Eric's Blog (until a better title comes along...)

I've got gamification on my mind right now.  I am currently in a manufacturing environment at work, where games are often something that most people don't think they have time for.  I disagree!  There is always room for a bit of fun! Intro First of all, what is gamification?  Gamification is the application of game elements or mechanics to a real-life situation to encourage results ( Webster's def , Wikipedia's def ).  The biggest takeaway from that definition is that you are trying to make something happen.  If you are just making a game out of something that happens anyway, why have a scoreboard? Gamification is all over the place, so it's easy to find examples from which you can lift your own ideas.  Here are a few you may have tried/seen/copied: Khan Academy - Here you can get a badge for watching a certain number of videos Codewars - Sort of ninja-themed.  Coders earn "kyu" (experience points) to boost their "honor" as they comp

So, a few weeks ago my wife and I went to FedEx to have them spiral bind one of my wife's family history books that her mom wrote.  I'm always a little surprised that stores like FedEx and UPS can stay in business because I rarely send packages, and I just assume most other people don't either.  Anyway, when you go in there they have several other services: a copy machine, greeting cards, and books.  It was there that I found the book, " Steal Like An Artist ", by Austin Kleon. By this guy >> I don't really know what makes a book a New York Times bestseller.  I don't think I've ever read a bestseller before it became one, and even if I had I probably couldn't have predicted its future success.  I'm not really part of that community.  But after reading "Steal Like An Artist", I feel like I'm just a bit more connected with the creative community around me, and I'm using what I learned from it to connect m

Have you ever been surveyed about service you received at a restaurant or shop?  Has anyone ever filled out a survey about you?  Are you the type of person who gives a 3 if you are content with service but not overwhelmed with joy?  Those people are "3-Givers".  Or are you the type who gives a 5 if you are content?  Ah, "5-Givers".  Bless them for their score-inflating generosity... 😀 If you are being surveyed, you probably just assume you are answering the same way everyone else does.  However, if you are on the receiving end of those results, you have a vested interest in things being answered uniformly, especially if those results are taken into consideration when promotions and raises come around! This week I asked a couple of my coworkers how they answer surveys and found out that one is a 3-Giver and one is a 5-Giver.  They are both intelligent, and I was actually a little surprised by their answers.  I would have thought the opposite about them.  Jus

Here's that other Articulate project I referenced in my last post.  Inheritance is a common concept for Biology 1010 and other introductory life sciences classes.  I chose to do a module on this concept because a) I understand it and b) it has a lot of combinations that lend themselves well to creating interactions.  I wanted to make something that would use layers and logic to create a custom activity. Here’s a screenshot of the first screen in action.  It is an interaction called the “Gene Scrambler”: (Click here to view a PDF of the whole module) ADDIE: An important thing to mention here was the ADDIE method to develop it.  I started out with an idea of the material I wanted to cover and quickly realized upon outlining it that I had WAY TOO MUCH!  So I decided to pare it down to just the basics of inheritance – no incomplete dominance, gene interactions, etc. Once I had determined the scope of my learning and written out the major points I wanted to co

I found this Articulate Storyline challenge online this week, and I thought it looked like fun.  As I started playing with it, I decided I would use these size comparisons as a language learning activity to compare superlatives.  I made this drag-and-drop interaction where users place comparison words on the correct plane.  I’d love any feedback!  Comment or email me. Start Screen: I wanted to find a font that looked “airplaney”.  Lo and behold, Air Americana.  I love finding awesome fonts!!  This is definitely a font to use sparingly.  I like it, but it would be awful to try and read a paragraph of this.  Even the smaller text in the instructions box is not as easy to read as I’d like.  Overall, though, I think it works for this piece. During the Activity: A couple things worth mentioning here.  If you drop something correctly, it stays and turns green.  If you drop something incorrectly, it just goes back to its spot instead of turning red or something li