My first book, Engaging Learning came from the fact that a) I’d designed and developed a lot of learning games, and b) had been an academic and reflected and written on the principles and process. Thus, it made sense to write it. Plus, a) I was an independent and it seemed like a good idea, and b) the publisher wanted one (the time was right). In it, I laid out some principles for learning, engagement, and the intersection. Then I laid out a systematic process, and closed with some thoughts on the future. Like all my books, I tried to focus on the cognitive principles and not the technology (which was then and continues to change rapidly). It went out of print, but I got the rights back and have rereleased it (with a new cover) for cheap on Amazon.

I wanted to write what became my fourth book as the next screed. However, my publisher wanted a book on mobile (market timing). Basically, they said I could do the next one if I did this first. I had been involved in mlearning courtesy of Judy Brown and David Metcalfe, but I thought they should write it. Judy declined, and David reminded me that he had written one. Still I and my publisher thought there was room for a different perspective, and I wrote Designing mLearning. I recognized that the way we use mobile doesn’t mesh well with ‘courses on a phone’, and instead framed several categories of how we could use them. I reckon those categories are still relevant as ways to think about technology!  Again, republished by me.

Before I could get to the next book, I was asked by one of their other brands if I could write a mobile book for higher education. The original promise was that it’d be just a rewrite of the previous, and we allocated a month. Hah! I did deliver a manuscript, but asked them not to publish it. We agreed to try again, and The Mobile Academy was the result. It looks at different ways mobile can augment university actions, with supporting the classroom as only one facet. This too was out of print but I’ve republished.

Finally, I could write the book I thought the industry needed, Revolutionize Learning & Development. Inspired by Marc Rosenberg’s Beyond eLearning and Jay Cross’s Informal Learning, this book synthesizes a performance and technology-enabled push for an ecosystem perspective. It may have been ahead of its time, but it’s still in print. More importantly, I believe it’s still relevant and even more pressing! Other books have complemented the message, but I still think it’s worth a read. Ok, so I’m biased, but I still hear good feedback ;). My editor suggested ATD as a co-publisher, and I was impressed with their work on marketing (long story).

Based upon the successes of those books (I like to believe), and an obvious need in our field, ATD asked for a book on the myths that plague our industry. Here I thought Will Thalheimer, having started the Debunkers Club, would be a better choice. He, however, declined, thinking it probably wasn’t a good business decision (which is likely true; not much call for keynotes or consulting on myths). So, I researched and wrote Millennials, Goldfish & Other Training Misconceptions. In it, I talked about 16 myths (disproved beliefs), 5 superstitions (things folks won’t admit to but emerge anyways) and 16 misconceptions (love/hate things). For each, I tried to lay out the appeal and the reality. I suggest what to do instead, for the bad practices. For the misconceptions, I try to identify when they make sense.  In all cases I didn’t put down exhaustive references, but instead the most indicative. ATD did a great job with the book design, having an artist take my intro comic ideas for each and illustrating them, and making a memorable cover. (They even submitted it to a design competition, where it came close to winning!)

After the success of that tome, ATD came back and wanted a book on learning science. They’d previously asked me to edit the definitive tome, and while it was appealing, I didn’t want to herd cats. Despite their assurances, I declined. This, however, could be my own simple digest, so I agreed. Thus, Learning Science for Instructional Designers emerged. There are other books with different approaches that are good, but I do think I’ve managed to make salient the critical points from learning science that impact our designs. Frankly, I think it goes beyond instructional designers (really, parents, teachers, relatives, mentors and coaches, even yourself are designing instruction), but they convinced me to stick with the title.

Now, I view Learning Experience Design as the elegant integration of learning science with engagement. My learning science book, along with others, does a good job of laying out the first part. But I felt that, other than game design books (including mine!), there wasn’t enough on the engagement side. So, I wanted a complement to that last book (though it can augment others). I wrote Make It Meaningful as that complement. In it, I resurrected the framework from my first book, but use it to go across learning design. (Really, games are just good practice, but there are other elements). I also updated my thinking since then, talking about both the initial hook and maintaining engagement through to the end. I present both principles and practical tips, and talk about the impact on your standard learning elements. In an addition I think is important, I also talk about how to take your usual design process, and incorporate the necessary steps to create experiences, not just instruction. I do want you to create transformational experiences!

So, that’s where I’m at. You can see my recommended readings here (which likely needs an update.) Some times people ask “what’s your next book”, and my true answer at this point is “I don’t know.”  Suggestions? Something that I’m qualified to write about, that there’s not already enough out about, and it’s a pressing need? I welcome your thoughts!

