Robin Sargent 0:00
Welcome to become an idol. I'm Dr. Robin Sargent, owner of idle courses. This is the place where newbies come to learn and veteran share their knowledge
I have here with me today mole ash, and you probably know him in our community because he owns the catalyst. He's also one of our idol mentors in the ITIL courses Academy and he just has years of experience in instructional design and online learning and just a wealth of knowledge and experience to share. And so more will you do a better job of introducing yourself?
Moe Ash 0:47
Okay, well, I have been working in the field of l&d for about 15 years or so I've kind of kind of been through a lot of with this as we had before the podcast, we talked about that. And I started off as a trainer, classroom trainer. And then I went into l&d consultancy, but I, I started to see my passion for instructional design. When I worked for a company that does business board games, we do whole green business, homegrown business board game simulations. And my role was the r&d manager. So it got me into design. And you know what? I like instructional design more and gamification of learning. So that's how the whole story started.
Robin Sargent 1:33
So when did you actually start the catalyst,
Moe Ash 1:35
I started the catalyst back in 2018. We started with two basic programs, two basic public programs. One was an instructional design, the other one was in train the trainer. And we started to provide for visit for service providers, training providers, and companies custom made programs that we can create, later on years after our community became of graduates now is reaching almost 70. And most of them work freelance and learning design and as trainers, and my team is around like five people. And we do custom made board games, escape rooms, learning games, and also elearning and instructional design shenanigans. Any learning design needed basically?
Robin Sargent 2:25
Well, I'm glad you mentioned that, because it actually kind of brings us to what we wanted to focus our topic of conversation around, which is gamification, learning games and those types of things. And so how do you want to focus this as far as like, what do you want to talk about as far as like learning games? And should we be explicit about what we mean, when we're talking about the different types of games that are available for learning designers?
Moe Ash 2:50
I believe that there are two types of instructional designers that are in this domain, or like in this niche, I don't know what to call a segment that domain principle and discipline, which is gamification. Some people consider everything gamification. And there are others who are let's call them purists that put in a differentiation between what is gamification what is not, I will consider myself more of a purist because gamification is something and everything else is just everything else. And when I'm saying everything else, I mean, game for learning, game, gain based pedagogy, game based learning, simulations, serious games, and yeah, all of this are are not unification. Each and every one of those is something completely, entirely different.
Robin Sargent 3:44
I'm actually with you. Right. Okay. Yeah, I guess I guess I'm a purist. No, I didn't know I was. Yeah, gamification, I'm with you. Right. It's adding game elements to already existing effective instruction and learning strategies that is that kind of what you're saying to are.
Moe Ash 4:02
True. For me, I look at gamification as as a system. So a game is basically a system in which players engaged in an artificial conflict, defined by rules that result in a quantified outcome. This is basically what a game is. Game starting from, like, board games, indie games that you play on your phone, video games, it's just a system where there are players. And there's a conflict that they have to go through a challenge of some sort or a series of challenges. And there are specific rules defined with your XP with your experience points, with your health, with your way of movement with the abilities that you have. And it results in a quantifiable outcome which could be a gift, a treasure, the princess winning condition of some sort. This is what a game is. So When we're looking at this as a principle or a discipline, let's just call it a discipline. Gamification is just an instructional design approach. And even when people look into the Word gamification, and they put it in Arabic, we don't translate it as the word gamification. Actually, we translated as motivational game strategies. This is the actual translation Arabic, I'm gonna say it an Arabic strategy to elaborate deficit. So it's actually motivational game strategies. We use strategies of game to motivate people to reach towards the end goal. Come What May the end goal could be in marketing, people, engagements, learning anything, gamification is not something that is exclusive to learning or education, it can be used for anything because it's a system and a discipline that can be applied, if you can apply properly.
Robin Sargent 5:57
Thank you so much for defining, okay, now I know what we're working with. Alright, so now how now since we're talking about it being one of the approaches, how do you kind of how do you decide that this is an approach that you're going to use? Because it seems like people would say like, well, everybody needs to be motivated to reach the learning outcome? So should we put games on everything? And I imagine you're pricing? Yes or no?
