Modern technologies came to our life and changed everything. Thanks to the newest developments, we can easily study at any university in the world from home. People can develop various skills like drawing, cooking, sewing, etc., studying how to play the guitar or take Spanish courses with an online tutor. Our world gives us many possibilities and chances. Nowadays, developers use game-based software for studying programs. Does it really effective to learn through games? It seems this really gives both children and adults with many great benefits.
- You can practice anytime and anywhere
Many companies use game-based software for various training for their workers. This is a great advantage when they don’t need to gather everyone in the same room but people can join educational games online when it’s comfortable for them. It helps to save time for both workers and trainers, plus makes the process simpler. A standard training requires gathering all the participants in the classroom at a certain time. Some people may need to spend the time to get to the point of destination. If the training is in another town or even a country, they have to prepare their travel beforehand. This is great when such a complex process can be replaced so easily without wasting time.
- People can have some rest
When workers have to attend classroom training, they must spend a lot of time on it. Some of them have to travel to another city or country to attend the training. After this, they need to fulfill their daily responsibilities at work. Needless to say, they would be tired and work less effective. The research of Willis Towers Watson in the UK has revealed that about 66% of people say tiredness affects their work negatively. This means that tired people will not be involved in the training. With game-based software, they can have some rest after the training and work more productively later. People don’t have to travel or go anywhere to study; plus, they can repeat the same training for as many times as they need.
- Learning on game-based software helps to save money
This is a great benefit for companies! When people go to standard training, the company usually calculates and covers the next expenses:
- traveling,
- training itself,
- lunches,
According to the formula for calculating the yearly training budget:
Total yearly salary budget X 1-3% = Total Training Budget.
If to compare these expenses with the cost of game-based software, it’s worth to buy this software once and save money for the next years. This is understandable that with game-based software, companies do not have to spend money on their workers travel tickets, accommodation, and food. They also do not have to pay to the trainer for their job. It worth to buy software once and save a lot of money in the future!
- People will get engaged in the training process
Using game-based software for training, people have to interact with various objects, dialogues, characters, etc. This makes them engaged in the entire process. For example, when a person needs to pass the training at the computer, they should act somehow – make dialogs with someone, or do something. A standard training doesn’t engage all the participants, some of them may do everything when others do less or just nothing. But using game-based software, each person is required to be active. Training simulations can be very interesting and people get involved in such things more likely comparing with standard classroom training.
- You can involve kids into learning easily
Kids usually don’t like to study but they adore to play. According to the MindShift podcast, game-based learning is the best way to involve kids in studying. In fact, famous foundations and companies, including Electronic Arts, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Pearson, Inc., etc. are involved in the research of the benefits of learning on game-based software in schools. Nowadays, there are a lot of interactive games for kids of various age that can help them to study, including the alphabet, colors, numbers, drawing, and other stuff, including new languages. It’s simple to involve your children in studying without argues. Your little son or daughter will be waiting for the next “lesson” impatiently!
- Adults are more interested in getting experience
With game-based learning, people are more interested in getting involved. Everyone likes to play and have fun, so even adult people are no exception! They like to be involved in various scenarios, solve problems in various situations, and get new experience as well as improve their skills. As we already said before, with game-based learning, people stay engaged in the process. An interesting computer program is a motivation and a challenge for them. People get more motivated and responsible for the things they do. Game-based learning decreases the daily routine and makes their work more interesting and challenging.
- The company can evaluate the learners effectively
This is a great advantage compared to classical training. Usually, after the standard training, people get a test to check their knowledge. Of course, many companies can evaluate people using this way. But it is a bit boring and not interesting because these people are not kids in school. With game-based software, all the choices people do in the virtual simulation will be saved and the program generates the evaluation according to these choices. Thanks to this, people can see their mistakes easily. They also notice on which skills it’s still important to work more. It’s obvious this evaluation works out more effective than reviewing standard test results without any possibility to see why the particular person made mistakes.
Every day, our world changes with new technologies, and the learning process transforms into something more interesting and challenging for both adults and kids. Of course, game-based software is our future. Nowadays, not many companies use it but we are sure that a lot of big and small organizations all over the world will be using it sooner or later.