Enspire Learning Blog

You're invited to attend an event celebrating the successful launch of the financial literacy game, Celebrity Calamity, a casual learning game that integrated consumers, volunteers, and game designers in the professional game development process. Representatives from Enspire Learning, Doorways to Dreams Fund, and the Digital Media Council will describe this collaborative development.

Please RSVP to kbowden@skillpointalliance.org by February 23.

Date: Thursday, February 26th
Time: 4:30 - 6:30 p.m.
Location: Thistle Cafe - 300 W. Sixth St., Austin, TX

We are happy to announce the release several new editions to Fluent in Finance, a next generation business acumen curriculum. Learn more about them at www.enspire.net.

In addition to our previously announced Standard Edition and Live Editions, we are now offering a Free Edition. Our Free Edition allows you to review the basics of finance and preview our paid editions.

We hope that you find it useful.

ASTD TechKnowledge is January 27-30 in Las Vegas. There will be a wealth of valuable sessions, but if you play your cards right you will leave the conference with the jackpot. After you listen to the opening Keno-te speaker, I bet you’ll want to stop by Enspire’s booth (#205). The expo hall will be open on Wednesday and Thursday. Claim your free expo only pass here and enter code 583.

With any luck, you can catch all of Enspire’s sessions. On Wednesday, Courtney Timmons will demonstrate Fluent in Finance at 10:30 a.m. on the Expo stage. On Thursday at 4:00 p.m., Brandon Hudgeons will talk about all things SCORM in "SCORM and Its Discontents." Friday morning will kick-off with "Leverage Game Development Techniques Using Updated Blueprints" as presented by Enspire’s Caribbean Stud Ben Katz and Lady Luck Julia Preston. They will discuss best practices of training games and explore how to apply existing e-learning development processes to games.

TechKnowledge 2009 will raise the stakes and you’ll want to come Baccarat next year!

The January issue of T + D explores emerging trends in serious games in Immersive Learning Seeks a Foothold . The article addresses the state of the serious game industry and looks at the future of games for learning. Three Enspire-created games are noted in the article. With Doorways to Dreams Fund, Enspire created Celebrity Calamity, a video game that teaches low- to middle-income Americans how to use credit and debit cards wisely. For Sun Microsystems, Enspire created Rise of the Shadow Specters, an onboarding game. Additionally, Enspire partnered with game developer Aspyr Media to create future, a Kaplan SAT test prep game for Nintendo DS.

Read the full article on the ASTD website.

Enspire's trailer recently won a platinum MarCom Award from the Association of Marketing and Communication Professionals. The award is the highest one given-- to entries recognized for their "excellence in terms of quality, creativity, and resourcefulness."

Congratulations Enspire!

Enspire was competing against 5000 entries from marketing and communication departments, ad agencies, PR firms, design shops, production companies, and freelancers. This is really an honor!

Our team of geniuses who created Fluent in Finance just released a video that talks about the Mortgage Banking crisis which helped lead to the current Financial Crisis:

Enspire gears up for another industry conference. DevLearn begins Wednesday, Nov. 12. On Thursday at 3 p.m., CEO Bjorn Billhardt will co-present with David Metcalf at the Training Technology in Action conference-within-a-conference. They will address optimizing learning through simulations and games.

Also, Be sure to check out Enspire’s DemoFest table (#9) at 4:30 p.m. on Thursday. Representatives will demonstrate a specialty nursing course and simulation developed for the American Association of Critical Care Nurses.

We just received word that Enspire was nominated for a 2008 Tech Innovation Award. Even though Enspire is typically known as a learning content, instructional design and rich media company, each of our solutions is powered by smart technology development (and even smarter developers.)

On October 27, Insurance & Technology magazine published an article titled "In Depth: CIGNA’s e-Learning Initiative" which discusses CIGNA's efforts to teach the basics of the healthcare system directly to consumers. We're happy to say that Enspire Learning played a role in the creation of this learning experience.

Karen Kocher, CIGNA's chief learning officer, commented on the modules, "They are easy to use for people who may not be accustomed to technology but, for those people who are accustomed to it, [the modules] are also very exciting and game oriented. It all comes together to form a highly effective learning experience."

Click here to read the full text of the article.

We have the privilege of working with some of the top banks in the world. One of these relationships with with PNC Financial, for whom we've built customer service simulations, to help their employees better serve the needs of their customers.

The result? Better customer service: "In the quarter following implementation, customer satisfaction surveys showed a 6.25 percent increase on the item 'was helpful in solving problems'"

This simulation was recently mentioned in an article in Training Magazine. To read the article, click here.