Moe Ash 6:24
Because I wouldn't, I would say no, but sometimes, I was putting up a post today on Facebook. And people will be like, Yeah, I want to use gamification as a way of applying experiential learning. So people can go through levels and solve a puzzle, or do an activity. And this way, they will be able to be more practical to reach the learning objectives. Unlike this is any learning program. What you're seeing is basically pure instructional design. If I did action mapping, I could do that without gamification, gamification, that at some point, it can actually be a cognitive load, or it could be a burden to the learning experience. So when do we use it? According and I'm not going to be quoting anyone this is out of like, pure, practical experience. I always look into gamification, when the process is long and redundant, when the program is pretty big. And it needs a lot of reinforcement. When I need to include an intense level of social learning, when I need to keep people motivated, along a big streak of knowledge that they have to go through one step at a time. If I want to apply a valuable failure experience where they fail in something, they learn about it, then they accumulate their failure in getting into a different level, and they continue on. So we use mechanics, I'm going to let's explain mechanics later on what it is, we use mechanics that are called progression system mechanics, where we put a structure where people can have an actual meaningful transition from one point of the instruction to the other, which is basically what we into in constructivism as chunking. So people can assimilate and accommodate the knowledge one step at a time in a seamless fashion. But if you're having a program on IRC in that sense, or VLC, that is only for like a week long, or like two days, why put gamification just see a different approach. Maybe if you're doing an elearning, you could be doing e learning with a branching scenario. And a kid can be amazing. You can be doing an E learning with knowledge checks that you start with. And then you let people get engaged with interactive media. And it can still reach the point needed. It doesn't have to be gamification and every point, and every in every aspect, and you don't also do gamification by adding points, badges and leaderboards. DVD, the famous PBL,
Robin Sargent 9:13
the evil axis, digital access,
Moe Ash 9:15
and also in elearning. Oh, I use gamification. I added Jeopardy. No, no. That's I added a timer. I'm using gamification I made time constraints. No, that's not. That's not loss aversion. No. So you really need to build a system where people have first an actual scaffolding, they need to learn the rules of the game. They need to learn the rules of the system. And then they go step by step where they are intrigued by how they interact with the system. And also gamification needs to have an epic mean, needs to have a calling a purpose at the end, not just to finish the course, but to get an attainable rewards. And as we talked earlier before to the podcast about the self determination theory, the self determination theory about Mark LeBlanc, he said that there has to be a means of relatedness relate to the city environment related this to, to the learning score function to the purpose of how that learning would, would be reflected on me, I need to see that I'm gaining more mastery, I am actually getting better one step at a time, when I'm going through the whole thing, not getting in a knowledge check. Not passing a quiz on an elearning, I am actually gaining more practice I am developing as I go forward. This is how we apply motivational strategies. At the core essence of a gamification is pure behavioral economics. It's how you truly make people get better one step at a time to reach the end goal.
Robin Sargent 11:07
This is so interesting to me, because when I did my research on gamified learning theory, it did. It talks a lot about that game mechanics are just like a moderating influence on behaviors, they don't actually directly affect any of the learning outcomes, they only affect the behaviors, then that influenced that outcomes, do you? Do you see that as well, for game mechanics?
