Anyone familiar with e-learning is bound to know about game based learning as it is a popular buzz word. In simple terms, it is delivery of an online learning solution to the learners, which is built on a full fledged, interactive game. Unlike e-learning gamification, it is not about including game elements to non-game contexts, instead, the game itself is used as the foundation, and the training content is added on, or woven into it.
There is already a tremendous growth in the market for games. Games are no longer a medium of entertainment alone, as they are now effectively used in the area of learning and training too. Worldwide revenues from game based learning reached $2.6 billion in 2016, and are expected to touch a whopping $7.3 billion by 2021! These statistics assert that people enjoy playing games, the fun, excitement of winning challenges and tasks, scoring points and badges etc are some of the key elements in a game which is able to hook the learner to it.
Here in this blog, let’s see four key examples of game based learning.
1.OurCity—a free Facebook city-building and civic education game
OurCity is the product of a partnership between NetHope, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), E-Line Media, Arizona State University’s Center for Games and Impact, and local Jordanian companies and nongovernmental organizations.
The goal is to help young people develop the civic knowledge, awareness, and become engaged citizens to make communities stronger, healthier, and better able to meet the needs of the people who live in them.
You can notice the visible inspiration drawn from the Sims. The game allows the young players to build and develop the city from scratch with available resources and at the same time keeping all the townspeople happy.
(source:https://solutionscenter.nethope.org)
2.Plantville.
Siemens, the corporate giants implemented Plantville as an online marketing tool to showcase their products and services.
The company uses the game as online recruitment tool and as part of employee training.
Plantville gives players the opportunity and challenge of running a complete virtual factory. Factory managers in Plantville are required to manage the hiring as well as deploying the workers with the tasks.
The players also get the additional responsibility of ensuring worker safety and satisfaction against production delivery schedules and to continuously adapt strategies to changing external conditions. The game also shows the ability to improve process efficiency with the purchase and installation of Siemens equipment.
(source:https://labs.openviewpartner.com/
3.Bionigma
A classical puzzle game for solving and improving protein Multiple Sequence Alignments (MSA).
It consists of several colored tokens placed on a grid. The goal of the game is to align similar tokens to each other.
Bionigma uses the ability of natural pattern recognition of humans. This ability enables them to identify and align similar objects in a very accurate and intuitive way. By playing the game, the learners help to solve and improve current real world protein MSA problems and directly support biological research.
https://www.gcc.tu-darmstadt.de
4.Tesco compliance board game
The board game utilizes the learning game mechanics such as scoreboards, bonuses, badges in the game.
The aim of the game is to move around the board, completing all of the challenges. With a fun and interactive board game ,Tesco aims to make a boring fire safety training interesting and develop knowledge and skills for handling fire safety issues
(https://www.totaralms.com)
The future for game-based learning looks interesting, specially with the development costs reducing considerably and the the advancements in technology , more organizations can easily afford to explore the strategy of game based learning.
For more examples of game based learning, please visit our portfolio page.
