The Camp GamiCon Throwdown

Bio:  

Allison Gordon-Beecher is a Sr. Instructional Designer and Manager of Products and Services for Global Learning Systems, Inc. With over 25 years of experience in education, she expertly manages GLS' cybersecurity curriculum, contributing ideas and leading the development of new products. She was the lead instructional designer for GLS' award-winning "Secure Coding with the OWASP Top 10 - 2017" training program (Best Product Cybersecurity Training for Cyber Defense Magazine Infosec 2019 awards) and has been striving for five years to improve engagement and learning in cybersecurity training by incorporating game-based learning in GLS

products. 

Throwdown Project:  

CSI: Phishing

Designed as a puzzle, CSI: Phishing puts the end user in the role of cybersecurity "Investigator," tasked with probing the cyber hygiene of employees at a recently breached company.  . The learner uses remote desktop tools to connect to the customer's computers and comb through email and social media accounts of the various employees. Each correctly flagged example of poor cyber hygiene or a malicious post adds to the user's final score - but to win, they must find the source of the breach. Anyone who thrives on the challenge of solving puzzles will welcome this opportunity for change in cybersecurity training y are.

Bio:

 Amany is an educator, researcher, Voice User Interface designer, author, and teacher trainer. She is currently pursuing her doctoral degree in the Instructional Technology and Media program at Teachers College, Columbia University. She is also the social committee Chair at the Immersive Learning Research Network. She founded the VirtuaTELL conference at NYS TESOL in 2021 that brings together educators, practitioners, researchers, and passionate enthusiasts to work together to integrate emerging technologies into education. Her research interests include conversational AI, Extended Reality for education, immersive storytelling, intelligent NFTs and decentralized autonomous organizations. She moderates and hosts training workshops and guided adventures in different VR platforms   

Throwdown Project

This VR gamified training workshop provides attendees with a structured framework guiding them at the beginning of using VR and helping them navigate VR affordances.

Gamification will help keep them anchored through storytelling and scenario- based learning  even when things might seem confusing or overwhelming.

The aim is to provide educators, and instructional designers the opportunity to engage in hands-on VR training in a gamified virtual space to practice their pedagogical and technological skills to immerse themselves in the magic of learning, unlock creativity, encourage resilience, and foster classroom engagement. This training program serves as a vehicle to bridge the skills gap in educational training and to leverage virtual reality using storytelling and gamification to improve trainee creativity. 

Bio:   

Anne Coudrette leads digital learning and innovation for Audit and Assurance learning at Deloitte.

She is part of a global learning team of about forty people which designs and develops audit technical learning for 75,000 audit practitioners in the Deloitte global network.

Prior to that, Anne held various positions both in learning and audit client service in her 17 years with Deloitte in France, Ireland, and the United-States.

Outside of work you would often find Anne on a climbing wall or completing a LEGO build. 

Throwdown Project:

  Deloitte BrainQuest is an interactive online challenge where learners train a character, called

Brain, to become more skeptical. The challenge includes a series of quizzes on various topics, such as cognitive bias and fraud schemes, as well as an immersive audit engagement video experience. The learners collect "Brain Power" across the different activities and progress across the levels to reach level 5 and successfully complete the challenge. 

Bio:   

Garima Gupta is the founder and CEO of Artha Learning, an e- learning design firm that creates effective, engaging, and impactful learning solutions. Artha has won numerous industry awards for its innovative and meaningful work in eLearning. Most recently, it was awarded Company of the year by Stevie awards and Canadian SME Organization.

In addition to a master's in Adult Education, Garima has a bachelor's in Engineering and over 15 years of experience in Learning & Development, training, digital marketing, content creation, education, and software engineering. 

Throwdown Project:  

"Audit and Assurance: Materiality" is a branched, interactive eLearning module on Materiality within the Audit and Assurance course as part of the Professional Education Program at the Chartered Professional Accountants of Canada. The student assumes the role of an auditor in a real-life simulation, which requires not only accounting skills but also interview skills and a grasp of process steps.

They are assigned a

Materiality engagement by their firm partner. Simulating real-life situations within the adaptive format through gamification engaged the students and effectively show cased the topic's complexities without feeling dreary or overwhelming. 

Bio:   

Based in our HQ in Scotland, Graham is one of the founders and owners of RSVP Design and leads our Learning Tools & Resources business along with the overall commercial aspects of RSVP Design. He also manages our reseller and distribution partnerships around the world and loves to travel, having previously lived in San Francisco.

Graham is an experienced international business manager who has been involved in training and HR for more than 30 years.

Originally trained as a Chemical Engineer, he now has a passion for helping others to deliver effective and engaging learning

programs. 

Throwdown Project:   

The Challenge Assumption Puzzle:

RSVP Design wanted to find a way to help learners experience the power of unconscious assumptions and how this can be a significant block to innovation for many individuals and organizations. We set out to design a game where participants could discover this through their own natural behavior - not by instruction.

After much testing we settled on using a 'jigsaw puzzle' - but with a design twist! We are delighted to say that since launch, this activity has been purchased by thousands of trainers and adult educators and used successfully with tens of thousands of learners across the world. 