Moe Ash 11:37
Well, I will go for the MBA. And I'm sorry, I said something wrong. The person that the people for self determination theory is Ryan and DC, I got it mixed up Ryan and VC. But when I'm talking about Mark LeBlanc, and Robert Zubik, I am talking about the MDA, which is it's a paper on game research and game design. It's a formal approach to game research and game design. And when we're talking about mechanics, mechanics are basically robbing a set of rules that dictate the outcome of interactions within a game elements that move the actions forward. So it's not only the rules of the game, it's what the rules imply. Like there's a mechanic that is called an investment mechanic. So an investment mechanic is how you put a certain action, or a specific reward system that the learner would be able to invest in continuously to keep coming back to the game, or to keep actually being motivated to play the game. It could be a rule, it could be a constraint, but the motivation of it is to keep you hooked. And even better, to keep you getting informed and learning as you go on and keep being in the game itself. So mechanics are the engine, per se. It's the engine that moves the game forward, you have also mechanical tricks, rewards. And there's a mechanic called random rewards. Fixed rewards are rewards that people get by the end of each and every level, hurl challenge or something and they're expecting, and then there's something called a random reward, direct reward that they didn't even expect. So in tricks, their curiosity to keep on playing because you know what, maybe there's a discount, maybe there's a random reward. We do that every day we walk in the mall. And you know what, maybe there's a discount. So it keeps us going forward. And then there are rules that would deprive you from certain things. This is called the loss aversion mechanic. A loss aversion mechanic is that mechanic that keeps you at bay. And it gives you a sense of failure, but it's just a minute sense of failure that can teach you and then you can continue on playing with that cautious understanding of minor. So mechanics, influence dynamics, dynamics are totally different game. Mechanics are directly related to provoking the motivators of the players dynamics, includes the constraints and the emotions and the narratives and the progression and the relationships, the direct behavioral responses of mechanics. So when you put in a mechanic, you want me to behave in a certain way to take a certain decision to go through a certain action. Learning happens through the dynamics, mechanics is what the designers put. So I behave in a certain way because the designer created a medium created an experience that made me get influenced to do that specific behavior. This is the behavior where they take decisions to do better project management, because the loss aversion and the game did that. This is the mechanic that made me be very cautious when I'm taking a decision in dealing with change because the mechanics need it Understand this. So my focus as a designer is to create the best kind of mechanics, constraints and liabilities and, and things that can can can aid the learner to think or take a specific decision. So when that decision is taken, a dynamic of behaviors come into place. And all of this is wrapped collectively, within aesthetics, which is aesthetics of challenge drama Fantasia, the the colors, the avatars, the look and feel, that makes me feel more immersively in the absolute experience of the gamified system.
Robin Sargent 15:40
Okay, so now you've got to share some of your examples. Like I know, for example, and we've talked about this that you said that gamification is really useful when you're trying to get somebody to go through a long process, and they've got to complete every step along the way. And so you actually have created at least a gamified training for instructional designers, and then I'm sure you've done other things as well. So give us some of these examples of ways that you've used it.
Moe Ash 16:09
Okay, so, for your eyes only, I'm gonna show you something because this is a podcast, but for your eyes only gonna show you this. This is a board game that we created before for an event that contained 80 people. It lasted for two days, straight 16 hours. And we have to engage the people in an actual simulation on how employment comes into place. Okay, how what to do that the the institute is called efe, which is Egypt for employment. So today's not a big, it's not a big duration. But 80 people is a big duration. And I need everyone to learn the whole thing. So it can be the long time and it can be a lot of people that you need to work them together. So we put them on this board game, and the board game, we divided people into eight teams, on the four corners of the of the square board game that is on the screen that people here cannot really see, but I'm trying to explain. And if you can't see, those are actually tiles that people need to have at the beginning of the game. And then when they're, when it comes to turn, they need to surrender a tile and get another tile. What happens is that we tried to simulate the different constraints that happen in employment. So when you put a tile, you need to be answering a question that is related to employment and sacrifice something that is part of your own competency, as a caliber that wants to work. And the simulation is how you will be able to get out of this maze using the cards that you have, or the tiles that you have with your team members collectively in a big team, and how you will work together to keep yourself within the board game. These tiles. Let me show you how it works. These tiles, each and every team has a number on it, that represents who they are. Their work is to kick the other teams out of the board game not to get into, like winning the whole game, but actually trying to kick other people out. And this is a simulation of how people are getting into a fierce competition into the employment sector. And it depends on how you can sacrifice what you know, and answer and do reskilling with other things and upskill on what you can do better in the field itself. This game stayed for like two hours straight. And it was one part of a series of different games that we did for two days. But it did resonate big time with the people because they had to think about different strategies, while looking at their collective skills, and how to pass the pass the the questions, get people out and know how to work together.
Robin Sargent 19:01
I just love that you showed it to me because what you can actually see is that you have a giant board game on the floor, there are so many people standing around it. And every single person in all these pictures that you're showing about Nemo are just there and they're all looking at their cards. They're all looking at the board and they are just they are they are committed and motivated to win this game.
Moe Ash 19:31
And I'm crouched on the floor just like telling them what to do. And by the way, there's an extra trick that there are certain secret cards that are in the middle of the board that are flipped the other way. So they would need to flip it and see if that will be in their advantage or not. So I even left some random awards and loss aversion in the middle of the board game to simulate the possible hurdles or firefighting that they might see in the field of employment. They're all in the field of HR. By the way, all of those people. Oh,
Robin Sargent 20:03
that's, that's so interesting. And so besides of course, you know, kicking people out and was there a reward for the winners?
