Online Educa Virtual Worlds and Serious Games

Just got back from Online Educa in Berlin. The snow and the wonderful Christmas decorations in Berlin lifted everyones spirits and I think contributed to a great show. Serious Games and Virtual Worlds were big features on the talk circuit – although less so in the exhibitors. Generation Y was the other big theme for me. Caspian gave two talks and our tech featured in a couple of others.

We were right next door to Second Life and Crisware which made us feel at home. We had our camera at the ready at the stand and in our talks. We asked a number of people about their thoughts on 2009 and what it held for Serious Games and Virtual Worlds for learning. Views included: more of the same; no uplift; focus on defence and public with budgets not affected by credit crunch; need for rapid development tools; scorm; and web delivery.

The videos are linked below – Clive Shepherd; Donald Clark; Adrian Hall (x DFES); Euan Mckenzie; Birgit Reiser (EU); Rolf Neilsen; SecondLife x 2. Enjoy.

Learning and Generation Y

I am over in Berlin having a great time at Online Educa. Yesterday I gave a talk and discussion on Generation Y which is one of the conference themes. The discussion focused upon the tools, methods and techniques that educators and trainers can use to successfully engage with Gen Y learners.

Defining Gen Y – easy in terms of age but in terms of attributes and attitude was a lot more fuzzy. There was active discussion on the term ‘digital native’ and how useful or dangerous this term was for practitioners. See the presentation below.