Games can make learning fun.

Jane “Star” Fisher presented to the Austin ASTD ID SIG how adding interaction to training improves attention, retention, and overall learning impact. Despite their effectiveness, why do trainers not use games more often? Why do they persist in boring, death-by-powerpoint slide shows? How can trainers improve their teaching presentations? Star guided the ID SIG members through “Reverse Brainstorming” and “Envelopes” group activities that allowed us to discover our own answers to these questions.

At work, Star is known as the “Game Guru” and is an avid student of Dr. Thiagi, well known expert on making instruction fun with games. Star has over 15 years of experience designing training and 9 years delivering instructor-led courses. She has a Masters of Science in Instructional and Performance Technology. She also earned a CPLP from ASTD.  This recording was made April 25, 2007 with permission.

Hightlights

• Why are games in training discouraged? (start)
• Why are competition games unpopular with women (8:50)
• Introducing Reverse Brainstorm activity (11:48)
• 2nd round brainstorm with reverse question (18:18)
• Should we include wrong-way examples in learning? (25:30)
• Introducing the Envelopes activity (30:30)
• Can interactive activities foster higher order learning? (41:40)
• Introducing the Debriefing Circle activity (44:10)
• Why do some learners (engineers) think they learn better with lectures? (46:30)
• How can we reinforce learning after the activities? (53:40)

Listen to the recording now. Length 58:40.

Or download this file from drop.io

View starfisher-addactivities

A recording of Vernon Rooze’s  January 24, 2007 presentation to the Instructional Design SIG of the ASTD Austin Chapter.

This presentation on Constructing Good Questions included topics such as special considerations in online testing, writing good test items, common grammar mistakes, and how to write multiple-choice questions that test  Bloom’s taxonomy’s higher levels such as evaluation and application. At the time of this presentation, Vernon was an instructional design specialist at Apple in Austin.

Listen to this presentation now.

In 2007,  Star Fisher attended a Houston workshop with Dr. Thiagi, famous advocate of fun and games in learning design. She summarized Dr. Thiagi’s 14 rapid development principles and 8 design steps for the ID SIG of the Austin ASTD chapter on October 22, 2009. Star’s 2-page handout can be downloaded by clicking  Rapid ID Handout by Star Fisher. Star is a Curriculum Designer with Time Warner Cable who builds training materials for new hire employees. She has over 15 years experience designing training and is an ASTD CPLP.

Highlights (time from beginning)

• You can learn about Dr. Thiagi and download training ideas at his web site.
• Activity:  Card exchange and rating (starts at 9 minutes)
• Explanation of 8 steps in rapid ID (starts 17 minutes)
• Description of 14 principles of rapid ID (starts 22 minutes)
• Thiagi’s favorite tip for grabbing audience attention. (29:18 minutes)
• Thiagi published Star’s original frame game “information basketball” that we played. (36 minutes)
• Discussion about how to adapt to elearning and distance learning. (42 minutes)
• How ID can persuade trainers to adopt open-ended activities. (49:30 minutes)
• Closing. The 6 debriefing questions to ask the audience at the end of presentations. (73 minutes)

Listen to the presentation (75:13 minutes.)

You can download and listen to this presentation and others at http://w drop.io/astd_recordings

ASTD Austin ID SIG Meeting of July 23, 2009.

Its been many months since I attended an ID SIG meeting but the topic drew me in so I drove downtown at rush hour.

It was well worth my time. Robin Brandenburg, Director of Momentum and Innovation at Six Red Marbles did not disappoint, giving a smooth, articulate presentation to about 15 assembled instructional designers. Robin used the slick new slide program called Prezi to good effect.

You can view her slides here at http://prezi.com/133317/

Robin summarized the steps in the process described by Karen Holtblatt,  Jessamyn Burns Wendell, and Shelley Wood in their book The Contextual Design Methodology (2005) using her personal experience developing a lesson planning software product for a K-12 publisher. Her case study added real-life examples to what could have been a dry talk about concepts like users’ needs, affinity diagramming, personas, and paper prototyping. Her engaging stories were context for the concepts.

This unedited recording is about 1 hour 20 minutes long, but Robin’s presentation is only about 60 minutes. The last 20 minutes is group discussion about whether members want to connect online using Facebook or LinkedIn.

Click to Listen (Download MP3 File. 73 MB)

Learn about future Austin ID SIG meetings at the Austin ASTD web site.

Norma, my life’s better half, has created many useful publications to help play therapists work with children, especially hyperactive ones. She’s sold thousands of her Directive Group Play Therapy: 60 Structured Games for the Treatment of ADHD, Low Self-Esteem, and Traumatized Children. I’ve helped her over the years with publication layouts and editing since English is her second language.

One of my promises is to redesign her web site playtherapygames.com with more video. For example, I used scrapblog.com and embedded the slide show on the home page. I would also like to try WordPress or Drupal as a CMS instead of separate HTML pages. Dreamweaver seems so old school now. Another reason to try WordPress would be the beautiful layout themes others have created and share for free.

Which brings me to the point of this entry. I have been looking for templates or themes that suggest play and children, but have yet to find a good one. Thanks in advance for links to any WordPress or Drupal layout designs you think might be inspirational.

• simple authoring tools that incorporate symbols and activities that are as good as, and hopefully better, than existing teaching methods
• engaging interactivity with rich media
• convergence – available on all OS and mobile devices
• promotes sharing and collaboration to develop new content and peer review of learning efforts
• transparency to promote trust
• measurement of learning new knowledge; tracking progress gains
• promotes effective and efficient learning
• mentors struggling learners by incorporating intelligent feedback, tutoring, and adaptive testing.

I was sitting and staring at the profile screen when into my head popped “Learning Man” because I was thinking of “Burning Man” and the desert festival with all the art and sculptures. Learning Man inspires me with the possibility of “to be on fire for continuous learning that renews my life.” I chose “Learning Design Matters” as a blog name because I wanted to explore learning design issues–a deeper subject of concern–and I also wanted to argue that design for learning is really important. Design matters in the results achieved by learners. For more play on “matters” I refer to the definition at the American Heritage Dictionary

…. 5. The substance of thought or expression as opposed to the manner in which it is stated or conveyed. 6. A subject of concern, feeling, or action: matters of foreign policy; a personal matter. See synonyms at subject. 7. Trouble or difficulty: What’s the matter with your car? 8. An approximated quantity, amount, or extent: The construction will last a matter of years. 9. Something printed or otherwise set down in writing: reading matter. 10. Something sent by mail. 11. Printing a. Composed type. b. Material to be set in type. INTRANSITIVE VERB: Inflected forms: mat·tered, mat·ter·ing, mat·ters To be of importance: “Love is most nearly itself/When here and now cease to matter” (T.S. Eliot). See synonyms at count1. IDIOMS: as a matter of fact In fact; actually. for that matter So far as that is concerned; as for that. no matter

Wow! WordPress has really come a long way! I started blogging at vox.com with a few posts.

I really wanted to install my own blog on a server, but found that learning curve too steep. But hosting on WordPress.com is terrific. I can’t believe I put it off for such a long, long time.

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a step!