Children Learn Through Play… What Happened?

Children learn as naturally as they breathe. Every day they observe and explore the world around them. Everything is new, everything is interesting, and learning is FUN! They process new ideas and information, and even if they do not yet have a verbal language, they work to articulate the joy and excitement of their new discoveries.

Play is critical to the healthy growth and development of children. As children play, they learn through trial and error what works and what doesn’t.

Children use play to learn how to solve problems (Do these two pieces fit together? What does this do?) Through play, children enhance their memory skills as well as their attention span. They move to higher levels of thought as they continue to play in more stimulating environments.

Play teaches children how to cooperate, negotiate, take turns and play by the rules, all necessary skills for both children and adults. Take a few minutes to watch this child play. When was the last time you saw 1/10th of that kind of determination, engagement, and excitement in any of your adult learners?

An Introduction to Gamification Design - Part 1



Gamification is motivational design… the use of game elements and game mechanics in a non-game context in order to engage users and solve problems.

In Corporate Learning and Talent Development, gamification works by making learning more engaging and by encouraging desired behaviors. Gamification takes advantage of our predisposition to join in games and game-like activities. When designed properly, this powerful strategy can encourage users to participate in desired behaviors in connection with your organizations business and learning objectives. 

Many organizations are looking to expand their understanding of gamification as an overall improvement to the structure and quality of their employee engagement and talent management programs.

Corporate Training is Broken

Let’s face it … getting people actively involved and interested in training isn’t easy!

The world of business is undergoing a profound shift. Workers are making more of their own decisions. They don’t want to be told what to do. They want to learn … BUT … they don’t want to sit through another boring SME lecture.

As the struggle for talent intensifies, organizations face a continual challenge to build and grow their leadership capacity. The pace of progress is faster than ever before and workers must learn all the time to remain productive and relevant. Organizations that fail to learn will die.

It’s not that training departments have missed the mark; it’s that the world around them has changed. Learning is shifting from top-down to bottom-up and to a great degree … sideways.

Keep in mind that unless your organization's collective, intuitive expertise is transferred by collaborative means:

Gamification World Congress - Gurus Panel Part 2

This episode of Gamification Talk Radio is brought to you from the fourth annual Gamification World Congress held in Barcelona (Spain) on the 11th of November this year (2015).
 
The Gamification World Congress had a number of practical workshops led by globally renowned experts where attendees could learn about and implement the latest methodologies and tools to find game-based solutions for the business world.

The panel discussion was led by my colleague Jan Bidner and the panel includes An Coppens Chief Gamechanger at Gamification Nation, Peyman Vahedi, principal of a secondary Upper school in Kramfors, and myself.

If you missed Part 1 of the Gamification Guru Panel Disscussion, you can catch it HERE.

ln Part 2 our topics include:

• Cheating - is it cheating or creative thinking and innovation?
• Gamification in education - what is the proper place for gamification in education and what tools should be used?
• Gamification as an industry title - is there a better name that describes accurately what it is that we are working (playing) to achieve. 

Links to panel participants websites:

• An Coppens : http://ancoppens.com/
• Peyman Vahedi : https://www.laragenomspel.se/
• Jan Bidner: http://www.sogetipodcast.se/gamification/ 
 

About Your Host: Monica Cornetti

Founder and CEO, Sententia
www.SententiaGames.com
www.monicacornetti.com

A gamification speaker and designer, Monica Cornetti is rated as a #1 Gamification Guru in the World by UK-Based Leaderboarded. She is the author of the book Totally Awesome Training Activity Guide: Put Gamification to Work for You, writes The Gamification Report blog, and hosts the weekly Gamification Talk Radio program.  

Fight Through the FUNK

It makes things a whole lot easier when you realize that everybody has FUNK.

When you want to try something new, to get out of those patterned routines that you follow – there are a few pitfalls to avoid making it easier to fight through the FUNK.

The first is trying to solve today’s problems yesterday’s solutions. Yesterday’s solutions work until they don’t work anymore. When you want something new… yesterday’s solutions aren’t going to work for you.

What FUNK is in your TRUNK??

You go through your life following the patterns you’ve grown comfortable with. You do things because that’s the way they’re done. Your routine seems so natural that it doesn’t even occur to you that you’re following patterns at all.

You overlook opportunities or fail to see warning signs because you’ve kept your eyes not on the target, but on the routine… it happens to all of us.

Yet, have you found that change is inevitable… and growth is optional?

You may wonder why does this happen all the time why do I have so much resistance to change?

Well it’s because of the FUNK.

Gamification... The Adventure Continues

We arrived back in Austin late Saturday night, and as the wheels touched down, we looked at each other and said, "That was a GREAT trip!" 10 days in Valencia and Barcelona, Spain as part of my participation in the 2015  Gamification World Congress. The event itself was one of the most organized and best run events that I have ever been a part of as both as a speaker or an attendee. And the people were amazingly warm, gracious, generous, and FUN!

I was honored to deliver a workshop on Day 1 of the Congress on Gamification in the field of Talent Development. I also attended two workshops, one given by my colleague Yu-Kai Chou