Creating educational games for work sake is not efficient, and will not bring you any results. In order to truly add value to your learners, there are some tips to respect that can make or break your serious games, and that we will cover in this article. Here is how to create educational games that drive results.
How To Create Educational Games That Drive Results: The ITyStudio Case
“We have put a lot of efforts toward this eLearning game, but we did not get any results”.
That is exactly the kind of sentence we want to avoid. Because there is nothing worse than putting a lot of money, time, and effort toward a training simulation, for no ROI. The good news is that you can easily prevent it from happening. However, you will have some tips and tricks to use if you want to do so. In this article, we are going to discuss 5 tips to create educational games that drive results to your organization.
1. Define Precisely The “Reason Why” Of Your Educational Games.
When it comes to serious game design, the very first step to create educational games is to think about the reason why you are doing it. Like every project, you will have ups and downs. You will face hustles. Some easy to handle, and other harder to overcome. In these moments, if your reason why is not strong enough, your project is in danger: The temptation to quit will be so high that you might give up.
Besides, by clearly defining why you are creating your learning simulations, thecreation process of your modules will be easier, because scenarios, as well as axes of analysis, will come really easily.
2. Create Educational Games With A Clear Picture Of Your Audience In Mind.
Once you have stated why you were creating your online training module, it is now time to understand who you are doing this for. This step is often overlooked by training managers. Nevertheless, it remains a critical one. How can you create educational games if you do not even know your learners?
In order to create the right kind of pedagogical content, as well as to use the right support, you do have to know who your audience is.
- Are they men or women?
- Are they teenagers or seniors?
- What is their nationality?
- What are their beliefs?
Questions above can seem easy to answer at the first glance. Nevertheless, training managers are not always near of their team, thus leading to a misconception of who they truly are. By knowing who you target audience is for your eLearning games, you will be able to produce more relevant content, increasing your results.
3. Think About The Skills You Want To Assess.
This point is quite similar to the first step. When you create educational games, it is important to know the kind of skills you are going to assess from your learners. Moreover, this will help you setting up your pedagogical structure properly when you will come at the serious game development stage.
To complete this stage successfully, the following questions can help you out:
- What are my learners’ strengths?
- What are my learners’ weaknesses?
- What skills could be helpful to my organization?
- Where are my learners at the moment, and where do I want to bring them tomorrow?
By answering the questions above, you will start creating your eLearning games with a deep and solid understanding of your audience.
Then, you will need to concretely put in place your axes. To do so, you do not need any technical skill. New serious game authoring tools of the market, such as ITyStudio, can provide you with easy-to-use interface.
4. Engage Your Learners With An Interactive Scenario.
Alright, now that your pedagogical structure is ready, let’s dive in the core part of our creation process: Storytelling and scenario. While being the funniest part of the process, this is also the most important one. It is mandatory to make this stage right in order to create educational games that are efficient and that drive results.
You might be wondering: “Alright, but what makes a scenario good or bad?”. Well, to start off, as training managers, your worst enemy as one name: Boredom.
In order to fight this enemy, interactivity is your best ally. Consequently, feel free tocreate scenarios that are engaging and that enable learners to interact with their environment, characters, objects…
5. Analyze The Strengths And Weaknesses Of Your Learners.
When you create educational games, the best part comes at last: Assessment. Thanks to new SCORM compliant authoring tools of the market, it is now possible to have anaccurate visibility on what your learners did well or failed during their learning simulations.
This way, you will gain clear insights about the strengths and weaknesses of your attendees, allowing you to think about the best topics and skills to cover within your very next training modules.
Ready To Create Educational Games That Drive Results? Take Action!
In this article, we covered 5 tips in order to create educational games that drive results with ITyStudio.
If you feel concerned and see a potential in this training method, you should definitelygive ITyStudio a try!
This eLearning games authoring tool contains all the features needed to implement the steps listed previously.
It is easy to use, it is engaging, and, best of all: You can try it for free!
Ready to go to the next level? Claim your 30-day free trial here!
This works only for soft skills, not software application training.