Moe Ash 20:10
Oh, yeah, they got like, what was the gar giveaways? Give I can't remember the giveaways that was like before COVID, obviously, with that number of people, so there was another program, I can show it to you. And that's like, program that is so close to my heart. That program is called the limo SoLoMo is a program on CDI competency based interviews. And my clients who's the African Union, and also in the study, African Court of Justice, we did it to the CDC, we did it to UNDP. We did it as a human rights. It was a program that doesn't only tell you about doing CDI, but understanding people's means of diversity and inclusion, respecting diversity, understanding cognitive biases that fall into this. Also conflict management, and how to use psychometrics and how to conduct an actual proper CBI. So this was a program where I do it in a blended fashion online, I do it in five days, three days synchronous two days asynchronous self paced on the LMS. But when I do it, and face to face, I do it for three days straight. So this is how the board looks like it's a two by three meter sport and a big in a big room. And they are represented by cars that are going through the big race of limo limo is a French town that has an annual race that goes on for 72 hours and endurance race, where you change the racers in it. So they are representing four different cars, Bentley, Porsche, Bentley, Porsche, Ferrari, and Aston Martin. And they are going through the board with different pivots. And they're trying to compete on who would end the race. The trick here, and that's something that they don't know that they can do all will be ending the race, which represents the process of recruitment. But how would they ended effectively? This depends on the points that they gain with each and every game within the board game that represents different facets of cognitive biases and, and how to do interviews and how to place behavior indicators with the right competencies in a specific game called workshop within the board game itself. And also, they have racers who are for nominees, and the need to choose what kind of interview they will do to them when they go for an interview that only tests like three competencies, and they will do CDI for them, or four, or five or six. The higher you go, the higher the risk, and the more points, but also each and every question that you choose wrong from the question bank, with the doctor by 15 points. And then they go into an interview. And after the interview, they tell me would they hire someone or not? And upon which, if they hire the right person, they get more points. So that was a complete representation to how the process would end, you will all end the race. And you will all recruit, but on what cost? And did you do right or not? Did you respect the diversity? Did you fall into cognitive biases of liking someone way too much or liking the character that you have in your cart. And by the way, I become the character, I simulate the character and I do an official interview in front of them. If I'm a guy or girl, I act as a girl, I act as whoever the guy is. If it's an obnoxious guy, I be the obnoxious that I have done the good guy. I'm the good guy. And sometimes they say the obnoxious guy was good. And I tell them why. And I reflect on how they chose by some biases. So that was a game that I hold dearly. These are the cards. And that's the board. It's it's a remarkable game because we worked so much on it. And it took us so much that to finish it. And this was done in Ethiopia. We did this to the HR members there. And we've been working with this game for like two years straight. Now we've the deliver this to over 200 staff members find it for so far. And you can see on the on the table. Here are the cards of the players. There's a mock job description. These are the cards that help them build a strategy on how to move on the board the one that the two ladies are holding. So yeah, that's that's another game.
