All Games are Educational — I'll Prove It With Space Invaders

Are all Games Educational?

Are games a guilty pleasure or an unparalleled learning experience?

The answer to this question may allow us to view games in a different light.

Take, for example, Space Invaders— one of the original and most iconic games ever made. A very basic game in comparison to what’s available today.

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How To Design a Board Game & 5 Challenges to Overcome

Everyone should try designing a card game or board game — it's fun and it's all upside, no downside.

I've designed a number of board games and card games over the years. Collectively these are sometimes called tabletop games.

The most successful board game in history is often considered to be Monopoly — most likely because it's been around forever. I don't love Monopoly (more on this below). In terms of tabletop games in general, Chess, Checkers, Backgammon, and likely some card games may top the list as most popular of all time.

Designing Board Games

Board games are fun to design and play and

Using Games for Education

Games designed for education are quite different than games designed for entertainment.

I have previously described how all games are educational —  It doesn’t matter if we are shooting aliens, flinging angry birds, or leading a guild into battle, our brains are wired to learn.

Let's take a closer look at the benefits provided by games designed for entertainment and the challenges they pose for educators who want to use them.

WoW

First, consider the skills required by a person who is leading a guild into battle in World of Warcraft (WoW)— a massively multiplayer online role playing game w

Learning Styles — Debunked?

You have probably heard this before.

That we learn best based on our preferred learning style:

• Visual

• Auditory

• Reading & Writing

• Kinesthetic

Multiple intelligences are also widely discussed:

• Spatial

• Musical

• Naturalist

• Linguistic

• Interpersonal

• Intrapersonal

• Bodily-Kinesthetic

• Logical-Mathematical

But are these concepts true and accurate?

Not quite.

It seems that the concept of learning styles has become a neuromyth — a widely held belief of the results of brain research that may not be true.

Current thinking suggests that these original theories were inaccurate or have been misunderstood— or both. And they are sometimes being _misrepresente

1 Cool Thing About Inflation — And How To Teach Students

Here's one of the benefits of high inflation — cool money bills like the one below. I think this was real back in 2008.

Want to teach students about inflation?

Play an investment simulation and let them experience it as investors.

Interest rates go up. Current bond prices drop. New bond issues have higher yields. Stocks may fall (or not). Mutual funds diversify the risk (or dilute the upside). Gold may serve as a hedge (or not). Real estate is in flux.

That's an example of saying a lot without actually saying anything.

But one thing is for sure — talking about all these concepts to students goes in one ear and out the other.

Allowing students

Is Your VR Metaverse Experience On Time?

Time — this is one of the most important considerations when designing educational experiences.

And a particular challenge for the VR metaverse.

Why?

Because instructors have a limited amount of time to achieve specific learning outcomes for each course that they teach.

And, with courses that have synchronous delivery (live online or in person), each session is often less than one hour.

Instructional designers must consider how much time their learning experience will take, and how it can be segmented into multiple short sessions when necessary.

Students may spend time on lectures, textbooks, videos, lessons, activities, games, simulations, virtual reality, quizzes, and more.

If one learning experience requires too much time, many instructors will not be able to fit it into their curricula, otherwise they ris

Rote Learning Builds Your Brain's Muscle Memory

Rote Learning is a memorization technique based on repetition. Most of us have used it to learn and remember the alphabet or our math multiplication tables.

Rote learning is often considered to be a bad way to learn. It seems inefficient and uninspiring.

But, just like any tool in a toolbox, it can be very powerful when used strategically.

Muscle Memory

In sports there's a concept called "muscle memory."

Through practice, athletes repeat a physical movement thousands of times so that the movement becomes consistent.

This muscle memory helps a golfer swing a club with better accuracy, a basketball player sink a higher percentage of shots, and a hockey player skate more efficiently.

We use our muscle memory every day to walk across the room, climb stairs, and do many physical motions we don't

Converting a Book Into Microlearning Modules

The Future is Micro

The Internet is conditioning us to want our content in short micro-doses instead of longer experiences.

We want to learn exactly what we need to know when we need it. This is sometimes called "just in time" learning versus the conventional approach of learning a bunch of stuff in advance "just in case" we may need it.

We already know that the old-school "just in case" approach doesn't work well, because we forget everything by the time we actually need it.

So, how can instructional designers repurpose long-form content into just-in-time learning?

There are a variety of ways to do this, and I'm going to illustrate one specific way I repurposed a business book into microlearning modules used to supplement a business simulation.

Perhaps this may help give you some ideas on

A Day In the Life of an Educational Game Designer | Podcast

Rob Alvarez Bucholska has interviewed over 200 gamification gurus, experts and practitioners of education on his Professor Game Podcast.

I'm pleased to be the guest of episode 251, where I answer the questions listed below — timestamps included for your convenience.