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So, first, my DnD history. I played a few times while in college, but… I gave it up when a favorite character of mine was killed by an evil trap (that was really too advanced for our party). I’ve played a lot of RPGs since then, with a lot of similarities to the formal DnD games (tho’ the actual ones are too complex). Recently, with guidance from offspring two, our family is getting back into it (with a prompt from a Shakespeare and DnD skit at the local Renaissance Faire).

Then, I’ve been into games for learning since my first job out of college, programming educational computer games. It also became the catalyst for my ongoing exploration of engagement to accompany my interest in cognition/learning, design, and technology. The intersection of which is where I’ve pretty much stayed (in a variety of roles), since then! (And, led to my first book on how to do same.)

Also, about DnD. It’s a game where you create a character. There are lots of details. For one, your characteristics: strength, dexterity, wisdom, intelligence, and more. Those combine with lots of attributes (such race & role). Then, there’s lots of elaboration: backstory, equipment, and more. This can alter during the game, where your abilities also rise. This adds complexity to support ongoing engagement. (I heard one team has been going for over 40 years!)

Characters created by the players are then set loose in a campaign (a setting, precipitating story, and potential details). A Dungeon Master runs the game, Keegan Long-Wheeler in our case, writing it and managing the details. Outcomes happen probabilistically by rolling dice. Computers can play a role. For one, through apps that handle details like rolling the dice. Then folks create games that reflect pre-written campaigns.

One important thing, to me, is that the players organize and make decisions together. We were a group who didn’t necessarily know each other, and we were playing under time constraints. This meant we didn’t have the dialog and choices that might typically emerge in such playing. Yet, we managed a successful engagement in the hour+ we were playing. And had fun!

I was an early advocate of games for learning. To be clear, not the tarted up drill and kill we were mostly doing, but inspired by adventure games. John Carroll had written about this back in the day, I found out. However, I’d already seen adventure games having the potential to be a basis for learning. Adventure games naturally require exploring. In them, you’re putting clues together to choose actions to overcome obstacles. Which, really, is good learning practice! That is, making decisions in context in games is good practice for making decisions in performance situations. Okay, with the caveat that you should design the game so that decisions have a natural embed.

The complexity of DnD is a bit much, in my mind, for LnD, but…the design!  The underlying principles of designing campaigns bears some relation to designing learning experiences. I believe designing engaging learning may be harder than designing learning or games, but we do have good principles. I do believe learning can, and should, be ‘hard fun‘.  Heck, it’s the topic of my most recent tome! (I believe learning should be the elegant integration of learning science with engagement.)

This has been an opportunity to reflect a bit on the underlying structure of games, and what makes them work. That’s always a happy time for me. So, I’m curious what you see about the links between games and learning!

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So, here’s the claim that riled me up:

Short-form edutainment is the most effective teaching method for both children and adults. TikTok and YouTube shorts will ultimately replace high schools and universities. Employment sector will phase out LMS systems and replaced with AI-powered compliance tools. If you are considering instructional design as a career, you may want to become a YouTuber or TikToker instead.

If you’ve tuned in at all, you’ll know that I’m a fan of engagement, properly construed.  Heck, it’s the topic of my most recent book! So, talking about the value of engagement in learning is all to the good. However…

…this claim goes over the top. Most notably, there’s the claim that edutainment is the most effective teaching method. If only! That puts me off, because teaching should yield a learning outcome, and just watching video shorts won’t do that (under most circumstances). Not surprisingly, I asked for research.

The author pointed to a study where mice genetically low on dopamine learned better when given dopamine. Yes, but the study had the mice do more than just watch videos, they performed tasks! I tried to go deeper, saying that engagement may be desirable, but it’s not sufficient. Without practice, watching entertaining and informative material (e.g. edutainment) isn’t a path to learning outcomes.

The conversation was derailed by my comment that edutainment had gotten a bad name from games. In the 80s, in an industry I was in, this was the case! I was accused of having a ‘gamification’ mindset! (Ahem.)  I tried steering the conversation back to the point it’s not about gamification, it’s about engagement combined with practice.

Interestingly, there was an almost parallel conversation about how engagement wasn’t the same as learning (which I pointed to in the exchange). The general take is that engagement is desirable but insufficient. Yes! Yet here we see the claim that engagement is all we need!