Robin Sargent 24:37
Oh my gosh, that's so neat. I just love that even thinking about how your games are not they're not elearning necessarily and if you if they could see on the podcast, right they see that even the racing game or Lemond is is a big race board on the ground again, it like takes up the whole room and people are having to stand around and so I I bet everybody's like, wow, these are brilliant. I can never design a game like this. But I bet I know you could probably share with us some of the things that you use. So like, if you know that the conditions are right, you know, this is a long process. It takes many steps. We need people to be engaged, motivated, all all the way through. What are kind of those first steps after that, that you take to design? Well, we're going to, I guess you do look for your engine First, your mechanics or
Moe Ash 25:30
was this start with action mapping, and the learning objectives? That's what I would always say. Some, there are many people that look at, you know what, I want to build a game. Let me look at the aesthetics first. Oh, so I'm gonna do this Fantasia. I'm not gonna do this lecture tomorrow. By the way, learn more started. I'm not gonna forget this. We were just talking about this yesterday out of pure coincidence that I was we were here in my my place, and my wife was not here. And she was in Saudi Arabia. So I was had the whole place for my own. And I have my designers, and we were watching enemy Robin. We were watching enemy. lamal was supposed to be a fighting game based on an enemy that we watched. Later on, it became a racing game. So it's not that you need to start with a specific ideas. Start with the learning objectives. We were like, okay, learning objectives. We want people to do this. We want people to do that. We want people to apply cognitive biases, will they ever be able to master cognitive biases? No. But we need to put them in a situation where they be subjected to it, give them a reflection, and also let them understand what it is, will people be able to conduct CVI? Yes, how let's do that. You need to let them not be CBI professionals, but we need to let them apply practice CBI techniques. So the better you are in crafting your learning objectives, the better you are in creating the mechanics that you were just talking about. Because the mechanics and the other day are an emulation are a representation of the actions that we want people to do. So I want them to apply CBI, but I don't want them to feel that it's it's pressured or that is something that will be mundane or difficult on them. Okay, then let's, instead of letting them do a CBI, would people would people, imaginary people, or like hypothetical people, let's narrow it down and create characters. So this is when characters come into play? Should we make them into characters? No, we don't want them to be represented by something that would take them away from the game. Let's only make them cars that move on the board. How? Why are we using a board because board games give us an extension of time, we can extend the board game with how big it is, or the number of steps that we put. That's why I love board games, because it's so versatile, or the rules of how to move on the board game. So sometimes we're getting to me, it's just a structure for how to keep the experience moving forward by either the ducks or expand depending on how I want to do that. And when people want to do a game, they need to do proper action planning, what do I want them to do? Okay, I understood the learning objectives, what do I want them to act upon. If you can make that into something that people can experience within a game, go for it, it's, it would be too hard to explain it, if it will be a load to get into the rules and get, like, accommodated into the game system don't. And also, if a game is taking too much cognitive loads, then don't do it. Because that would overload what the people should do to learn the game. So they're taking so much time to learn the game, instead of trying to learn the learning that you're trying to include in the game. Now, if it's something that is intangible, like I it's very hard to teach empathy. In a game, you might let people practice a specific way of reaching empathy, or like how they can work together. But you can't really base a game out of pure absolute behavior. There has to be something tangible, there has to be something tangible that the need to do. True. There are games about like role plays and communication skills, but it's not communication per se. It's actually applying a model or a way or a method do this though you're not teaching the communication, you're making them apply or practice techniques on how to communicate. This is what you build the mechanic upon, not the communication itself. It's the action. It's the technique that you build the game upon. I hope I made myself clear. I don't know. Yeah.
Robin Sargent 30:21
I was following along, and I am with you. And I think that's great, too. I mean, I would say the same thing, too, right? It just, it absolutely has to start with your learning objectives. And then like you said, it has we have to put it on top of, you know, is it a, is it a process? Is it a procedure? Or is it a principles? And those kinds of things and not actually on? I don't know, right? Like you said, communication or whatever that that learning is that they have to do? Okay, and so I can hear other people say, Well, where do I start? Do I need to have gamification in my list of design skills as a newbie? Or when should I start getting into gamification or considering it? Do I ever have to? That's the kind of things I imagine that new people would ask.
Moe Ash 31:14
I know, new people would ask and veterans would ask us well, but the point is, gamification, although it has been going on for a long time now, that long time has been no more than like 20 years. It's still virgin, still virgin sites. And virgins find some sense of how to apply to education. By the way, game games have been applied since Vikings and Romans, its games on games and simulations. Roman Empire was all built on like simulating the battlefield, in order for them to, to forecast how the army and the the infantry would move on the battlefield. So simulations have been since God knows when, by adding gamification without being an instructional designer that knows how to do proper fueled, well wielded learning experiences you're putting up, you're putting yourself up for our huge limbo, because you need to first be sure of your learning experiences. And if it really reaches the objectives that you've put into place, or at least like not all the objectives, or at least like 50% off, and then think about gamification is needed. Honestly, Robin, I get a lot of clients and be like, we want to gain. Okay, why? i By the way, I give, I give away a lot of clients, like, sometimes I shoot clients away unexpectedly. Because a client will be like, I want a game. I'm like, why? I'll tell you about an experience. One client told me I want a board game. Cool.
