Now, the next section of the 3DGameLab course is using the tool itself. Most of the content in our ‘How to,’ course is delivered via video screencasts uploaded to Youtube. It is a great medium as I can pause, replay, and read the comments, all the usual benefits of this youtube video. Even with that, here is a note to self. Keep the videos short, 3-4 minutes explaining a skill, maybe 8-10 min if its informative. 3DGameLab mantra, more, shorter courses with lower XPs as opposed to high prized learning assets in the first instance.
Design Your First Quest
First impressions, the 3DGameLab editor is straightforward, if you are used to creating online content, then adding content is as expected. I have written a fair amount about course design in Moodle and I feel that the key points apply here in 3DGameLab. Building / designing a course ‘going forward,’ one rung at a time, can lead to resources having to be re-written or over-written. It is often worthwhile trekking the learning pathway, or work through the course itself, (we can always refine the course once we have delivered it). I would always recommend building an entire course framework (the ladder) with the end in mind. Then propagating the course one rung at a time. Certainly I am pleased to see a Quest called ‘Using a Planning Roadmap’ with a significant 100 XPs. There is definitely a need to design a ‘back end’ to the ‘front end’ of your course or series of quests.
As 3DGameLab is starting to reveal more of its inner workings, more of its guts. Let’s deal with ranks first. 3DGameLab lets you define the ranks, the XPs required for the ranks and permissions. Hence it is possible to control quest prerequisites and roles. Hence ‘players’ came be given additional duties or abilities.
We had another video walk through on Rewards, that is badges, achievements and awards. Now it is clear that practitioners / myself, we need to think through how ‘best’ to use these tools and to take into account the TEDTalk video’s we watched earlier in the course. Importantly, these prerequisites can be simple, multiple or even complex, by that I mean requiring players to complete a simple quest, multiple quest or a range of quests, actions and awards.
Group Manager Tools
Group creations, course creation and quest creation is a management task. 3DGameLab has as a platform creates a community of players, tags, and the ability to clone courses as part of the armoury. Certainly 3DGameLab has scalability in the back of its mind. Members and invites are straight forward. This also underlines the importance of IP, licensing and copyright. Reporting is very comprehensive covering completions %, completion times, plus trending information.
Overall, I am very impressed with the learning mechanics. My only forethought is the ‘preparation investment costs’ versus the gains and the management of self paced learning. As yet, I have not managed a learning experience where the pace is determined almost solely by the student.
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