The Rise of Games in Elearning and How Esky Got There First

Esky's unique selling point has always been the interactive nature of the online training; we built this in from the start, way back when no one else was making courses for an online market. We know that health and safety training can be boring, so we created games and exercises to get the brain working and to make it fun. It seemed like common sense at the time, but it's been proven over and over again to be effective in learning.

The newest trend is in 'gamification' - the creation of leaderboards, scores and score sharing - which has deep applications in some eLearning. Memrise for example offers a great method of repetition, linking ideas with images, and creating a points system with leaderboards to encourage users to keep going.

Gaming and gamification both share motivating factors but gamification adds the element of competition with the prize often being glory and pride. It's not something Esky feels is necessary in its training, but perhaps elements of these ideas may be woven into the courses subtly in the future to create a more engaging experience.

Esky embraces the focus aspect of games in elearning; the ability of a game to bring the user's attention back to what they're doing. This is a form of habit-breaking and strengthens concentration, ultimately leading to a better retention of information. Whether games are used to hook people in or to hold their attention, we at Esky have embraced them from the very beginning.