Last week, an interesting slideshow was posted on Slideshare.net by Simon Egenfeldt-Nielsen, CEO of Serious Games Interactive, titled "Important Lessons from the Last 10 Years with Game-Based-Learning." 25 slides long, I found it full of interesting insights, many of which ring true for this educational game designer. (I've embedded the full slideshow at the end of this post.)

A few things jump out at me from this presentation:

THE GOOD

• Many teachers are using game-based instruction. The presentation notes that very few teachers are dismissing games as effective instructional tools these days, and the majority of teachers are using them in one fashion or another. At Muzzy Lane, we're finding the question to be less "why should we do a game?" and more "how do we make a game that will be effective?" Furthermore, all the major educational publishers are taking game based learning very seriously, something that wasn't the case when we first entered this space.
  

• It works! Ten more years of research is showing that game-based learning improves self-efficacy, retention, knowledge transfer, motivation, and engagement to content. Students perceive they learn more, and there is evidence to suggest GBL is especially effective with struggling learners.
  

THE CHALLENGE

• There are Still Many Barriers to Wide Adoption. Many of the same barriers that existed ten years ago, still exist today. Computer equipment isn't very good, installation and licensing is difficult, teachers have little time to invest in trying something new, and so on. The presentation recommends browser-based solutions as "a must" to make adoption as simple as possible, which is something we obviously agree with, considering our entire Sandstone platform is built as a web-based game service.

RECOMMENDATIONS

• You need to Convince People! The presentation recommends getting games in front of teachers, through direct presentations or showcasing at seminars, and involve teachers in development. I couldn't agree more. We currently have a series of prototype games being tested in a small number of classrooms now, and these were games developed extremely closely with instructor subject matter experts. We feel this gives our games
  

It's a slide deck worth running through if you're interested in game-based-learning. We're incredibly optimistic that the next ten years are going to see GBL make even great in-roads into become a core pillar of 21st Century education.

Muzzy Lane's VP of Sales and Marketing David Martz is at the I/ITSEC Serious Games Showcase this week, where MIDDWorld Online, Muzzy Lane's exciting language learning game developed with Middlebury Interactive Languages, has been nominated for an SGS award. Watch David talk about MIDDWorld, which is available as part of the innovative Middlebury Interactive Languages curriculum.

"It's easy to get lost in the woods."

These words, from Clark Aldrich's panel titled "A Simulation Road Map" at the [Serious Play][2] conference earlier this year, certainly ring true for this serious games designer. Aldrich was referring to the many pitfalls and roadblocks that get in the way of delivering a solid game product along the road from conception to deployment. Serious game designers face no shortage of challenges. Not only do the games need to be enjoyable interactive experiences (see: fun), they need to deliver learning objectives efficiently and effectively. And they often need to do this with very modest budgets and a small (but devoted) core development team.

What Aldrich does better than most is to distill ideas about serious game design in easily digestible chunks. His rational for the question, "Why build a sim?" is a great example of this. "Sims build competence and conviction through participation, practice, emotion, and interactive content," is Aldrich's reasoned answer. Likewise, his 5-Step Design Roadmap is similarly easy to follow:

Concept

Deploy

Aldrich outlined key actions and decisions for each of these waypoints on his road map, and much of his thinking [can be found on his website.][1] I also suggest you keep an eye out for his upcoming eBook Building Sims the Clark Aldrich Way for a detailed exploration of his process. Aldrich's book is a great starting point for anyone interested developing serious games.

At Muzzy Lane, we've developed similar processes for creating and delivering powerful learning games. Still, as Aldrich said, "It's easy to get lost in the woods." As such, it's a tremendous boon to the serious games industry that there are a growing number of fabulous conferences like Serious Play, and resources out there to help serious game designers stay on the right path.

While not solely an educational game, Zachtronics Industries' puzzle game, SpaceChem, is a significant brain workout. In this chemistry themed puzzle game, players take the role of a chemical synthesizer on a distant space colony, producing complex molecules by combining atoms or breaking down other molecules. The player is first tasked with connecting pipelines to transport materials from a mine to a reactor or a reactor to a delivery target. While the best configuration of these pipes can be a head-scratcher, it's by no means the most difficult aspect of the game.

I was part of a great panel discussion last night at the Microsft NERD center in Cambridge sponsored by the MIT Enterprise Forum. The panel was titled “Reducing Risk in the Games Business”, and I was joined on the panel by Scott Triola (5X5 Advisors, formerly of Blue Fang Games), Tarrnie Williams (Roadhouse Interactive), and Toby Ragaini (Zynga Boston). There was a lot of good discussion around analytics and using data to make sure you are delivering an experience that customers want, including tips like checking day 1 retention rates. Our contribution was a bit different - the risks in the educational games business are different, as are the customer requirements. I talked about the 3 major risks we have faced as an educational games company and how we have attempted to deal with them: is there a market for educational games at all (we made games with crossover appeal into the commercial games space like Making History), the unique technological requirements in education (we built a platform to handle web delivery, LMS integration, assessment support), and the requirement that educational games prove they are teaching the correct things (we designed a process that starts with learning objectives).

Time sure flies. It's been almost two months since I attended the first annual Serious Play Conference, but with all the activity going on here at Muzzy, I've yet to write about the event. The program as a whole was strong, and the event was made all the more sweet by Muzzy Lane being award two of the three prizes in the education category (Practice Marketing- Silver Medal Winner and Midd World Online- Bronze Medal Winner.) One talk in particular that I found especially insightful was Talib Hussein's (Raytheon BBN Technologies) talk titled "Achieving an Effective Blend Between Engagement & Learning."

I’ve heard it from Unity Technologies, Gabe Zichermann and Gamasutra: 2011 is the “Year of Gamification”. For anyone who is still unsure about the term, Gamification is very different from using serious games. Games are often story-driven, challenging activities which engage the player intellectually and the implementation of serious games is applying these challenging, intellectually engaging activities to a specific learning outcome. Gamification, on the other hand, is taking game-like tools such as point systems, trophy collection and competition and applying them to something that is not a game, and may or may not have a specific learning outcome. Often times, gamification is used in reference to game-based marketing or an app that is available once you purchase a specific product.

Last week was a busy one for Muzzy Lane software. Along with a visit from Congressman Tierney, David Martz and I attended the 7th Annual Games for Health Conference at the Hyatt Harborside in Boston. Games for Health is an organization that has been researching ways to implement serious games in the healthcare industry since 2004; at a previous year’s G4H conference we met Paul Krebs from the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and thus began discussions for Quit IT: a smoking-cessation game project funded by the National Institute of Health.

One of the biggest concerns educators have about using games in education revolves around the question of assessment. “How do I know my students are learning anything in the game?” “How do I know what they’re learning?” “How do I know where they’re still struggling?” These are questions we hear from educators all the time. While many educators are sold on games as a way to build engagement and excitement in the classroom, many are still reluctant to whole-heartedly embrace them if they can’t prove their efficacy.

In truth, assessment is HARD. As a former classroom teacher, I certainly struggled with it. Sure I could give tests, and generate scores for my students, but even those assessments just scratched the surface of what learning was and wasn’t taking place in the classroom. Assessment is always difficult, regardless of the educational activity. Still, we feel learning games offer some interesting opportunities for assessment we’re confident instructors can get excited about, and eventually rally behind.

On Thursday, April 15th, Massachusetts State Representative Vincent Pedone of Worcester visited the Muzzy Lane offices to learn more about our company’s serious games projects and how they can have a positive impact on the state’s game industry. Rep. Pedone was accompanied by Tim Loew, Director of Academic Planning & Operations at Becker College, and staffer Michael Mobilio.