Official Session Name: (2:30pm)
“How to Create an Effective Sim/Game Strategy”

Summary:
Christopher Hardy, a repected dude from Defense Acquisition University (DAU), talks about what they’ve learned. How they are much like corporate training (for many US Government agencies). Key difference is: Their students HAVE to take and pass their classes. … much more…

Ecampus Takeaway:
“Have a use case. Don’t build a game where all they learn is the game.” (and much more… this talk was gold)

Raw Notes:
DAU teaches the acquisition workforce of the department of defense about acquisition… of all equipment and weapons around the world. They get their curriculum from pentagon. His assistant Alicia is from university of central florida, and has a degree in game dev.

They aren’t a classic university, when they say corporate university They mean they stay connected to them on the job. Learning on demand.
107 courses. 1600 classroom offerings a year.

[I’m Daydreaming a portal2 mod where you simulate your first day on the job, with wooden cut outs of co workers. To test your knowledge.]

Wee. Over 700 faculty. Highly paid. Who have to be trained to be likable, because they are content experts.

Orlando is the modeling simulation capital of the world. Worlds largest co location of simulation talent. (I’m Curious how her dept relates to Dan mapes old college activities.)

They are not about degrees or being academic. They are about getting the job done. Points out 80% of learning takes place on the job. Calls this “informal learning” (learner driven). Formal learning is the flip, but institution controls the objective and means, and gets way more money. Yet is thrown out the window when you hit the job, or forgotten if you don’t use it repeatedly over the years.
Notes importance of offering a “fill in the gaps” – to let people go back and pick anything they want to brush up.

Mentions Nexus as the new virtual world they support [replacing second life? basically?… not that they ever actually used Second Life…]

Notes they get funding because they have a good rationalization for their three year plan for foci. Makes me wonder if this would help Ecampus in power plays.

Points out nobody is going to take a 30 hour distance learning course on their tablet or phone. But what do I want with those devices. Points out their interest in being a part of everyday work tasks. So offering access to points of interest seems useful. Reinforcement. Notes they have assets on iTunesU.

If you just throw new technology at an old organization, you just end up with a more costly old organization. You need a focus. He has a term for this. Test case?
Shows a pyramid from national training laboratories which gets down to ‘learning by doing’ being almost as good as teaching. Just above discussion. I took a photo.

About 26 exercises when they started (thinks like jeopardy). They’ve built 35. About 20 were thoughtful deep games. Five years ago when she started.

Notes teachers are currently the sage on the stage, power pointing their students to death. Games are disruptive.

… Some dude here is from naval war sim college? Or something? Seems like a lot of intense dudes are in this room. …

Gauging effectiveness:
They’ve done a thoughtful up front analysis, and have algorithms to evaluate. They start backwards from learning objectives. And consider how stable the content is (or they make modules, so pieces can be swapped out).

He defines a good game as :
Increases learning and retention. Still rely on test scores.
Student feedback focuses on immediate relevance to what they are going to do at work.

Their students are forced by law complete and complete courses. So they have to look at different motivational factors.

Talks about how they need to go out and evaluate on-the-job performance. Going to be difficult politically. But he thinks it needs to be done. Just not sure they can afford to send faculty around to thousands of sites. [! seems very relevant to Ecampus]

Their games run $25k for little game. 30 days. Put around $100k into a full game, which takes 6 months. Mentions “dragon fly” is their best.[is that a game title? or a dev tool?] … They usually use flash.

They skipped second life (which they see as just another distribution network) because there were so many security issues in the workplace(s). They don’t want any downloads. (…Interesting point)

Have a use case. Don’t build a game where all they learn is the game.

Check Back Later For:
Edits to the text? photos maybe?