Continuing my Work on ASTD ICE Presentation

This presentation has proven somewhat trickie for me. I am working to combine story, game-elements and game-thinking into one comprehensive, interactive presentation that both demonstrates the concepts I am discussing and provides ideas on how to employ these concepts into your own design. The goal is to model the concepts in the presentation and serve as an example of what can be accomplished by combining those elements.

I had a sort of breakthrough this morning when I decided to have the main detective character become more of a teacher. In the first few go-arounds, he was more of the “dumb” anti-hero who did not have a clue but I couldn’t find a good way for him to learn new information and then to intelligently ask the learners/audience about the new information. I needed him to share insights, not be dumb about learning.

Our main characters in stories need to be intelligent. By making him more of a guide or knowledgeable person, I think it helps the story along and brings the learner along much more effectively than having the “informant” tell the detective everything he needs to know.

I am also work on reducing the text on the screen. I want to talk about definitions and define elements like gamification and game-thinking but the definitions are too long, so I am reducing them.

My thoughts right now are that in the presentation, the audience/learners will be divided into four teams of detectives (self-selected) and then they will attempt to solve the mystery of what makes learning interactive and engaging. Each of the four teams will be a different color (red, blue, green, orange) represented by different color hats.

One of the detective teams is the blue team.

Along the way, the audience/learners will learn about gamification, games-thinking and game elements. Actually, we will identify and talk about game-elements at the end and I am trying hard to leave 10-15 minutes for question and answer. I think that is important.

I like the fact that I’ve chosen the noir detective theme but it poses some interesting problems. First, the genre is very sexist in it’s tone and presentation and I want to avoid that in my presentation so I can’t be 100% true to the genre and am trying hard to move beyond the sexist implications. Second, the genre has little diversity so I am adding diversity and breaking somewhat with the dated genre.

The boss is the smartest person in the story.

So one caution I have learned is that choosing a genre for a theme for a presentation or learning event can be difficult especially if the genre already has built in issues. I like the detective idea but the baggage is difficult to overcome and I am consciously trying to succeed in that area and have balanced and thoughtful characters.

The artwork is really coming along well thanks to Vanessa and I am excited about the presentation. We are going to use some really detailed scenes and images to set the mood.

Then we will have more minimalist interactions slides to help carry the story.

Elements of Flow.

If you’d like to see the finished presentation live….My presentation at ASTD ICE conference this year is titled “Three Mysterious Keys to Interactive Learning: Game-Thinking, Game-Elements, and Gamification.” It is on Wed, May 7 from 8:30 am – 9:45 am and is session W101 located in Ballroom A. Stop by afterwards and say “hi.”