Zero Cost E-Learning
By Sivasailam Thiagarajan

As a foot soldier in the e-learning revolution, I see our leaders rapidly losing the hearts and minds of learners, trainers, and designers. Strategists are converging toward learning objects, metatags, and comprehensive and costly platforms. However, some of my fellow soldiers have been developing some agile (and cheap) guerilla e-learning activities: email learning games.

An email game is the poor person's gateway to e-learning. Using this format, facilitators and players communicate with each other by sending electronic notes. All interactions are limited to low-technology text messages. Currently, I use 24 email games, which incorporate several rounds of play spread over a number of days and are associated with different types of learning.

Please note: I refer to these tools as games (because I prefer the term to some jargon such as asynchronous collaborative conferencing systems), but there's nothing trivial or contrived about this format. Email games produce measurable performance-based learning outcomes.

Limitations and benefits

The bad news: Email games aren't fast. To permit participation from people around the world, you have to schedule a few days for each round of play. They have no bells and whistles, such as Flash animation and sound effects. Instead, designers depend on relevant content and engaging activities to motivate learners. You need other people to play the game--these games aren't solitary interactions between the learner and the computer program. Also, email game messages can get lost among spam so players often delete instructions by mistake. Finally, players tend to drop in and out of the games, making built-in flexibility that permits intermittent play a requirement.

The good news: Email is inexpensive. Most players have access to email at home and in the office, making the cost for playing an email game minimal. Nearly everyone is familiar with email and already uses it for several other purposes, therefore, learners don't need to learn a new technique to participate. Likewise, email is unobtrusive and players can schedule participation. For example, because games come directly to the player's inbox, they get to avoid complicated log-in and password procedures and lengthy file downloads. Equally important, email is ubiquitous, allowing learners to play the game from anywhere in the world. For the designer, email enables improvisation because email games can be adapted to suit various contexts, ranging from a short activity to an indepth course. In addition, developers don't need a production team to code HTML or program Java applets.

An example

A multinational high-tech corporation, with offices in eight different countries, shifts to a team-based model. The change transforms traditional managers into team facilitators. Because manager-facilitators are geographically dispersed, the training director decides to pilot an email game approach with a group of 17 participants in different locations. A series of email games are strung together to deliver a complete course.

Preliminary contact: The training initiative starts with an email that briefly outlines the plan, emphasizing that this approach will parallel on-the-job teamwork activities and encouraging all participants to keep a log of their related workplace experiences. The note explains that the game will require participants to play 30 to 45 minutes every day and respond to each round of the game within 48 hours. A resource list that identifies books, videotapes, and Websites covering facilitation skills is also distributed.

Game 1: Poll and Predict. The next email introduces the first game. Poll and Predict asks each participant to send a list of key characteristics that they think make an effective facilitator. The training facilitator consolidates the list, adding a few items from research literature.

The second round requires players to review the final list of characteristics and complete two tasks: 1) select the three most important characteristics of effective facilitators and 2) predict which three items they think other players will vote "most popular." Players send email notes with their personal choices and predictions to the facilitator. In return, they receive a list of the 20 items arranged in order of popularity. The player with the most accurate prediction is declared the winner of the Outstanding Psychic Award.

Game 2: Define It! This email game starts by identifying the highest-rated characteristic of an effective facilitator, for example, confidence. Then, players must submit an operational definition of the term. The game's administrator collects all of the definitions and sends a complete set to players, asking them to select the top three definitions. The entry that receives the most votes is declared the winner. The players complete the same process for the top five characteristics, and the training group conducts a content analysis of all definitions.

Game 3: Depolarizer. The earlier definition game uncovers that some players believe that effective facilitation has both positive and negative elements. This game is used to explore the idea further with learners.

In the first round, half the participants are assigned a negative role and the other half are assigned a positive role. For example, players with last names beginning with the letters A through M must submit three or more ways that a team leader's confidence can negatively interfere with team performance. The other players are asked to determine ways that confidence can positively enhance team performance. The facilitator collects and arranges all comments, with negative and positive comments alternating. The players repeat the same process for all top five characteristics.

Game 4: 101 Tips. This game asks players to submit at least one but fewer than five practical guidelines for being an effective facilitator. Players are encouraged to be brief and base their tips on results from the earlier games, personal experiences, input from peers, and expert knowledge found in books and articles. Each player that submits a new idea earns 10 points. In addition, a panel selects the top three tips at the end of each round. The best tip receives a bonus score of 70 points, the runner-up receives 30 points, and an honorable mention receives 10 points. At the end of each round, players receive an email with the collection of tips along with the names of the top three scorers.

The outcome of 101 Tips is a set of practical tips for effective team facilitation. In the process of playing this game, players also learn about different facilitation styles and their own preferences.

Game 5: Superlatives. By now, all participants have had actual face-to-face experience in facilitating their teams; therefore, this game is designed to compare and contrast facilitation experiences of different players. The game begins with a note that asks players to briefly describe an experience related to each of the following five superlatives: rewarding, challenging, depressing, humorous, and confusing. Next, players must predict the most frequently mentioned experience for each of the five superlatives. Players then receive a complete list of responses for each superlative, with the most accurate predictions identified.