I believe in engagement for learning. I just don’t believe that by itself it will lead to learning. Learning science supports both the value of engagement, and the necessity of practice and feedback. That’s all. But claims like the above are misleading malarkey. It may be we’re talking an outrageous marketing claim (infamy is better than not being known at all?), but when it misleads, it’s a problem. Am I missing something?

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So, I had heard about someone who was exploring ‘escape rooms’ for learning. (Spoiler: it was Myra, hence the question. ;) I was reminded, however, and added in some other ideas:

surprise box, host a murder, scavenger hunt, choose your own adventure…

My thinking is that there are lots of ways of invoking intent and action, and providing feedback. The box could contain some content and instructions, e.g. “film yourself doing…” or “do X and write it up”. Or some actual device to act upon (think of the old science kits they sent with correspondence courses). Host a murder mystery party would be some Live Action Role-Playing (LARP) activity that includes instructions, roles, and reflection guidance (a group ‘surprise box’). Scavenger hunt could have you looking for resources for new arrivals to learn their way around, or to do safety checks, or… Choose your own adventure book is basically a text-based branching scenario.

Kevin Thorn (last week’s You Oughta Know guest of the LDAccelerator) suggested comics Not surprising, since that was the topic we had him on for, and also the focus of his thesis. Comics are underused, I believe, and yet have valuable properties. Another viable way to develop learning, particularly if you can tie them to challenges.

Then, Alan Natachu weighed in with even more creative ideas:

Lots of infographics and cryptograms
Book ciphers
Red / Blue filters (look through a colored lens to reveal a hidden message)
Tune into a custom radio frequency that repeats a message
Text messages to a secret contact (a.k.a. Phone a friend)

Again, we’re looking at ways to get people to process content (and apply it). What I like is how he started tapping into alternate technologies. It’s easy to stay in our comfort zone, as I was doing. It’s useful to take some time to reflect and deliberately explore alternatives. Different questions (like Myra’s) can prompt some out of the box thinking, as can deliberate prompts to consider other things. That is, systematic creativity isn’t an oxymoron ;).

There is a followup on this: why aren’t we doing these things  already?  We should be looking at other mechanisms. Yes, there are some learnings, and some resource requirements. However, once they’re part of our repertoire, they become just another tool in our quiver.

We can, and should, be looking at activities ‘beyond the course’. There’re the benefits of novelty, but also different affordances. Better yet, we could theme them to align with particular courses. There is a real opportunity to make our learning stick better, and that is the real bottom line. So let’s get creative  and achieve better outcomes.

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This came to me via a LinkedIn message where the correspondent pointed me to their recent blog article. (BTW, I don’t usually respond to these, but if I do, you’re going to run the risk that I poke holes. ) In the article, they were talking about using gamification to build organizational engagement. Interestingly, even in their own article, they were pointing to other useful directions unknowingly!

The problem, as claimed, is that working remote can remove engagement. Which is plausible. The suggestion, however, was that gamification was the solution. Which I suggest is a patch upon a more fundamental problem. The issue was a daily huddle, and this quote summarizes the problem: “there is zero to little accountability of engagement and participation “.  Their solution: add points to these things. Let me suggest that’s wrong.

What facilitates engagement is a sense of purpose and belonging. That is, recognizing that what one does contributes to the unit, and the unit contributes to the organization, and the organization contributes to society. Getting those lined up and clear is a great way to build meaningful engagement. Interestingly, even in the article they quote: “to build true engagement, people often need to feel like they are contributing to something bigger than themselves.” Right! So how does gamification help? That seems to be trying to patch a  lack of purpose. As I’ve argued before, the transformation is not digital first, it’s people first.

They segue off to microlearning, without (of course) defining it. They ended up meaning spaced learning (as opposed to performance support). Which, again, isn’t gamification but they push it into there. Again, wrongly. They do mention a successful instance, where Google got 100% compliance on travel expenses, but that’s very different than company engagement. It’s  got to be the right application.

Overall, gamification by extrinsic motivation can work under the right circumstances, but it’s not a solution to all that ails an organization. There are ways and times, but it’s all too easy to be doing gamification wrong. ‘Tis better to fix a broken culture than to patch it. Patching is, at best, a temporary solution. This is certainly an example.