What a regular day with me looks like — 00:00:44

Busy. And how I m

The First 5 Things I Do When Designing An Educational Experience

I've created hundreds of educational resources used by millions of people around the world — books, videos, activities, board games, card games, mobile apps, video games, software simulations, massively multiplayer worlds, and more.

Regardless of what I'm designing, the process always starts the same way.

Here are the first 5 things I do. Perhaps this may help with your work.

1️⃣ Change in Behavior

I identify the change in behavior I want to trigger in the learner. This can be broken down by high-level learning outcomes identifying specific knowledge and skills.

2️⃣ Learner Profile

I consider the profile of the target learner — location, language, age, background, prerequisite knowledge and skills, intrinsic and extrinsic motivation to learn, etc. And the level of human facilitation availab

How To Design An Experiential-Learning Activity, Game, or Simulation

What should the learner do?

That is the key question I ask when designing an experiential learning activity, game, or simulation.

Notice the "do".

This is different than when designing a textbook, video, or page-turn elearning. With these types of conventional learning resources, the question being asked is this:

What should the learner know?

"Know" is very different than "do".

"Know" leads us to create a list of content items to be covered in the learning. The content is then created and presented in its required form (book, video, elearning, etc). Some type of assessment, like a quiz or basic activity, may also be included to confirm that the learner has reviewed the material.

It's all basically a list of things to know. Experiential learning is differen

How to Design a Narrative Story For Experiential Learning

I frequently write about experiential learning and how to use this methodology effectively. I'm going to share my design thinking behind a very basic narrative story-based activity.

One of the challenges with designing experiential learning is that it's much more difficult to create than conventional learning. It requires much more effort, skill, and budget — perhaps 10 to 100 times more.

This means that it's not always feasible to deliver learning content in this way. That's where text, graphics, and video can be used effectively. Not as the main activity in the learning experience, but as subactivities or supplemental resources.

When I have a lot of content I need to deliver as supplemental resources, my current preference is to use one of these methods:

• Microlearning — Short video, followed b

Designing a Digital Marketing Simulation

I'm designing a digital marketing simulation — I'm going to share what inspired the idea, the instructional-design thinking I'm applying, and the reasons why.

I hope you may find this helpful in your work.

Update Dec 2022: The program described in this article is now available at GoVenture.net/dm

Experiential Learning

More specifically, I'm designing an experiential learning activity that teaches digital marketing using:

1. Narrative story

2. Microlearning

3. Simulation

These are three design methods I have written about in detail in previous issues of this newsletter. Now, I'm going to illustrate how

Metaverse VR AR MR Web3 — Which Should You Choose?

Education and training are getting even more complicated with the metaverse, VR, AR, MR, and Web3.

How do you determine which technology is best for your learning experience?

I created this comparison table to help — https://bit.ly/webvrar

How To Teach Business Strategy With a Strategy Journal In a Simulation Game

Strategy is one of the most difficult business concepts to teach and learn.

That's because a cohesive strategy requires bringing together multiple business functions and understanding their interrelationships.

You simply cannot learn this through lectures, textbooks, videos, and case studies.

You have to experience it.

In the video below, I demonstrate how a GoVenture business simulation game is used to teach strategy in an experiential-learning activity.

And, I reveal the single most common mistake people make when trying to devise a strategy. This includes students in school, startup entrepreneurs, and corporate managers.

Experiential Learning Changes Your Role From Instructor to Coach

Instructors who adopt experiential learning into their courses discover an important change in how they interact with students.

They move from being an instructor, or provider of information, to a coach or advisor.

A coach who facilitates the learning process and encourages reflection through observations, questions, and discussions.

It's an amazing experience — an Aha! moment in teaching.

I bet you'll love your new role as a coach. It feels more inspiring and meaningful. And it saves you curriculum time, allowing you to share your own personal experiences and focus on the best you have to offer to students.

Instructor — "I'm going to teach you what you need to know.

Coach — "I'm going to help you discover what you need to know.

Let me show you how it's done in this video.

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How To Design Artificial Intelligence in Games — Simplified!

Have you ever wondered how games are designed?

How monsters and characters are given intelligence?

I'll show you the basics with an example that's super-easy to understand.

Your kids might even think you're cool again (no promises) 🙂

Check it out in this video ...

Luck, Skill, and Engagement in Educational Games

Luck, Skill, and Engagement — how do we design the right balance of these elements in games and simulations?

It can be a fine line, but you have to get it right to maximize learning.

Check out how in this video ...

Using Goals for Student Assessment in a Life & Money Simulation

Assessment of student progress and achievement is an important requirement in education.

But how do we assess students in a simulation game when the path and outcomes are personalizedfor each student?

This is a challenge that we had to overcome when we designed a highly-realistic life and money simulation to help students gain personal financial literacy skills.

