The Writers Gateway

Recently I downloaded the trial version of a game called – Bookworm Adventures. This is a simple word game, just the same as the board game called Scrabble. There is nothing new in the game logic. However the game presentation is highly creative and entertaining. I was enamored by the visual strategy used in this game.

The objective of the game is to make words. The player has to make words given a set of letters and help Lex the Bookworm confront a threat to the Great Library. Every right word helps Lex attack the enemy. A long meaningful word destroys enemies. The game has story, adventure, magic and everything that would engage anyone.

As you play the game, you also strengthen your vocabulary skills. So the FORMULA of this game is FUN + LEARNING.

This formula is appropriate for e-learning too. I remember having seen a course on Tent Making . The course was about making tents for occasions like wedding and birthday parties. The course was amazing in the sense it ran like a cartoon movie. I as a learner identified myself with the character – a fresh worksman whose task was to build a great looking tent for a finicky customer’s daughter’s wedding. There was story, humour and learning in the course. Above all it was entertaining and engaging.

When you think of learning all that might come to your mind is heavy text books with loads and loads of information. I have always got bored of my school text books. However I have enjoyed watching the same stuff on my Encyclopedia CD Rom which has videos, images and music apart from text.

Visual Strategies when used in learning always works wonders.

To strengthen your visual skills you can do a small exercise everyday.

Take a paragraph from a book and think of ways to present it in the form of images

For example I picked up the following paragraph from the web:

Cheese is a solid food made from the milk of cows, goats, sheep, and other mammals. Cheese is made by curdling milk using a combination of rennet (or rennet substitutes) and acidification. Bacteria acidify the milk and play a role in defining the texture and flavor of most cheeses. Some cheeses also feature molds, either on the outer rind or throughout.

In case you want to present the above content as learning material, you can make it engaging. One possible idea is to weave a story as follows:

Tim suggests that they go and research about cheese on the internet. Sam agrees.

In the cyber cafe, Sam types in Cheese in the Google search field.

He clicks on one search result.

A series of slides appear giving information about the origin of cheese, the process of making cheese etc.

There are images and text on screen.

Final Words

What I attempted here is to convert simple text into a visual representation. I made my imagination run wild. Never mind if the visualization is silly or kiddish. It’s always good to attempt. Over time you will come up with appropriate ideas. Now you go ahead and pick up any text and think of ways to present it. I am sure you are going to have fun!