It’s a usual day at work, and you are waiting for the trainer to come in and begin his boring, dreary training session. As he moves through his slides, you look quickly at your watch, wishing time would pass by faster, just so you can go home sooner.

To your surprise, he suddenly dims the classroom light, and puts up a slide that reads “Begin the game” with a website link projected on-screen. Your colleagues (who had not dozed off yet) start to take out their laptops and devices, and begin loading the website link stated on the projector screen. There was a sudden buzz, and you realise the trainer is introducing a learning game for the class to “play”.

With a tinge of curiosity, you do the same by accessing the same website link, and put on your earphones. In 5 minutes, everyone was drawn into the learning game – excited, engaged, and motivated. Half an hour later, the class was chattering away about who had completed the mission and how they had done it so quickly with the highest scores.

Without realising it, all of them had learnt through a game-based scenario the application of certain concepts, where high scorers were learners who had picked up a deeper understanding of the underlying concepts infused into the game design. This is e-Learning – specifically, game-based learning.

What then is the difference between classroom training and interactive, game-based learning?

Read part 2 which covers the advantages of game-based learning next.