We believe the best way to teach personal finance (and change behavior) is to allow someone to live their life virtually in a simulation. Allow them to make realistic life and money decisions and experience the consequences for decades into the future.

But once we have such a realistic simulation experience, how do we determine success?

What should the outcomes be in such an experi

The 2-Step Process I Follow When Inventing a New Product

When I invent a new product, I follow a 2-step process.

Do I ask customers what they want first?

Not exactly.

Customers often don't know what they want or need until they see it.

And that's the challenge that many inventors face.

I've invented toys, board games, card games, software games and simulations, mobile apps, and more.

My preferred approach is to build and commercialize quickly, and then refine based on real customer use and feedback.

It's risky, but the only trueway to know if a customer will want your product is to build it and ask them to pa

Building Student Excitement With a Big Reveal (and Music)

Let's say you've designed a fun competition for your students.

When it comes time to reveal the leaderboard or final results, make a show of it.

It's fun to witness student emotions as they watch their results revealed using visuals. Emotions quickly swing from anticipation to anxiety to joy and then back to anxiety then back to joy and — you get the picture.

It's much like being at a horse race — a wide range of emotions over a few short minutes. Warning — You may not get the same effect when revealing the results of a quiz or exam 😊

I'll show you one example of a big reveal method in this video — and keep reading below to discover my favorite music to play.

Individual Play Versus Head-to-Head Multiplayer

Individual play versus head-to-head multiplayer — when should you use these options in education?

An exciting aspect of modern games is the ability to compete head-to-head against other players, locally or around the world.

But, head-to-head multiplayer play can pose challenges in an educational environment.

Some students (youth or adult) may not be equipped for the social pressure that sometimes happens with competition. Some instructors prefer to avoid competition altogether.

The good news is that there are ways to leverage the high engagement of competition, while minimizing or eliminating the social pressures that may go with it.

I explain how in this video.

Simple or Complex Simulation for Your Students?

Should you choose a simple training simulation or a complex one for your students?

Your choice will directly impact the learning experience for your students.

I explain how to make this choice in the video below.

With our GoVenture educational games and simulations, we solve this challenge for instructors by offering several different simulations to choose from and by building progression within each simulation so that the experience starts basic and progressively ramps up as you play.

Waiting For Your Turn Is Boring — Here's How to Fix It

When playing games, I suspect most people are like me and don’t like waiting for our turn. It’s not that fun waiting and wondering if another player’s turn is finished.

Are you done? Done now? Ok, how about now?

I prefer a game that keeps me engaged even when it’s not my turn. And, I like a clear signal when a player starts and ends a turn, so we don’t have to keep asking if they are done.

With our GoVenture Card Game, we fixed this issue by having a player pick up a card to signal the start of a turn and pick up another card to signal the end of a turn.

And, to help with the "waiting for your turn" issue, we use a game mechanic that I describe in this video ...

Failure, Gaming, and School

We fail every day.

I call them micro-failures.

If you're prepared to expect and accept failure and learn how to use failure to succeed, you'll build resilience to tackle the most complicated problems in business and life.

Yet school teaches us to fear failure.

In this brief video, I explain how playing games rewires your brain to achieve success through failure.

How To Make Your Website or App Accessible to People With Disabilities

Let's consider accessibility on the Internet.

Accessibility means making your website and apps usable ("accessible") by people with disabilities.

I'll explain the three disabilities you need to consider — vision, hearing, and physical.

I'll show you an example of how we added accessibility to a business simulation with a visually rich and complex interface.

And a free tool you can use to easily test your own website or app to determine how accessible it may be.

All in this video ...

A.I. Songs About Simulation-Based Learning

I asked ChatGPT— an artificial intelligence system — to create a rap song about simulation-based learning. And then I asked it to do the same in the style of The Beatles. And again in the style of The Rolling Stones. And again in the style of Taylor Swift.

The results are _______________. Well, that's up to you to decide. You can fill in the blank by posting your comments below this article.

Rap Song

create a rap song about simulation-based learning

Simulation-based learning, it's the way we roll

We're learning how to do things that we don't yet know

We're diving into scenarios, virtual and real

We're gaining skills and knowledge, it's an amazing deal

In the simulated world, we can make mistakes

We can try new things and see how they shake

We can learn from our failures and build o

Why & How Business Education Should be Taught Using Experiential Progression

In the thousands of schools and businesses at all levels that I have worked with around the world over the past 20 years, the vast majority teach business in the same way. Topics are separated into courses and delivered in a linear fashion. Topics are rarely intermingled.

But that's _not _how business is experienced in the real world.

In the real world of business, we are hit with everything at once. And at varying degrees at different times. It's overwhelming, particularly for budding entrepreneurs who must manage the entire business.

Check out this graphic — and I'll explain the last item in more detail below.

Experiential Progression

Let's break down these t

Leadership Training, Role Playing, and Simulations | Audiogram

This issue of my newsletter is an audiogram and a slide deck.

