[1]Digital Games-Based Learning Company scores Best in Show and Best Service/Product Provider at DevLearn 2008
DISTIL Interactive Ltd. [2], an Ottawa-based leader in the use of digital gaming technology as a corporate learning environment beat a field of 40 learning technology vendors to win two key awards at last week’s DevLearn conference [3] in San Jose CA.
The Best in Show was awarded for the digital learning environment “Business in Balance: Implementing an Environmental Management System” developed in collaboration with the Canadian Standards Association (CSA) teaches organizations how to develop an environmental system for their workplace. The Best Product/Service Provider category was awarded for across-the-board product excellence.
“This is an exciting achievement by the DISTIL and CSA teams,” said CEO Robert Thompson. “While we strongly believe in digital gaming’s power as a corporate learning tool, being recognized by the attendees at North America’s largest international e-Learning showcase is a great endorsement. We believe a key ingredient in our Best Product/Service Provider award was our integrated assessment technology which mines the game-play data to provide feed-back to learners and to provide their organization with detailed performance information.”
DevLearn is a gathering of over 1,200 members of the eLearning Guild. The conference addresses the technology and professional-skill aspects of eLearning initiatives. Each year, attendees pick winners from five vendor award categories.
At the show, DISTIL also previewed its set of learning game authoring tools to a select group of industry thought leaders. Today DISTIL uses these tools internally to build its award-winning courseware but within months this technology will be released to corporate training departments so they can build their own games-based learning.
“Just as it is a driver in the entertainment gaming world,” added Thompson, “user-generated content will be the key to broad adoption of learning games by corporations. With DISTIL’s interactive tools, an instructional designer will soon produce a learning game module as easily as they build a PowerPoint presentation today.”