Language test for teachers in Rotterdam

ROTTERDAM, THE NETHERLANDS – Hundreds of secondary school and secondary vocational teachers from Rotterdam are going to take a language test. Those who do not pass this test have to take a course to improve their language skills.

A spokesman of the city of Rotterdam reports this to the press today. This regards an online language test, developed by aNewSpring, also based in Rotterdam. The city earlier promised to increase the use of the local creative industry. Rotterdam already has more jobs ready for this sector in our port city.

Teachers that do not pass this test will get the chance to improve their knowledge through the adaptive language module in aNewSpring until it reaches the desired level. “Every teacher is a language teacher”, states Hugo de Jonge, education counselor. He refers to the fact that for example gym or biology teachers should also be able to correct the children in the area of language. Ultimately, the goal is to improve the language level of school children in Rotterdam.

[in Dutch]

‘Learning styles don’t exist’ and other surprising facts

aNewSpring attended the ASTD Techknowledge 2012 in Las Vegas from January 25th to January 27th. About 1200 eLearning professionals have attended this conference at the Rio Convention Center.

Evidence Based Learning

Ruth Clark, a recognized specialist in instructional design and technical training, talked about creating content and what you should take into account when doing this. All this based on research. Clark showed that this evidence based approach on creating content can really improve the results of students. Besides no brainers like “Avoid scrolling on your pages”, the outcome of research on this matter is not always as we expected.

‘Learning styles don’t exist’

The first myth she dismantles in her presentation is about the different learning styles. There is a misconception that people fit into one of three styles:
Visual learners: Learn best by reading and writing notes and watching demon­stra­tions and videos.
Auditory learners:  Learn best by listening and by talking about and dis­cussing the material being studied.
Kinesthetic or 'active' learners: Learn best by doing; by exper­i­menting and exper­i­en­cing the material hands on.

Ruth Clark cites research done by Kratzig & Arbuthnott (2006) which shows very low correlation between the (preferred) learning style of the student and their results. So it is wise to disregard learning styles when making content. Instead, a content creator should focus on the more important aspects as shown below.

The use of graphics

She addresses the use of graphics in learning content. The conclusions of research done by Richard E. Mayer (Research psychologist) backs up the conclusion about learning styles and gives another insight into content creation. It is shown that the use of graphics is especially useful for beginners on a subject. Experts on the matter benefit far less from the use of graphics. This research also showed that simplified representations or basic images work better than detailed images.

The use of audio

Audio narration is often used in learning content. It is shown that when audio is used besides text explanation, the results of the learner dropped. This is known as the modality principle. When a person gets too much redundant information, it is not processed very well in the brain. What works better: visuals with only narration and no text.

Text within visuals

The last point addressed was the fact that text placing in relation to the visual seems to do a lot for the learner. It is often seen that text is placed below or next to a visual. However, the text works better if it’s placed within the visual. This is called the contiguity principle   

Research vs. trends

A lot of trends are coming and going when it comes to elearning content. "These trends don’t always help the learner but are used because they are popular", Ruth Clark says in her presentation. When you really want to help the learner learn, take these research based principles into account.

They might not what you would expect and will sometimes go against certain elearning trends, but research has shown that they work. Put it to your advantage and apply them when you're developing your content! 

How to use game mechanics to enhance eLearning?

aNewSpring is attending the ASTD Techknowledge 2012 in Las Vegas from January 25th to January 27th. About 1200 eLearning professionals are attending this conference in the Rio Convention Center. In an earlier blog post we already discussed why gamification is a good idea. But how do you implement gamification within eLearning? Rick Raymer, video game designer, explained in his presentation what you can do to have your eLearning profit from game mechanics.

Why are games engaging?

Gaming often results in engagement and maybe that is the number one reason to gamify your eLearning. Why are games so engaging? Not simply because they are played as games, but because players get rewarded when they achieve something. This can also be applied to eLearning, for example when they get a certain score on a test.

How to trigger learners?

Game mechanics are be defined as “constructs of rules to encourage users to explore and learn properties of the possibility space through the use of feedback mechanisms”. So what are the game mechanics we can use within eLearning? Key in this definition are the “feedback mechanisms”, which refer to the rewards for students. You can think about rewarding your students with a new level, with points, achievements or badges.

 

The perfect challenge

Another important aspect of gaming is the fact that the challenge has to become bigger as the skill of the learner increases. When things get too easy, boredom sets in. When the problems are too hard, anxiety takes away the fun of ‘playing’. Because every student is different, everybody needs a different challenge. That’s why adaptive learning is very useful to apply.  

Peer motivation

The last thing that Raymer points out is that in learning, peer motivation is an aspect that must not be underestimated. Points, achievements and badges work only if peers can see them. This way, students are competing against each other and gain status when they come out best.  

