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Talk about high stakes tests! These soldiers in basic training are learning about the tools of the trade in simulations designed to evoke emotional reactions not dissimilar to the ones they may face if deployed to a war zone.

Gaming and Simulations for Training

Hi Kasturi - It will be interesting to watch the growth of companies like this. I am tempted to get a free quote to learn the ballpark $$ for having training simulations made. In reviewing some of the simulations, some seemed much more valuable than others (i.e. tour of USAFA with ability to earn points to change look of avitar seemed irrelevant because the points were earned after the tour was taken... who would take it again?)

UPS uses games to improve driver training

This website offers numerous serious games that claim to offer serious training for various businesses.

Related to our discussion of attention and flow, this article talks about external and internal causes of distraction and what to do about them.

Caspian Learning built an immersive 3D serious game for Great Ormond Street Hospital Charity in the UK to increase operator engagement in training to use medical hoists.

Clark Aldrich's "The Complete Guide to Simulations and Serious Games" is a good complement to Prensky's books on the subject. We require both in our "eLearning Games" course at UB. The instructor of that course directed my to these two resources.

This article describes how Stanford University Medical Center is using a web-based medical game called "Septris" to train its physicians on sepsis.

As a former Air Force officer, I completely agree with the title of this article. It is simply amazing to see how simulations, video games and other technological platforms are being used to educate and train our nation's soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen.

Interesting article discussing a study showing that the size of certain brain structures can predict video game performance

Maybe it is a guy thing, but I think I would enjoy building a crack team of mercenaries to battle other 'gangs'. The VOIP functionality and real-time skirmishes sound like a lot of fun. I just had a great idea for a MUVE game... Rookie, a MUVE that requores the formation of a constant cohort of users that must work together to graduate a Police Academy (politics, alliance building, skills, civic quandries, etc). They rise through the ranks together culminating in SWAT team training and/or criminal justice track (courts).

Here's some more stuff on technology and STEM, but as it pertains to professional development. The question is how does this program motivate teachers other than the extrinsic reward of professional development points???

Further evidence to encourage gaming?

Part of the American Medical Associations' attempt to increase engagement in medical education.

What happens when everything can be made engaging, instantly?

I read the UMass study that it references (average time to wait for a page to load is ~2 sec) when it came out and initially found it surprising, but after paying closer attention to my internet habits, I realized that I, too, am quite impatient!!

I do feel media can be viewed as a reward because of the high levels of enjoyment and engagement when one consumes media. That is why it is so 'gratifying' and we end up constantly yearning for it unless we train ourselves to observe our media consumption patterns. It is important to monitor these patterns.

Motivation in education getting press in Nigeria.

Tax exemption, better loans, and interesting training options would certainly be motivating for me. However, are National Teacher Awards motivating for anyone?

A video game that uses biofeedback to help players practice and better control their reactions to stress. It's an interesting combination of entertainment and serious biofeedback training, presenting a very creative approach to designing engaging conditions for learning that allow for relevant skill transfer.

Where should ATT place its bets? Is engagement the key to stemming dropouts? Can VI be used to design richly affective environments that promote social efficacy (a spoon full of sugar) while succeeding at skill development and knowledge transfer (the medicine)?