eLearning serious games: creativity and motivation Its followers indicate that its use motivates, promotes participation and breaks monotony, but above it all, it lets the student/collaborator improve his/her performance.

Do you remember that old saying “time is gold”? There are few proverbs as relevant in our days and in the eLearning industry as this one.

We are thrilled to be exhibiting at the upcoming ASTD Techknowledge 2012 in Las Vegas January 25- 27. ASTD (American Society for Training & Development) is the world’s largest association dedicated to workplace learning and performance professionals. ASTD’s members come from more than 100 countries and connect locally in more than 130 U.S. chapters and with more than 30 international partners. Members work in thousands of organizations of all sizes, in government, as independent consultants, and suppliers. ASTD TechKnowledge 2012 will welcome more than 1,200 people who focus their daily attention on the design and delivery, management and strategy of technology and learning. Attendees will come together alongside 70 exhibitors in the learning technology space to learn, network, and move people forward through the application of learning and technology. We invite you to join us at booth #303 and learn how the latest updates to SHIFT can benefit you, demo new products, and course – meet the members of the SHIFTteam! Also come and discover our on-site promotions! Please register here. You will be instructed to enter a unique invitation number, which is : 2883. We look forward to seeing you!

New eLearning Game Tennis is the newest sport offered by SHIFT's Game Engine where students will be able to compete to win a challenge.

Six New Menus The six new automatic menus that have been added to SHIFT will let you present your course´s structure un a quick and easy way by simply clicking on a button. You can choose from a wide variety of interfaces the one that suits your course´s content best. These menus where created around topics like: technology, preserving the environment and economics, with different shades of green, blue and gray which you can customize to fit your company´s branding. Screen Report The new screen report added to SHIFT will let you know which interfaces were added to each course and the person who added them. This new feature also lets you see the different courses created and the amount of screens each course has in a particular period of time. The report is called "Created screens" and it can only be viewed by a user with an admin permit. Other Updates Updates on screen p63 The Common Game Engine or p63 will now display the instructions set out for each of the games in Portuguese. Also it will display text with bold format. The thumbnails and samples for all the games have been updated as well in order to show a better description of the interaction that the user wishes to select. Change in screen p31_45 The button labeled "Text" displayed in the lower right corner of this screen has been moved to the lower left corner. This is due to the fact that the button was cut out whenever certain image formats where used. Modifications to the Script The instructions for each of the questions added to the Choice with image screen or p23 will now be seen in the course´s script. Adjustments to the Scenario Builder All audio notes inside the Scenario Builder screen (p77) have been updated in order to record the changes performed to this particular field. Also the movement of the character´s mouth has been corrected so that it stops moving its lips whenever the user presses the pause button.

Game Engine SHIFT offers you 7 new games that allow you to give more interactivity to your courses. Among these you´ll find: Baseball Tournament, Basketball Tournament, Golf Tournament, Bowling Cup, etc. The games have instructions which are displayed automatically and you need to include a minimum of 5 questions per game which are displayed randomly.

Playing games is, thus, an ideal form of preparation for the workplace of the 21st century, as some forward-thinking firms are already starting to realize." The Economist. How can we make sure that our learners are getting the most of the courses provided without being bored with the same old version of eLearning? Maybe we should try to place ourselves into the end users’ shoes and try to come up with what we would be interested in seeing. Nowadays apps are the big thing when it comes to entertainment. There are social apps, travel apps, photo apps, food apps, you name it, it’s there. But the interesting part of it all is that gaming apps are still the ones preferred by the vast majority of the audience. I believe they’re the ones that entertain the most, so why shouldn’t we use their base to help people learn? They can help learners acquire new knowledge or abilities in a fun, fast way, they’re highly motivating and they generate real competition of people in a risk-free environment. Saying it sounds really simple, but the big question mark in everyone’s mind comes up when trying to think about making it real. In basic perspective, the goal is not to entertain but to use entertainment to reinforce learning; that was our main focus when developing learning games in SHIFT. So we came up with a list of characteristics which we considered necessary when creating every single one of our games: Include realistic but safe environments for the user. Demand challenges but also make users satisfied. Help develop side knowledge: build a hypothesis, solve problems, and develop strategies. Have defined objectives for each problem. Entirely interactive. Have a suitable content: not very easy or very difficult for the student. Invite to think, develop, analyze, summarize, and conclude. Be fun: they keep people's interest. Meet industry standards such as AICC and SCORM Once you start to look at eLearning as an experience all on its own rather than matching it up to classroom learning you’ll realize that the more interactive it gets (without losing your main goal), the better understanding everyone will have of what you’re trying to convey.