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The elements of the Serious eLearning Manifesto (SeM) are pretty straightforward. They’re listed as:

• performance focused
• meaningful to learners
• engagement driven
• authentic contexts
• realistic decisions
• real-world consequences
• spaced practice
• individualized challenges

The alignment (EEA: Effectiveness-Engagement Alignment) I found in Engaging Learning was based upon research I did on designing games for learning. I found elements that were repeated across proposals for effective education practice, and ones that were stipulated for engaging experiences. And I found a perfect overlap. Looking for a resolution between the two lists of elements looks something like:

• clear goals
• balanced challenge
• context for the action
• meaningful to domain
• meaningful to learner
• choice
• active
• consequences
• novelty

And, with a little wordsmithing, I think we find a pretty good overlap!  Obviously, not perfect, because they have different goals, but the important elements of a compelling learning experience emerge.

I could fiddle and suggest that clear goals are aligned to a performance focus, but instead that’s coming from making their learning be meaningful to the domain. I suggest that what really matters to organizations will be the ability to  do, not know.  So, really, the goals are implicit in the SeM; you shouldn’t be designing learning  unless you have some learning goals!

Then, the balanced challenge is similar to the individualized challenge from the SeM. And context maps directly as well. As do consequences. And meaningfulness to learners. All these directly correspond.

Going a little further, I suggest that having choice (or appearance thereof) is important for realistic decisions. There should be alternatives that represent misconceptions about how to act. And, I suggest that the active focus is part of being engaging. Though, so too could novelty be. I’m not looking at multiple mappings but they would make sense as several things would combine to make a performance focus, as well as realistic decisions.

Other than that, on the EEA side the notion of novelty is more for engaging experiences than necessarily specific to serious elearning.  On the SeM side, spaced practice is unique to learning. The notion of a game implies the ability for successful practice, so it’s implicit.

My short take, through this exercise, is to feel confident in both recommendations. We’re talking learning experience design here, and having the learning combine engagement as well is a nice outcome. I note that I’ll be running a Learning Experience Design workshop at DevLearn in October in Las Vegas, where’ll we’ll put these ideas to work. Hope to see you there!

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In particular, I was thinking about artificial virtuality (AV). In the continuum from reality to virtual reality (VR), AV sits between augmented reality (AR) and VR. That is, the goal is virtual (e.g. a made up one, not one that’s manifest in the real world, at least directly. And yet it permeates the real world. And that, to me, really defines an ARG!  Of course, it doesn’t  have to be tuned to the experience of a game, it  can just be a scenario, but you  know I’m not going to stop there! :)

So what’s going on here?  I’m suggesting that there’s a story that is the experience designed for the player. I talk about LARGs, which is an ARG for learning. The ARG experience here is implemented by an engine which embodies the game (just as games are done). Instead, however, of the experiences being mediated by a computer interface, instead activities are inserted into the players experience.

So, there’s an underlying model driving the action (just as in traditional computer games). There are variables maintaining state, and rules operating on them. So your choice depends on what’s happened before (actions have consequences), and you can be moving up or down depending on how you play. The rules determine what happens next. A colleague built a whole engine for this!

The information and decisions the player takes are mediated by real world interfaces, but distributed, not concentrated in one interface. Videos on a phone, or a screen being passed along the way (e.g. an animated billboard or a TV screen in an office) bring information. Social media is carrying messages.

And the player is similarly sending messages as responses. Even real world objects are instrumented, so a door might lock or unlock as the result of player actions. The player may be choosing between competing taxis. And it can be played out over days. In the example we did, the in-game characters would take overnight to respond to your messages.

Now this  could all be done by a puppetmaster (or several), but the goal here would be to set it up so it can run without a suite of people involved. The goal is to design a game like we do traditionally, but manifest across the player’s life. I do recommend seeing the movie  The Game  as a dramatic example.

The real question is what sort of things match these types of goals. The example we built was for sales training; handling virtual customers. As mentioned above, disaster preparedness could make sense. Or other real world awareness tasks (spies?).  Again, there may not be many situations, but for doing that mix of delivering a simulated experience in your life instead of a virtual life could be interesting. Certainly intriguing.

At any rate, I just needed to capture the ARG experience for myself. And to share at the conference. If you’re there, do say hello!

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Donald Clark weighs in with a summary of the debate and the point he thought was the winner. He lauds Patti Shank, who pointed out that research talks about ‘desirable difficulty’. And I can’t argue with this (besides, Patti’s usually spot-on).  He goes on to cite how you read books that aren’t funny, and that how athletes train isn’t particularly giggle-inducing.  All of which I agree with, except this “Engagement and fun are proxies and the research shows that effort trumps fun every time.”  And I think tying engagement and fun together is a mistake.