We want people to be able to learn about resilience, and digital transformation, and get integrated into technology. And I don't know, they had a huge list. I was like, Okay, so do you want them to learn about tech? What kind of tech are you using? No, we want them to learn about tech. They're not going to use any of them. Interesting. Okay. Okay, so you want them to learn about what tech AI and machine learning and AR and VR and any, any any any flashy acronym of some sort? They, they just put it up, Mike. Okay. Okay. And when people do this, you want them to be aware? Good. Why? Because they need to be aware. Good. Why? What's the objective? How will I be able to tell them? This is good for what? For their business for their job for their work? If we're use this like on day to day tester? No. So that was the first part. The second part, I got to know that it will be people from marketing, HR, finance, and from different segments. I was like, hold on. How many people are we talking about? Here? We're talking about 150 people 150 people on one working? Why? And you expect 150? People? Oh, I didn't say that to you as well honored 50 People online on a virtual board game. We'll be motivated to continue want to gain and also learn. See, these are the questions that an instructional designer needs to ask. They need to ask questions that are related to analysis to training needs analysis, to audience analysis, to empathy mapping, to action mapping to understanding the true nature of the experience that they're about to go through. But any newbie who would be like oh, the client and I don't mean any disrespect to newbies, we're all learners. but a client asked for a game. I need this about that. No, we need to say no, because instructional design Robert, and we've talked about this before we live breathe by our reputation. If you did a good experience with one client, that would refer you to another and another and Aquaman, you might do a huge deal with a big sum of money. And it plunders. It fails, and they wouldn't call you again and they wouldn't refer to anyone else. You could be doing a game and it would be a failure. And it would blow up in your face with the learners or they will get frustrated or they will leave. The word is that you created a game, the actual thing is that you created a big failure. And by the way, it happened to me before I created a game that that it wasn't that good. So it's not something that you have to aspire towards. But it's something that you need to learn much about, be a good instructional designer First, know more about learning experiences, then consider games and gamification, games and gamification, most of the programs and the courses out there. They don't really filter whether and a designer or not before they get in, and I believe this is a big issue. Because they could tell you oh, you should put mechanics and do this and do that. But the core, the foundation of being a designer is not there. Or let's just say it out there. It's a bit shake. Now, when do you think I'm okay, I'm gonna do games. When you understand formal knowledge of motivational strategies, gamification at the end day is pure behavioral economics. I would say read the book nudge me. Sorry, the book nudge by a by Daniel Kahneman, lawyer, Nobel laureate Witter, get Daniel Kahneman. And also Thinking Fast and Slow, read the paper by Ryan and DC, the self determination theory, read about the book drive from Daniel H. Pink, go and get the book by car club on gamification for learning and development. Start to understand more about how you can apply what you already know, into a good use of motivational psychology. And how you can make people be motivated even more to finish your learning experience. If you're a game with that, and you feel confident about that, then please go and wireless all games. But I'm gonna tell you something, building games sucks a lot of time you will be prototyping, you will be testing and other people. It's not something that you can do out of like the first bat, it will take time, but the road is gorgeous. You would love it. But you would hate it. If you don't know what you're doing. Yeah, I
Robin Sargent 37:57
think I think those are all really sound words, advice, just like you said, I mean, you it the instructional content has to be sound right? Because like you said it is it's about what do you call it like behavioral economics. That's what I was like, it's not monetization. Okay, behavioral economics, right. And so I think it's really great. Which symbol like, you have to have sound instructional strategy, design and content in order to even like use the benefits of adjusting certain behaviors to get your learner's to the outcomes. And you can do that with several other strategies that don't involve games and, and games really do. They just take so much time, even if you just want to add the evil axis selves, points, badges and leaderboards, even those three things alone, take a lot of time even just to add to your learning
Moe Ash 38:50
takes a lot of math, sometimes it takes a lot of act like the board that I showed you, the one with the wood with the tiles that took a lot of masks for us to be able to like list down the probabilities. And another thing that people will try to look at, which is Game Theory, which is has nothing to do with games, but it's Nash equilibrium from the movie, beautiful mind. Remember that one, Nash? Yeah, and that's the cool beer would show you a lot about the world of probabilities. And what you should do if I did this, what would happen if I did that, you need to empathize so much with the kind of audience that you're you're dealing with. I know what I'm saying might sound a bit like, also, this is a lot of work. It's actually fun. Because, you know, I could do, I could do gamification, and I can use it use blended learning, micro learning, synchronous learning, asynchronous, asynchronous and, and synchronous. I could do so much based on my knowledge of instructor All design. So once you have your belt, your tool belt of instructional design, you can do gamification easy, because you're just fitting the system and fashioning it up together.
