classroom environment, a facilitator's role is to guide participants through an event and maximize their experience. The role of facilitation within an e-learning experience may vary, though. To ensure that participants absorb as much practical experience as possible from their e-learning investment, it's important to provide a means for accessing guidance and obtaining feedback.

E-facilitation can be built into the experience as computer-generated feedback or delivered live as a screen image or chat room. Ideally, an e-learning program should offer tips and a debrief for general feedback, live or video images for context, and online chat rooms for expert feedback.

The challenge of e-facilitation is to identify and anticipate common issues and provide ways to address the uncommon. In e-learning, as in classroom training, setting the stage is key to success. Once the story line is clear and the stage is set, it's simpler to anticipate issues. For example, as a participant encounters situations and makes decisions, the program can use established guidelines to reward his or her actions. These well-planned computer prompts help keep participants focused and move the learning process along.

Drive home value with feedback. Though it's important to build facilitation into the e-learning--through tips, periodic debriefs, and the like--direct, person-to-person feedback provides the final link that ensures success. Through live interaction, a facilitator can provide closure by wrapping up the experience, responding to open issues, and beginning the process of transferring lessons learned to real-world situations.

To drive home lessons learned, you may want to provide participants with a written review or ask them to forward questions to experts who can address work issues. A collective group summary with a live facilitator may also be helpful. In addition, a participant's manager may debrief and transfer actions to day-to-day workplace situations.

When possible, it's best to adapt facilitation to meet the goals of the learning experience. For the most part, offering email and chat lines that address specific issues--combined with opportunities to debrief with a manager--is optimal.

Keep the conversation going, e-style. Conversation draws people into learning. When they interact, learners can help each other work through simulations, games, and other interactive exercises and transfer what they've learned to the workplace.

E-learning can be especially effective when conducted as a team exercise. When two to four learners gather around a computer, they can discuss strategies and interact in much the same way as in a classroom. When that's not possible, it's important to incorporate other types of learner interaction throughout the experience. This is where e-learning developers should take a page from the gamers book.

For example, advanced computer games often use chat functions in both their individual and team programs. Players can email questions and encourage one another. They can also use email, chat rooms, and Web postings to pick up tips, review strategies, and discuss outcomes. All of these tactics work well in a business e-learning environment, too.

Adding interactive exercises into a learning program encourages discussion. Once a participant makes a decision--selects a strategy, bids for or releases a customer or employee, and so on--there should be an opportunity to discuss the ramifications. And these consequences stimulate discussions that start as, "I was doing fine until my largest customer decided to bring the work in-house. So how do I hold on to the employees who were assigned to that account?"

A strong story line also encourages discussion. You can gauge how well participants are learning by noticing the game-specific vocabulary in online chats and day-to-day conversation.

Participant interaction is important. The buzz around a learning experience facilitates learning transfer. It's part of what differentiates traditional teaching from true learning. It's active instead of static, and the outcome lasts longer than the time it takes to read a textbook or attend a seminar.

E-learning, not e-boring. Let's face it, the structure of business relationships is fluid today. Multidisciplinary work teams, distributed work teams, and project-related work groups all demand rapid learning delivered on site and just-in-time.

While debating the relative merits of e-learning versus traditional classroom learning may make for a lively discussion, most arguments miss the point. Online learning, like voice response systems, ATMs, and other electronic self-service tools, is here to stay. The debate focus should be how to make the most of new technologies to design e-learning tools that are engaging and effective.

You can do this by paying attention to the design details. Incorporate enough fun and excitement into learning so that a participant will want to share it with colleagues. And you must make the most of technology to deliver content in a way that encourages interaction. Posting 500 PowerPoint slides on a Website is not e-learning; it's e-boring.

As you consider developing e-learning tools for your organization's learning repertoire, explore the world of gaming and entertainment Websites and note how they harness technology to engage and deliver.

Once you begin looking at e-learning as its own experience rather than comparing it to classroom learning, the need for facilitation and participation becomes obvious. And making e-learning effective is no longer a mystery.