How To Gamify Your Training With mLearning Engagement Boosters
In this article, we’re going to inspire you with a few practical ideas on how gamification can add a little competitive spice to your mobile learning initiative.
Many training managers might shy away from the idea of game-based learning solutions. They think that mobile gaming is complicated and involves a whole team of game designers.
In reality, you can build a learning game from the simplest of mechanics. Not only that, but with a few small tweaks, you can turn these mechanics to your advantage in all kinds of situations.
1. Flash Challenges
Create time-bound challenges and push notifications to your learners. This may be the simplest way to deliver mobile learning content, but sometimes simplicity is the best policy. Contrary to the traditional training method, where learners have a few weeks to complete a full eLearning course, these stand-alone elements can have a bigger impact.
Delivering smaller chunks of information at more regular intervals makes it much easier for the learners to retain. If you set a time limit, it can also boost engagement, especially if there are points to be lost for missing the deadline.
2. Hot Potato Challenge
Like the above, in this version, only one person at a time receives a question. They’re given a set time limit to complete the challenge, after which it’s passed on to somebody else. This works particularly well as a team challenge – the ‘potato’ gets passed within the same team until somebody drops it.
By performing as a member of the team, everyone feels a greater sense of responsibility to achieve the goal. They’re also more likely to lend a hand to anybody who’s falling behind.
3. One-On-One Challenges
In the previous examples, the admin would push each challenge out or schedule them on the training platform. The challenge mechanic takes on a new dimension when you open it out to the learners themselves. In this scenario, any learner can spring a challenge on one of their peers.
For best results, the points would need to behave differently. If the recipient gets the question right, they would get the points, but if they don’t, the challenger would get a reward. From a gamer’s perspective, the challenger would be more inclined to choose difficult questions, making this mechanic all the more… well… challenging!
4. Expert Points
Create a gamified experts’ area on your platform that lets other learners pose questions about specific topics. Each question will have a topic assigned to it, and other learners can earn points for answering them. As they answer more questions about specific topics, their expertise in that area grows.
This approach has two main benefits. Firstly, you are encouraging informal learning within the organization and ensuring that knowledge isn’t hoarded. Also, you are able to capture that informal learning and save it for future training – something that has been very elusive in the past.
5. Points Decay
A sense of urgency is a trick that game developers have used since video games were a thing. If you want to add a boost to engagement, you could try adding a decay mechanic to your points. It works like this: When your challenge has been pushed to the learners, they can earn 5 points for completing it. Once an hour has passed, the challenge is only worth 4 points. As more time elapses, the challenge is worth fewer points.
Once your learners realise that this mechanic exists, they’ll learn to jump on any challenge as soon as it appears. Rather than procrastinating with their training, they’ll stop whatever they’re doing to make sure they get the maximum number of points they can.
There you have it – five different ways to make your mobile learning more engaging, more challenging and more effective. If you want to find out how to add a mobile dimension to your training programme, download the eBook Mobile Learning And The Future Of L&D.
Originally published at www.growthengineering.co.uk.