Game 6: Creative Solutions. This game uses composite case studies based on responses to the superlative game. Players are asked to suggest solutions to the problems presented. The game's facilitator organizes responses into two sets, sending one set to each player and ensuring that no player receives a set containing his or her suggestion. Then, players must review the suggestions and rate them on creativity and practical utility. Votes are tabulated to determine the top three solutions. During the final round, players choose a solution among the top three answers.

Game 7: Four Heads. This game provides additional opportunities for analyzing and solving facilitation problems. The first round asks players to respond to several case studies, which are sent to players randomly. During the second round, the responses are sent to other randomly selected players who must critique the solutions on either their weaknesses or strengths.

Game 8: Half Life. This game provides closure to the course. First, players are asked to write a comprehensive guideline for effective facilitation. In exactly 32 words, their submissions must incorporate key insights that they gained from the earlier games and their workplace experience. An external panel judges the guidelines and selects the top three submissions. The compiled list of guidelines is sent to all players, with the judges' top choices identified. During the next four rounds, players must successively shrink their guidelines to exactly 16, eight, four, and two words, while preserving the essential message. At the end of each round, judges select the top three guidelines. After the final round, players vote for the best guideline of any length.

More games

While the preceding example illustrates how email games can be sequenced to deliver a complete course, email games can also be used as brief interludes that support training activities and other types of performance-improvement interventions. Here are two additional games you can use.

Chain Reaction. Ask a randomly selected group of employees to complete the following sentence: "What this organization needs is ----------." In addition to sending the response to the coordinator, ask each participant to send a similar email to one of his or her co-workers, and so one. After a month, summarize the needs-analysis data and post a report on a Website. Also, track down the longest unbroken chain of notes from the first person to the last and publicize this information.

Creative Solutions. Use this email game as an ongoing problem-solving strategy. Invite employees to email a brief description of a technical problem to a registered group of game players. The facilitator compiles different suggestions and sends them to all players, inviting them to select the best solution. Award the top-ranked solution and encourage all players to adapt alternative ideas to their unique situations.

Improvisation opportunities

Traditional instructional designers use a systematic procedure to create a tightly structured training package. E-learning platforms have rigidly incorporated this systematic approach for developing online learning packages. I believe that this is a mistake--a final training package is an illusion because content changes so rapidly. Furthermore, the pursuit of replicable training neglects the potential power that an online learning environment has to continuously enhance the depth and breadth of learning, by encouraging participants to generate new content. In my opinion, improvisation provides a better metaphor for online training design than the current engineering metaphor. Enter design jamming.

An Australian co-worker of mine, Marie Jasinski, has borrowed the concept of jamming from jazz improvisation and applied it to the instructional design context. The heart of design jamming is the assumption that online training courses are created collaboratively when facilitators and players interact with each other. Some benefits include

• emergent objectives. Although an overall training goal is specified at the beginning of an email game, you don't need to conduct a detailed task analysis to specify a list of training objectives or learning objects. Instead, let performance outcomes emerge from the interaction among the coach and players.

• serendipitous paths. The outcome of the first email game suggest the second game. For instance, in the team facilitation example, one game uncovered that an excess of any desirable characteristic can result in undesirable outcomes. This insight didn't come from interviews with subject-matter experts but by reflecting on the spontaneous comments during the game. Similarly, an effective learning activity in that example involves analyses of facilitation problems and synthesis of creative solutions. That activity is based on authentic case studies that were developed from player responses to an earlier email game.

• life-long interaction. In one sense, the team facilitation course example doesn't reach a conclusion. Near the end of any email game course, encourage players to create an informal network to continue learning with each other by replaying email games with their own content.

• accumulated content. Responses from players provide a rich source of additional content. Archived responses can be reviewed and analyzed by future groups. One caveat: require each player to develop his or her responses to the email game questions before accessing archived information.

• new resources, new games. Because new players will have unique experiences and outcomes, new games can develop. For example, archived responses resulted in a new game called Chunking, which requires players to review previous responses and organize them into logical categories. A critical twist to this game is that it asks one group of players to apply the category system developed by another group. The learning outcome is increased understanding of the relevant variables associated with each set of responses.

In addition to design jamming, small-scale improvisation can occur. Developers can improvise and improve games as they play because they invite facilitators and participants to play with the rules rather than playing within the rules. Some examples include

• same process, different content. For instance, you can use 101 TIPS to collect strategies and suggestions for working on different types of workplace issues, such as cross-cultural communication, coaching, rapid instructional design, conflict management, and consulting.

• same process, different outcomes. The original 101 Tips game was designed to collect strategies, however, you can adapt the game to share relevant information (101 Factoids about a product) or collect important questions (101 Questions to develop a FAQ).

• same process, different uses. While most email games were originally designed as learning activities, you can use them to conduct needs analysis, generate ideas, make decisions, evaluate new products, and so forth.

Bottom line: Email games provide low-cost, low-tech alternatives to complex and costly approaches. The games can result in effective learning and problem solving because the technology disappears into the background. Most important, email games are built on the belief that resourcefulness has more value than resources.

May the games begin…

Published: May 2002