e-Literate

Present is Prologue

Tag: Raph-Koster

  • What We Don’t Know About Learning Analytics

    Long-time e-Literate readers know that I have been a fan of the concept of learning analytics for a number of years now. But it became apparent at this year’s Learning Impact conference that learning analytics are the new hotness. Everybody is talking about them, and increasing numbers of vendors (LMS vendors, ERP vendors, textbook vendors, etc.) are trying to figure out how to get in on the party.

    Which means it’s probably time to start asking some critical questions about how well we really understand learning analytics and where the potential for failure and disappointment might be.

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  • Web Analytics, Gaming Technology, and the LMOS

    A while back, a blog conversation between Mark Oehlert and Lee Kraus regarding how to knit together lots of embedded, widget/gadget like learning applications into a coherent picture of what and how learners are doing. To begin with, the idea they’re toying with is very similar to the LMOS but focused on a corporate market and workflow learning. What really got me thinking, though, was when they started talking about a dashboard somewhat like Google Analytics to track learner progress. (Those corporate folks sure do love their dashboards.) Something about this really clicked with me, but I couldn’t quite articulate how I would want to see this work in an academic environment.

    That is, until Raph Koster’s post put me onto VisitorVille–“Web Stats in Video Game Format!”

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  • Book Recommendation: A Theory of Fun for Game Design

    Raph Koster’s A Theory of Fun for Game Design is one of the best work-related books I’ve read in quite some time. It is also one of the strangest. Written in a simple, plain-spoken style with relatively few words on a page and an illustration on every facing page, printed in a shape that is wider than it is tall, the book feels very much like a children’s book. But don’t be fooled. The level of sophistication, both in the narrative construction and in the content itself, is impressive. The result is that you can plow through this book very quickly and yet absorb some very rich and subtle concepts.

    Most interesting of all, though, is that the book is really about teaching and learning as much as it is about games. (more…)