Gamify an E-Learning Course #102

Gamify an E-Learning Course #102:  Challenge | Recap

Gaming elements, such as rewards, points, discovery, and competition, are excellent ways to engage and motivate learners. But the challenge for most course designers is finding practical ways to apply game mechanics without disrupting their existing course design models.

So, how can e-learning designers get started with gamification? What are some practical ways to gamify e-learning courses?

Begin Small and Use Existing Projects

One way to experiment with gamification is by starting small and working with existing projects.

Using existing projects is a great way to engage your stakeholders and learners for feedback on what works and doesn’t work. And because the projects are already built, you don’t have to risk current projects and timelines with ideas that may not work in your organization.

Gamified Video Gallery

Luckily, we have this (safe for work) gamified example of (strip) rock-paper-scissors to illustrate how gaming elements can be applied to static content.

Begin Small and Use Existing Projects

View Zsolt's gamified video interview

I really like how Zsolt Olah began with a static Storyline template and applied elements of motivation and achievement to gamify his video interview.

On the surface, the most visible difference is the locked choices for viewing the video clips. But there's a lot more going on behind the e-learning scenes!

Gamified Elearning Template by Zsolt

To appreciate all that's going on in Zsolt's example, you'll have to read his blog post where he describes his design and development process. Admittedly, Zsolt pulls out some geeky solutions like advanced triggers, variables, and JavaScript in his example.

For this week's challenge, we're going to focus on practical ways course designers can gamify their e-learning projects.

Challenge of the Week

This week, your challenge is to gamify an existing course, demo, or template. Show us the original project, the gamified makeover, and tell us which gamification element(s) you used.

In many cases, you’ll need to work with variables. If you run into any issues or have questions about variables, post in the comments section and we’ll help you out. I don’t want technical issues holding you back from participating this week.

If you’re working in PowerPoint, you can use design comps and wireframes to show how gamified elements could be applied to an existing project.

Last Week’s Challenge

Before you level up for this week’s challenge, take a look at the creative ways your fellow community members use their favorite e-learning character

Atsumi Elearning Examples

Atsumi: Everyone's Go-To E-Learning Character: Challenge | Recap

Wishing you a gametastic week, E-Learning Heroes!

New to E-Learning Challenges?

The weekly challenges are ongoing opportunities to learn, share, and build your e-learning portfolios. You can jump into any or all of the previous challenges anytime you want. I’ll update the recap posts to include your demos.

202 Comments
Zsolt Olah
Alexander Salas
Ridvan  Saglam
Joanne Chen
Guido Roessling

Hi Joanne, thank you for the example! Since two others already commented on the "catch" and "multiplication" game, I looked at the "bomb game". The bomb game required me to first log in to Google - was this intentional? The game works just fine as intended. The "spacey" door sound is nice! The question mark gives the required information on "how to play". If I go wrong, this is also clearly indicated. I assume that in a "real game", you would put something more meaningful than "Correct/Incorrect" on the tiles, so the user has to identify (for example) healthy vs. unhealthy food. I wonder if instead of placing bombs (which seems a bit unnatural to do), you might want to inverse the logic and put "bomb deactivators" on the wrong tiles, so you can safely cross to the door? (It seems a bi... Expand

Joanne Chen
blair parkin
Zsolt Olah

Liked the bugs, they're funny! Answered all questions correctly (unlike the cars example above, lot more familiar with computers). Very clean design. At the final screen it says "4 question" correctly. You probably want to change that to "questions". Timer adds some urgency to a quiz. On the other hand, you as a learner, don't control the duration. Some learners literally get anxious when there's a timer (we got this feedback a lot times). One thing you can do is let the learner set their "confidence level" before each question. The more confident they have, the less time is given (but within a range that is achievable). What you see is that less competitive learners start out with low confidence and gradually move up but they still enjoy the game. To compensate for the time allowed for... Expand

Alexander Salas
Marcus Ritter
Marcus Ritter
Marcus Ritter

Hi Amar, thank you. The storylinefile would not help, because most of the logic is stored outside the storylinefile. The JS Code i used in Storyline is: getHighScore(); This Calls a JS function i stored in a MyFunctions.js here ist the getHighScore Function: function setVariable(vName,vValue) { var player=GetPlayer(); var myVar = player.SetVar(vName,vValue); return myVar; } function getHighScore() { $.post('Load.cfm',function (data) { setVariable("UserNameTop1",data.DATA.USERNAME[0]); setVariable("UserPointsTop1",data.DATA.POINTS[0]); setVariable("UserDateTop1",data.DATA.DATECREATED[0]); setVariable("UserNameTop2",data.DATA.USERNAME[1]); setVariable("UserPointsTop2",data.DATA.POINTS[1]); setVariable("UserDateTop2",data.DATA.DATECREATED[1]); setVari... Expand

Tania Vercoelen
Bob Kaart
Bob Kaart
Tracy Carroll