Mastering Skills with Play: The Fusion of Gaming and Learning in Black Belt Gamification

Welcome to the immersive world of gamified learning, where the addictive pull of mobile gaming and the interactive rewards system of apps like Duolingo are not just for play—they’re the driving force behind our approach to Cisco Black Belt Academy gamification. We strive to transform enablement by harnessing the potent allure of game mechanics, making the learning process not just more engaging but also more impactful. Discover how we integrate the principles of game design to elevate and energize conventional enablement methodologies.

Black Belt gamified enablement incorporates game elements like points, badges, challenges, customizable avatars and themed stories into the learning process, to encourage user interaction and competition via leaderboards. Our objective is to make acquiring new knowledge more engaging and interactive, fostering a sense of accomplishment, and healthy competition among learners.

Classic versus Contemporary: A Comparative Outlook

During our research into gamified learning, we found that traditional training methods often struggle to keep learners engaged, leading to decreased retention and motivation.

The Gamification initiative began to further improve and innovate Black Belt Academy enablement. In today’s fast-paced world, keeping our learners engaged and up-to-speed is crucial. Gamified enablement is a dynamic approach that addresses this by tapping into our natural desire for competition, recognition, and accomplishment.

Our objective has been to use gamification to drive Black Belt participation on a broader level with our partners while deepening their knowledge and making it more fun and hands-on for the learners. ​

Innovation and Opportunities

Partners with 30% of employees engaged in Black Belt grew 10% basis points faster and Partners with above average participation grew 3% faster. Adding layers of gamification will give us the opportunity to increase enablement engagement driving more users, improved completion rate & higher continuation rates (S2/S3), and higher user loyalty.

Cisco Black Belt Academy has planned and implemented gamification strategies in three categories:

1. Single Tournaments are where partner individuals register to compete against others in a single/one-off lab-like (short period) environment where the individual who gets the most points wins.
2. Journey Competitions are where partner individuals register to compete against other individuals over a long period of time with the end goal to get to the top of the tournament table.​
3. Races are where partner individuals register to race against others by completing trainings the quickest. Only a certain number of individuals are rewarded in the end.

Our innovative Escape Room has been met with widespread acclaim and attention. In this space-themed adventure, participants are cast as crew members of a spaceship that has crash-landed on an alien planet. To escape, they must leverage their Cisco Security expertise to locate and gather essential repair elements (crystals) needed to restore their spacecraft.

Our team at Cisco Black Belt Academy is committed to enhancing the partner experience by infusing our platform with engaging value communications. We are focused on integrating gamification elements, create captivating content that keeps learners engaged throughout their gaming experience while also providing meaningful rewards and incentives that align with their in-game achievements.

We hope to see you at the games and Happy Learning!

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