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The goal of the research was to compare learning efficiency and effectiveness from a narrative game to a slide presentation of the content. Students who played the Crystal Island game learned less and rated the lesson more difficult than students who viewed a slide presentation without any game narrative or hands on activities. Results were similar with the Cache 17 game. The authors conclude that their findings “show that the two well-designed narrative discovery games…were less effective than corresponding slideshows in promoting learning outcomes based on transfer and retention of the games’ academic content” (p. 246).

Often the features of a game are at counter-purposes to the learning objectives. For example, many games incorporate an onscreen clock requiring the learner to achieve the goal in seconds or minutes. For learning outcomes that are based on understanding and critical thinking, games with time goals that reinforce fast responses are a poor match.

Despite the uncontested popularity of commercial games and a lot of hype in the training community, the reality is that there is scarce credible evidence on how and when to best use games to improve instructional outcomes and motivation. At this stage, I recommend games to implement drill and practice exercises for tasks that require immediate and accurate responses.

<p>In Freeman’s research, it appears that it takes an instructor a little longer to figure out what they want to do with the course pedagogically than to become comfortable with the technology. </p> <p>“That’s one of the biggest things, that the technological learning curve is shorter than the pedagogical learning curve,” Freeman says. “The technology’s not the problem. It’s not what’s making people take longer when they teach.” </p>

Freeman was able to demonstrate that, once past the first online course, there is a significant reduction of instructor time. This leads him to believe that much of the complaint of excessive time consumption probably comes from the first-time experience.

Freeman’s data doesn’t challenge the assumption that it takes longer to develop an online course than a face-to-face course. What he has established is that the teaching, as well as the development, become less time consuming, and that that change can come as early as the second or third time out.

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<p>One of the practical things I took from this session is that she writes the scenario’s out divided in 5 elements:</p> <ol> <li>The <strong>tasks</strong> that you need to be able to perform</li> <li>The <strong>procedures</strong> you need to know</li> <li>The <strong>tools</strong> that you have to use</li> <li>The <strong>knowledge</strong> you need to have</li> <li>The <strong>performance</strong> you have to deliver</li> </ol> <p>A very helpful scheme to use when you set up a scenario based learning experience. She starts out with a global storyline and character description, than she defines a sequence of events that contain a number of action points. She divides the scenario into smaller parts each containing a few action points. She only scores on action points and on good choice.</p>

Beginning relationships with customers at a high price makes the statement: “we’re good at what we do and we know it.” Fighting with a competitor over a low price says “I’m uncertain about my abilities, so I’ll take what I can get.”

<strong>Price by the service, not by the hour</strong>.

<strong>Slow down your sales process</strong>. Slow down how, when, and who you take on as clients. You need time to determine a client’s needs before you price their projects. You must know what outcomes they desire.

<strong>Inject value into your client’s experience with your service.</strong>

Establish a client intake process

<p>Here are three things you can do now to get started on your journey toward strategic pricing:</p> <ul> <li>Develop your new client intake process, similar to the example above. Add the various steps that you feel are valuable and walk your clients through it BEFORE you begin your work.</li> <li>Begin offering three options to all of your work. And always include things in your options the client did NOT ask for. When you start selling things your client didn’t ask for, you will be surprised at how many clients choose the higher options. You will make more money and the client will get more of what they want.</li> <li>Test your pricing, but don’t benchmark! To know what your market will bear, begin pricing higher than you have been in the past just to test your market. And avoid benchmarking—which is the process of looking at what your market or direct competitors price their services at. Remember, your competition may be pricing non-strategically as well. Don’t follow the blind. Strategic pricers don’t follow, they lead!</li></ul>