Game based learning

aNewSpring already has some of these mechanisms implemented in the platform. And we very much believe in the benefits these mechanisms can have on engagement and results. In the future we’re bound to add more aspects of gaming in our platform.

Applying gaming principles within learning

aNewSpring is attending the ASTD Techknowledge 2012 in Las Vegas from January 25th to January 27th. About 1200 eLearning professionals are attending this conference in the Rio Convention Center. One of the keynote speakers was Jane McGonigal, author of the book ‘Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World’. She explores the power and future of gaming and researches how its collaborative and motivational aspects can be used in learning.

Gaming

Today there are over 1 billion gamers who play at least 1 hour a day. 40% of that population is female and the majority is over 50 years old. Angry Birds, for example, is downloaded over 500 million times and is believed to be played by 2 persons per install. Meaning that over a billion people worldwide have played this game. The total time spent playing Angry Birds adds up to 200.000 years. To put that number into perspective, the total time spent updating Wikipedia is close to 11.000 years, while Wikipedia has been around much longer. These numbers combined give insight into the potential of game based learning.  

How we experience a game

In their spare time people like to solve problems like in Angry Birds, rather than doing plain nothing. That’s why Jane McGonigal says: ‘the opposite of play is not work, it’s depression’. This statement can be supported by research about stress development. Although the stress someone gets from playing games is similar to what you might call negative stress, the mindset is positive and that makes it a pleasant and even relaxing experience. There are 10 positive emotions involved when playing games: joy, relief, love, surprise, pride, curiosity, excitement, awe & wonder, contentment and creativity.

Game based learning

To learn is often seen as a burden, but with gaming people experience this totally different. Jane finds this strange, because you do learn something while you solve a puzzle or when you complete a level. You generally have to acquire certain skills or knowledge to be successful in a game. So when you apply game elements to a learning activity, people will likely experience this more as a game and less as burden.

Game based learning has several advantages. First of all, students are more motivated to do their courses. They want to achieve their goals and will therefore work harder. They will also be having more fun, doing the course. Our expectation is that this will often lead to a better result! Research has shown that when people play a game together, they get a better relationship with each other. Within eLearning this can mean that the students get a better bond with each other.

Always improving

We try to adapt to the needs of our customers by continually improving our platform and we think we’re on the right track with our game based learning possibilities. We are of course very interested in your ideas on these topics. Let us know in a comment on this post!

The power of collaboration

aNewSpring is attending the ASTD Techknowledge 2012 in Las Vegas from January 25th to January 27th. About 1200 eLearning professionals are attending this conference in the Rio Convention Center. Tony Bingham, President and CEO of ASTD, started off on day one with a session called ‘The power of collaboration’.

Social collaboration

This video from Google shows a summary of the main news of 2011, from the earthquake in Japan to the revolution in the Middle East. Almost everything that happened was mentioned in social media first, before the regular media picked it up. 2011 was the year where sharing knowledge over the internet has become extremely popular. This raises several questions:

- How can this be an advantage for eLearning?
- What would our industry be like if we could use all of this social collaboration?

Case studies

Tony Bingham showed a few examples regarding this social collaboration. These are case studies he came across in the eLearning business.

Sharing knowledge

Telus is a company with a lot of technicians, all working at different locations. To let them share their knowledge, they all got a flip cam. If one of the employees runs into a situation they haven’t seen before, they film it and then upload it to a central website. Other technicians can now see this video and respond to this. Telus makes it possible for all technicians in their company to help each other and share their knowledge. The CEO of Telus spoke about a ‘culture of collaboration’ in his company. He wants it to be easy for his employees to share knowledge and learn from each other.

Collaborating

In the Mayo clinic, some doctors had to look at X-rays, which isn’t easy. Sometimes they couldn’t see the problem or they weren’t sure what to do in some situation. Mayo clinic wanted to help the doctors, so they created a Twitter account. In that account, the doctors where able to share the x-rays publicly. They decided to do this publicly because they wanted to show that they respect everyone’s opinion. This way a lot of doctors got help from their colleagues but also from other followers. Tony Bingham told a story of a woman who had chronic wrist pain. She followed the mayo clinic on Twitter and found tweets regarding her condition. She decided to meet up with the doctor and speak about her problem. After that she finally was operated successfully.

Social learning

These are just of few examples of ways social collaboration can help people learn. A single person is almost never able to have all the knowledge he needs. Because people know more together, it’s important to take advantage of this by letting them share their knowledge. Within the platform of aNewSpring, we try to make this as easy as possible.

We try to adapt to the needs of our customers by continually improving our platform and we think we’re on the right track with our social learning possibilities. We are of course very interested in your ideas on these topics. Let us know in a comment on this post!