Robin Sargent 40:14
Okay, so, alright, so people are like, alright, I'll kind of stay away from gamification. But what are some of the takeaways that we can take from like what we understand about gamification, motivation, self determination, theory, and all these kinds of things? What can we actually take away from it to apply to our practice right now? What do you see some of those things as being? What, like mastery? I think like that could like giving people a sense of mastery, right? Like that would, that could be something that you could integrate into your instructional strategy right now, right? Where like, if you start with a simpler type of scenario, and then you work them up to a more complex ones, then they will feel a sense of mastery. And so there are certain things that you can take away from gamification, right?
Moe Ash 41:02
Okay, gamification, if I'm going to be using the NDA again. So one of the kind of mechanics that you could use is storytelling, storytelling, creating the whole elearning into an actual story that people need to go through, that will be brilliant. And by the way, given that the games don't really have to be the levels and points and badges can actually be a very compelling story. And I was talking about this and a podcast on to LBC that I see infographics, as a form of comics, deal with infographics as if it's comics, comics, there's a Zed mapping, where you go into certain panels to read things, you're applying very vibrant visuals, you're not putting that much data on it. Comics are a form of game aesthetic, you could use that in your job aids, you could use that in your, in your infographics, you could use that in your elearning. Don't think about a game that it has to be like characters and abilities and, and functions and a lot of rules. And no, it doesn't have to be that deep. It can be a good branching scenario. It can be a good interaction between two characters. In an E learning with proper triggers that you can use were people that can choose being the good guy or being the bad guy. So making a branch of being the good guy, or making a branch or being the bad guy. And how would that unfold, both of them will be a learning and you know what, Robin, I would finish that feeling around started again, to try to be the antagonists this time, because I was the protagonist, that could be still a game, and people would love it, they would eat up on it, because it's fun, okay, and I can learn from it. And it has a proper purpose. If you added a timer to certain things, okay, cool, good, that will be good and an elearning, adding a timer. But you need to be using that timer to simulate something, to be trying to mimic an actual thing that the learner will go through. Always think that when you're putting people in a gamified experience, you're trying to mimic an actual environment that they are in real life environment, but put it in a way that has no difficulties that has no losses that has no huge risk. Because when I lose the game, I lost the game. But I did not lose my life, my money, my people, I lost the game. And I can do it again, if you can mimic that kind of experience to a timer. Through, you're collecting things, you're putting up a trigger on E on your elearning in your storyline where they can collect things, and it can carry on from one slide to the other, you're giving them more autonomy of choice. That's also in the NDA. And games, at the end of the day, is just a vehicle for people to be more indulged in what they're too weak. If what you're doing is already indulging, it's already good. Don't do a game. But if you want people to be more indulged, because the knowledge is tough, it's It needs people to go step by step into something. It needs people to go through a process and that process is very meticulous, that they need to fail at each and every level of it, or each and every part of the process to gain a proper understanding. And once they do that, it gives them a sense of achievement. Like a badge maybe or or like a person that comes up and gives like Ray, like a character that shows like hey, can you put like a sound effect or so those are all game elements. Those are all forms. If you want to add gamification, you can use some of the elements in It's but don't call it gamification, I call it that you're using game elements. If you want to put a full system, that's something else. But you can use storytelling, like being the protagonist in a story, a challenge where they're, they're collecting something, you can use branching scenarios, you can use different forms of media, so that people get like, a diverse experience of what you're saying, you can turn your whole thing into something that is Fantasia could be possible, or an investigation where they need to do certain things to get to the end. At the end of the day, games, we have experienced it day by day, we've experienced it in stories. In Cinderella, Spider Man or Lion King, we've experienced it in comics, we experience a goldfish, we experience it every day, just start to get out of those experiences, something that can relate to the learning and relate to the artists that you're talking about. or talking to I'm sorry,
Robin Sargent 46:00
I love it. And even just the example that you gave more of like to go in the good guy route versus the bad guy route. That's another example of like, it sounds like fun. And because you've positioned it as like, good guy, bad guy, kind of intrigues people. But really, we also know from learning strategies that people need anti examples just as much as they need examples of what they actually should do. And so this is another example of like what you said were like, these elements can be used to do some good instructional strategies that we already know work. Okay. And so is there anything else that you want to share about gamification before I ask my final question?