Bio:  

Pradeep U.N. is Senior Director Inclusive Innovations at Microsoft and the Founder of Microsoft Truths & Insights, a digital platform to enable leaders to engage their teams and customers in courageous conversations. Over a 23 year career in the tech industry Pradeep has founded startups that bring cinematic storytelling to business, created movies with Al in under 90 secs, innovated on the first dual screen phone (Yota), first apps for Tizen (Samsung Watch), first luxury smartphone (Vertu) and smart car experiences for Mercedes & Jaguar; and held a number of leadership roles at Microsoft for first generation innovations in Collaboration, Data, Analytics, entertainment and Al technologies in a 13 year adventure over 2 stints. Pradeep is a diversity and ally champion actively advocating in the industry to help empower their

employees with inclusion 

Throwdown Project:

Microsoft Truths & Insights is a digital platform to drive purpose- driven organizational transformations by increasing organizational belonging using Storytelling, Gamification and Social Learning. Built with a human centered workforce experience design approach, Truths & Insights at its core is a highly engaging, competitive, personal story-driven, multi- player digital card-game that enables courageous conversations on various topics like culture, values, accessibility, sustainability etc.….

Organizations can customize these conversations to align with their culture, values, principles, and vernacular to engage organic connections with their global teams through customized editions. These editions are experienced as intimate workshops/discussions across teams in small groups where individuals share, listen, and reach to one another as periodic one-time immersions at townhall meetings, quarterly

conferences or undisintegrated sessions through intimate discussions at the beginning of current meetings while leaders get summaries using Al across top sentiments, stories, and reactions across teams over time to drive their organizational transformation. 

Bio:  

 Stuart Bender is the Director of the Office of Ethics at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). In 2021, Mr. Bender co-led the creation of the USDA-NASA Ethics Training Game, and in 2017 Mr. Bender led the creation of USDA’s Ethics App. In 2016, Mr. Bender received a Presidential Rank Award for Meritorious Service. Previously, Mr. Bender was Senior Ethics Counsel at the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and prior to that served as an IT/telecommunications attorney with the U.S. Navy.  Mr. Bender has degrees from the George Washington University School of Law and Brandeis University.    

Throwdown Project:

 Save the Lunar Greenhouse – A Journey through Government Ethics. 

 As a pioneering innovation benefiting everyone, USDA and NASA partnered to make Ethics education fun and memorable. The “Save the Lunar Greenhouse Game” is freely available on USDA’s Ethics App (search “USDA Ethics” on smartphone app stores) and on USDA’s website: www.ethics.usda.gov.  The Game combines space exploration, diversity, and food sustainability in a story-based avatar game to enhance learning. As a result, 98% of USDA employees surveyed noted that playing the game prepared them to more readily spot potential ethics issues. As an additional advantage, the Game features variability so two learners taking the training will face different challenges. 

Bio:  

 Liana Griffin is a Learning Evangelist with more than 20 years’ experience developing programs to help thousands of people around the world grow their skills. Liana has supported companies like Amazon, Facebook and is now currently working for Microsoft on the Learning & Development team.

Brit Morenus is a Gamification Program Manager for Microsoft, award winning gamification designer and certified gamification expert. Brit is a soon-to-be published author set on a mission to help others make learning fun. Brit serves both the Microsoft Store and Microsoft Advertising teams in the Customer Service and Sales department.    

Throwdown Project:

Find The Perfect Fit: 

Together, Liana and Brit have created Find the Perfect Fit a digital card game using real-life customer scenarios to help sales agents have the confidence to present the right solution to their customers. The goal was to find a way for learners to decipher between the available products to offer a customer, but strategically aligning their solution to the specific customer's needs. The game uses hints, narrative, and a performance bar to challenge the learner to ask customer's probing questions which will foster conversation and allow the sales agent to truly understand the customer's use of the product being purchased. This particular game will be seen in new hire training and has already reduce new hires time to competency for the Surface Devices and Accessories. The goal for Liana & Brit is to expand the game to offer levels to aid in learning all products offered by Microsoft Store Sales Agents

Bio:  

 Josh “Doc” Yavelberg, PhD, is the Chief Solution Architect for Flying Cloud Solutions. Josh applies design thinking to solve complex training problems and has worked in a variety of sectors including higher education, non-profits, and government organizations. Josh also holds a master craftsman certification from Sententia Gamification and is a certified DHS 508 Accessibility tester. In a past life, Josh was also a fine artist and art historian. When not solving world problems, Josh enjoys giving back to the broader instructional design and gamification communities sharing his knowledge and research on various topics. 

Throwdown Project:

Training Magazine Network TechLearn 2021 Virtual Conference Engagement:

While attendee engagement in in-person conferences is largely assumed, the shift to virtual conferences throughout the pandemic highlighted the challenge of engaging attendees. By creating an engagement economy supported by a complimentary player journey, we were able to successfully demonstrate statistically significant increases in engagement by event participants.

Bio:  

 John Kaufeld defies rational explanation, but in a good way. He has master's degrees in professional communication and computer science, plus years of experience as a computer geek, corporate trainer, freelance writer, and professional speaker. He's a best-selling author of 36 books with over 3 million copies in print around the world, including 25 titles in the popular "...For Dummies" line. His favorite trick is disguising educational content inside fun tabletop games so people learn without realizing it. Bwahahaha!

Throwdown Project:

 Cloudburst: A Tabletop Approach to Stormwater Runoff Awareness and Education

City Utilities needed to take an abstract, invisible problem (how stormwater runoff spreads pollution) and make it both visible and experiential for members of the public ranging from 10-year-olds to adults. Our traditional approach with PowerPoint presentations and brochures deluged listeners with facts but didn’t get people to an “Aha!” moment of understanding. To address that, we created Cloudburst, a cooperative tabletop board game. Cloudburst doesn’t teach stormwater runoff facts, but rather is a simulation that enhances regular training activities and subtly reinforces good habits (for example, it’s easier to prevent runoff pollution than clean up after it).