A new paradigm for serious games: Transmedia learning for more effective training and education

Abstract Serious games present a relatively new approach to training and education for international organizations such as NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization), non-governmental organizations (NGOs), the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Although serious games are often deployed as stand-alone solutions, they can also serve as entry points into a comprehensive training pipeline in which content is delivered via different media to rapidly scale immersive training and education for mass audiences. The present paper introduces a new paradigm for more effective and scalable training and education called transmedia learning. Transmedia learning leverages several new media trends including the peer communications of social media, the scalability of massively openonline course (MOOCs), and the design of transmedia storytelling used by entertainment, advertising, and commercial game industries to sustain audience engagement. Transmedia learning is defined as the scalable system of messages representing a narrative or core experience that unfolds from the use of multiple media, emotionally engaging learners by involving them personally in the story. In the present paper, we introduce the transmedia learning paradigm as offering more effective use of serious games for training and education. This approach is consistent with the goals of international organizations implementing approaches similar to those described by the Army Learning Model (ALM) to deliver training and education to Soldiers across multiple media. We discuss why the human brain is wired for transmedia learning and demonstrate how the Simulation Experience Design Method can be used to create transmedia learning story worlds for serious games. We describe how social media interactions and MOOCs may be used in transmedia learning, and how data mining social media and experience tracking can inform the development of computational learner models for transmedia learning campaigns. Examples of how the U.S. Army has utilized transmedia campaigns for strategic communication and game-based training are provided. Finally, we provide strategies the reader can use today to incorporate transmedia storytelling elements such as Internet, serious games, video, social media, graphic novels, machinima, blogs, and alternate reality gaming into a new paradigm for training and education: transmedia learning.