Moe Ash 46:43
Okay, anything else? Well, no, try to say the word gamification for everything. If we're using an instructional design approach, to manage a classroom, if you're doing an IoT or the IoT for our client, that's pedagogy. That's a game game game based pedagogy, you're managing a classroom in a game way from, from the instructors point of view, if you're letting people play a game for maybe a couple of hours for five hours, even in the middle of a program, and that game, teaches them how to practice something or how to do something that's called game based learning. And the focus is that you're trying to facilitate the learning objective by letting them experience and practice a specific thing. And acquire specific knowledge that the game offers that skin based learning game for learning, I can get a game like Catan, to SU, Ro corridor GoldieBlox any of those screens, and use it for people to play. And afterwards, you will be like reflecting that this is strategy. This is planning what we've experienced with the reflection, this is game for learning. If you're doing a simulation of a business process, or a complete environment, where people can go through it, like business acumen, without actually losing without failing, this is more of a business simulation. Gamification is a complete system that you need to build from start to end, you can do that, you can do that by going to books like emulsify Carl Club's book on domestication, you can check Kevin waterbath, you can check Adam Thorne, and their work, you can check books by Yu chi Chao actual behavior. These are the books that will tell you truly the science of motivation, and the mechanics how both come into play. If you go to those, this is where you can get good understanding of gamification, if you want to use the other ones. That is good as well, in both cases, focus on the learning experience rather than focusing on the tool and the very lavish luxurious approach.
Robin Sargent 49:03
I love it, some of the latest luxurious approach. Okay, so my favorite question to ask at the end of our time together is what is your best and final advice for those new instructional designers give me another one doesn't have to be about games,
Moe Ash 49:26
do learning design, to learning design that will be so fun that anyone can engage with and it would be so easy in explaining it not explaining the content explaining the process that a 10 year old will be able to get it. This is the hardest thing ever. So the this day my father doesn't even understand what I do for a living. Okay, I'm telling you about an instructional designer and I build games for a living. We like you're getting good money. I'm like yes, I do. If you're able to support Yeah, okay, then what you're doing, but try to explain it to me, so I can explain it to my friends. So just to tell them what my son works, what he does or what he works for. So when you're looking at your learning experiences, you look at something that you can design in a seamless fashion, where a 10 year old would be able to get the process, because what you're doing here is that you're letting people get into your learning in a very smooth and swift way. And what they should be focusing on is the learning instead of trying to get to understand your rough and tough approach, because sometimes we get into our own heads. And we try to make something so good. But it becomes so hard in unfolding to the learner. And sometimes it becomes so fun to us. But it's not fun to the people, so always empathize with the learner to make it fun, fun, is not that it will be all shares and games, fun means that they're enjoying what they're reading, they're enjoying the visuals, they're enjoying the simplicity of the words, they're enjoying the user experience. Fun means that it has a meaning. font doesn't mean that it has to be a comedy stand up. It means that it's meaningful, that's fun. When I get something, when I realized that it understood something that's actually fun, I get a lot of dopamine, I get a lot of oxytocin. It's from a biological perspective. Or like from a neuroscience perspective, this is fun. So this is the kind of fun that you should be focusing on.
Robin Sargent 51:48
All right, well drop the mic. That's it. I mean, that is such good advice, right? Like, even if we could just help new instructional designers remember to try and like their, at least their first iteration or whatever. Think about the 10 year old. Right, just simplify, make it easy, make it fun, and clear and meaningful. And that's going to be a really good start for a lot of newbies. Yeah. Moe, thank you so, so much for coming on this podcast. I thank you for your time, your knowledge, your expertise, and of course, that you're on our team in idle courses. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for listening. You can find the show notes for this episode at idle courses.com. If you liked this podcast and you want to become an instructional designer, and online learning developer, join me in the idle courses Academy will you'll learn to build all the assets you need to land your first instructional design job, early access to this podcast tutorials for how to use the elearning authoring tools, templates for everything course building and paid instructional design experience opportunities, go to idle courses.com forward slash Academy and enroll or get on the waitlist. Now get out there and build transcendent tours.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
