Technology

Dynamic teams: Learning from the kids

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Temple of mayhem 2 Dynamic teams Learning from the kids

The other day, I had the joy of taking my eldest daughter to a theme park (Chessington World of Adventures). We had an amazing time, finished off with a visit to what I thought was a sort of soft play area.

It turns out it was way more awesome than that. It was a steam punk themed ball shooting arena called Temple of Mayhem.

The arena was 2 floors high, with walkways laid out in a horseshoe around the edges. Each of the walkways had a bank of guns, whilst the ground floor had 2 large cannons.

The guns and the cannons fired tennis ball sized foam balls (as many as you could get in them). Also dotted around were various mechanisms to get the foam balls from the ground floor up to the first and second levels. Read More ...

Losing the game of life

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I was thinking how depressing life is recently. Hear me out!

We are an evolved species, we can think and act for ourselves. We have reached a point where we no longer have to hunt for food or build our own shelters (unless we choose to or in certain cases of poverty – you know what I mean though). We have cars and computers and a world connected in ways that we could never have imagined. We live longer, are healthier and more productive than ever before.

However, this has come at an extremely high price. The more “evolved” we become, the more ridiculous we have become. Read More ...

Nabu Smartband from Razer

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I don’t often post press releases here, but this one excites me! Razer is a company that has produced gaming peripherals for years now. Used by pros and casual gamers alike, they always produce distinctive and interesting kit.

So when they announced they were going to release a fitness like band, I had to find out more!

It turns out they have made a competitor product to the likes of FitBit (which I use) and Nike Fuel Band (which I can’t afford!!). Not only does it look really cool, it has a boat load of features.  Rather than just a fitness tracker, it is a full features smart watch, showing you incoming calls and notifications. It is a fitness tracker, with location awareness and all sorts iof other bio data. Finally it is social, with band to band communications. Read More ...

An Interview with Karl Kapp

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To continue the interview theme for another week, I present my interview with Karl Kapp. Karl is an eLearning expert, author, researcher and all round fountain of information and understanding!

Can you sum up what you do in a single sentence?

I teach, study, research, write, and educate others about the convergence of learning, technology and pedagogy with a focus on games and gamification.

How did you get involved with learning and helping people understand it better?

I discovered the field of instructional design my first year out of college.  I was working for a company that happened to be an instructional design firm. Working for them changed my life, when I found out what the field was about and how it impacted people through carefully designed learning interventions, I wanted to be a part of it. When I found out about this field, I changed my graduate program of study from Educational Counseling to Instructional Technology and I haven’t looked back. I think the ability to impact learners through instruction is compelling and to do it with methods like games and gamification is even more exciting. Read More ...

Using Gamification to create meaningful feedback through Accessibility and Immediacy

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Whilst I process the amazing presentations, talks and general chats that happened at SocialNow, I wanted to put together a quick post around the ideas of accessibility and immediacy.

Imagine the situation.  You are an airport and have thousands of people moving through your building every day. Most have a very predictable path. Land, get of plane, walk to baggage claim, go to the exit.  On the way, they have to go through various checks. Customs, passport control, security etc.

All of these people are in a hurry, they have a goal and want to get to it as fast as possible.  Your problem is, you want to find out how they have found the experience of going through the processes in place at your airport.  How was the flight, how was the security, how was baggage claim etc. Read More ...

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