609 Game Jams for eLearning: Collaboration to Creation in 72 Hours
3:00 PM - 4:00 PM Thursday, October 25
Development
Montego B
As gamified learning transforms the L&D field in positive ways, it also brings along the challenges of game development: design problems, feature creep, troublesome timeline estimation, and project crunch. Game developers often say, “Making games is hard.” This is an understatement. What if there were a fun way to learn how to manage these pitfalls by investing as little as a few days, prototyping innovative eLearning along the way?
During this session, you’ll learn how you can use the game jam approach to create eLearning. You’ll look at the experiences of participants in 2018’s Global Game Jam, the exciting games they created, and how they designed them. You’ll also explore what can be expected from this experimental, creative, and community-building process. At the end of this session, you’ll leave with a clear idea of how game jams work and how you can apply this style of development to creating engaging eLearning.
In this session, you will learn:
- Why game jams are a unique model for collaboration that can be used to generate ideas and solve design problems in L&D as well
- How you can implement this effective and fun strategy yourself
- How game jams foster new ways of rapidly prototyping designs that can lead to better learning experiences
- About development pitfalls to avoid that can lead teams astray from amazing products
Audience:
Designers, developers, and managers.
Technology discussed in this session:
Game examples from Global Game Jam 2018; general tools of game and eLearning development.
Ross Kerr
Instructional Designer
National Alliance on Mental Illness
Ross Kerr is an instructional designer for the National Alliance on Mental Illness, where he has rolled out online and blended learning experiences to support NAMI’s national grassroots community. Previously, he spent a decade working as a special educator and award-winning trainer in nonprofits.