One word: Gamification

This was, I think, from Kris’s MobiMooc group; I’ve saved it from Slideshare into a PDF, and then to DropBox, for a link here:
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/61176373/Don%27t%20Play%20Games%20with%20me.pdf

Thought this was so well done it was worth having a pdf copy to play with…in the spirit of gamification.

The bigger idea here is that the “best” online course will involve ALL the powerful elements that one can identify. The expertise and science and art is to blend them all into a powerful package. Working games into many different contexts is one example of this approach.

The true art is when various elements are combined in a whole that is greater than the sum, and that doesn’t appear to the untutored eye to actually be elaborate or complex. Zen would suggest, simple can be the most complex of all. A good “course” has done the work of incorporating various tools seamlessly, and has that certain something that’s hard to explain, or duplicate.

BTW, right around slide 50 we find: “Fun is just another word for Learning”, and clarified in slide 55 as;
“Fun is just another word for Learning through Interesting Challenges” which equals “Experiences of Mastery”…which is intrinsically rewarding. Anyway, there’s a lot more of that in the pdf above.