There is the trivial notion of fun, to be fair.  The notion that it’s breezily entertaining.  But I want to make a distinction between such trivial attention and engagement.  For instance, I would argue that a movie like Schindler’s List is wholly engaging, but I’m not sure I would consider it ‘fun’.  And even ‘entertaining’ is a stretch. But I think it’s compelling. Similarly with even reading books for entertainment: many aren’t ‘fun’ in the sense of light entertainment and humor, but are hard to put down. So what’s going on here?

I think that cognitive (and emotional) immersion is also ‘engagement’.  That is, you find the story gripping, the action compelling, or the required performance to be a challenge, but you persist because you find it engaging in a deeper sense.

Raph Koster wrote  A Theory of Fun  about game design, but the underlying premise was that why games were ‘fun’ is that they were about learning. The continually increasing challenge, set in a world that you find compelling (we don’t all like the same games), is what makes a game fun. Similarly, I’ve written about  engagement as a far more complex notion than just a trivial view of fun.

The elements of the alignment between effective education practice and engaging experiences demonstrate that learning can, and should, be hard fun. This isn’t the trivial sort of ‘fun’ that apparently is what Donald and Patti were concerned about.  It is  all about ‘desirable difficulty’, having a challenge in the zone that’s Czikszentmihalyi’s  Flow and Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development.

I agree that just making it fun (just as putting high production values on under-designed content dump) isn’t the answer. But just making it ‘work’ doesn’t help either.  You want people to see the connection between what they’re doing and their goals. Learners should have a level of challenge that helps them know that they’re working toward that goal. You want them to recognize that the tasks are for achieving that goal. It’s about integrating the cognitive elements of learning with the emotional components of engagement in a way that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. The synergy is what is needed.

I think fun and engagement aren’t the same thing. So while I agree with the premise that learning shouldn’t be the trivial sense of fun, I think the more rigorous sense should be the goal of learning. We want learning to be a transformation, not just a trudge nor a treat.  I’ll argue that the athletes and the readers and the others who are learning  are engaged, just not amused. And that’s the important distinction. This is, to me, what Learning Experience Design should be, designing hard fun. And I think we  can  do this; my upcoming workshop at Learning Solutions is about doing just that. Hope to see you there!

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I saw the connections between computers and learning as an undergraduate, and designed my own major. My first job out of college was designing and programming educational computer games. Long story short: I went back for a Ph.D. in what was effectively ‘applied cognitive science’, but games continued to play a role in my career. And I reflected on it, and ultimately what started as a research agenda manifested as a model for explaining why games work and how to do it. And then when I started consulting, Pfeiffer asked me to write the book.

To be clear, I believe engagement matters.  We learn better when our hearts and our minds are engaged. (That’s the intent of the double meaning of the title, after all.)  Learning sticks when we’re motivated and in a ‘safe’ learning situation.  Learning can, and should, be ‘hard fun’.  However,  if we can’t do it reliably and repeatedly, it’s just a dream. I believe that if we systematically apply the principles in the book, we can do it (systematic creativity is  not an oxymoron ;).

One of the concerns was that things were changing fast even then (Flash was still very much in play, for example ;).  How to write something that wouldn’t be outdated even before it came out?  So I tied it to cognitive principles, as our brains aren’t changing that fast.  Thus, I think the principles in it still hold.  I’ve continued to check and haven’t found anything that undermines the original alignment that underpins designing engaging experiences.

And the book was designed for use. While the first three chapters set the stage, the middle three dig into details. There you’ll find the core framework, examples, and a design process. The design process was focused mostly on adding to what you already do, so as not to be redundant. The final three chapters wrap up pragmatics and future directions.

While ostensibly (and realistically) about designing games, it was really about engagement. For instance, the principles included were applied backwards to branching scenarios, and what I called linear and mini-scenarios. The latter just being better written multiple choice questions!

The book couldn’t cover everything, and I’ve expanded on my thinking since then, but I believe the core is still there: the alignment and the design process in particular. There have been newer books since then by others (I haven’t stayed tied to just games, my mind wanders more broadly ;) and by me, but as with my other books I think the focus on the cognitive principles gives lasting guidance that still seems to be relevant. At a recent event, someone told me that while I viewed mobile as a known, for others it wasn’t. I reckon that may be true for games and engagement as well. If we’re making progress, I’m pleased. So, please, start engaging learning by making engaging learning!

PS, I wrote a Litmos blog post about why engagement matters, as a prelude to a session I’ll be giving at their Litmos Live  online event (Nov 7-8) where I talk about how to do it.

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