511 Getting Serious Organizations to Take Games Seriously
1:15 PM - 2:15 PM Thursday, October 1
Games and Gamification
203
Often the idea of using instructional games is met with stiff resistance by project stakeholders and the organization’s leadership: “We don’t want our employees playing games! We are a serious organization with serious work to do!” So how do you design instructionally effective games for the workplace and gain buy-in from stakeholders and leadership in your organization?
In this session, you will be introduced to methods for designing effective games and getting them taken seriously by shifting the focus of game design from the game interface (the look and feel of a game) to the game’s mechanics. You will get a close look at the complex world of game mechanics, explore how to leverage these mechanics in instructional game design, and give real-world examples of how to use this approach to create effective instructional games that are taken seriously within serious organizations.
In this session, you will learn:
- About the wide range of mechanics found in games
- How to leverage game mechanics to design instructional games
- About real-world examples of games used effectively, even in reluctant organizations
- How to play and analyze games for transfer of essential mechanics to your instructional games
Audience:
Novice to advanced designers, developers, and managers.
Technology
discussed in this session:
N/A
Joe Totherow
Senior Learning Technologist
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis
Joe Totherow, a senior learning technologist for the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, has been an instructional technologist for 10 years, leveraging technology in creative ways to provide quality instruction to learners. He holds a PhD in philosophy.
Kama Totherow
Assistant Vice President of Operations
Concordia Plan Services
Kama Totherow, the assistant vice president of operations for Concordia Plan Services, provides customer delight to employers and members around the world. She balances compassion and stewardship in the collaborative provision of health and wellness, retirement, deferred savings, and income replacement benefits. She is charged with developing excellence in her operations team and is constantly investigating and experimenting with methods for improving team performance. In her work, Kama has successfully implemented game mechanics in her organization to improve employee work performance.