You've seen audiograms before but may not have known what they are called. I'm going to show you how I made this audiogram as you may find this useful for delivering your training content in short and punchy segments.

I hope you may also find the content of the audiogram interesting, which is ...

Leadership Training With Game-Based Learning

The 2-minute audiogram below is a segment from a discussion I had with Simon Kardynal, CD, MA for his Trench Leadership Podcast.

We discuss how emerging leaders can gain experience using game-based learning.

Simon shares his experience in the military doing role-playing exercises a

5 Teaching Strategies That Trigger Aha! Moments In Students

Aha!

An Aha! moment is a moment of sudden inspiration, insight, recognition, or comprehension.

You know it when you see it happen or experience it yourself.

Educators live for these moments of career satisfaction. They validate all the hard work and experience that made the Aha! moment possible.

5 Strategies

Research shows that there are 5 teaching strategies that trigger Aha! moments in students. Here they are:

1. Real-life examples
2. Questioning
3. Reflection activities
4. Analogies
5. Problem-solving in teams

Consider how you can adjust your curriculum or training experience to include one or more of the above strategies.

The Secret Sauce

There are many ways in which you can integrate one or more of the above strategies.

But, from my experience, I only know of one learning m

A Better Way to Present Character Dialog in a Book

Narrative Story

In previous issues of this newsletter, I shared how we use narrative stories in experiential learning. In this issue, I'm going to show you how we visually format a narrative story in a book so that it looks good and is easy to read.

I hope that sharing this may trigger some new ideas for you.

Narrative Story — Using text, I guide the learner through their own personal story and journey of discovery.

The Book

This is the book I'm demonstrating — Digital Marketing Superhero — which I describe as a powerfully clear and concise guide to the basics of digital marketing.

A Story About YOU

Our human brains are

I Followed The Marketing Gurus and Here's What I Learned and Did

This is my story about digital marketing ...

I've spent hundreds of hours over the past two years specifically studying modern digital marketing.

I followed several "gurus" who have many followers, purchased some of their programs (thousands of $), and watched hours and hours of their video pitches trying to sell me more.

I've attended the webinars where people spend thousands of dollars on pitches that suggest you can get rich fast on the Internet, or be your own boss with just a computer, have a comfortable lifestyle as a solopreneur, or sell millions of something with just one marketing funnel or app.

Even when I had no intention of buying anything (which was 99.99% of the time), I still followed and watched. Sometimes these were marathon sessions of 2 to 3 hours of pitching.

I even followed ma

Students Cheating With AI? Maybe Students Are The Ones Being Cheated?

I hear about students cheating with Artificial Intelligence (AI) and other methods?

Maybe they are not the cheaters.

Maybe they are the ones being cheated by an old-school curriculum that fails to inspire learning?

For sure, there are people who cheat because they don’t want to put the work in. But I think this requires broader thinking in education.

We need to ask why so many students are compelled to cheat — or at least take the easy way out.

I often have discussions with instructors about assessment and I advise them that they should grade students on every assignment, even the practice ones. At a minimum, grade them on participation. Because many (most?) students will only do what they are graded on.

“Is that going to be on the test? No — ok then I’m not doing it.”

Have you ever

My Worst Learning Experience Made Me Do This ...

Sometime in the mid-1990s, I became an entrepreneur. I raised some money from a lender who had a requirement that all business owners had to attend a few training seminars.

One of these seminars was on accounting.

This was only a couple of years after I finished 6 years of university where I studied engineering and math — not business.

I previously learned accounting basics from a book I purchased so that I could create financials for my startup business plan. So, I was looking forward to the live training.

The training started in the early evening, so it was still bright outside. The training room had desks and an overhead projector — remember these?!

The trainer was an accountant. He proceed

Students Learn More About Money In Games Than in School

How many young people do you know who saved up their money to buy a game?

I know I did.

I was constantly saving up to buy video game cartridges for my Atari 2600 (yes, I’m old). Or for a memory expansion pack for my Vic 20 so I could squeeze in more lines of code (most of you have no idea what I’m talking about 😃)

Today, young people (and adults too) save up to buy the latest PlayStation, Xbox, Switch, or gaming computer.

For many of us, it may be our first memory of being motivated to save money to achieve a goal. It’s our first lesson in personal finance.

Add it up and this lesson has been repeated millions of times by people around the world.

Then we have school.

You m

2 Reasons Why The "Coding In School" Movement Is Misguided And Needs To Be Replaced With This ...

I originally wrote this article in 2016 — perhaps during the peak of the "Coding In School" movement. Seven years before the recent breakthroughs in artificial intelligence (ChatGPT, Bard, Bing, etc). Some believe that AI is going to eliminate most programming jobs in the coming years. Perhaps the time has come to refocus this energy.

There has been a big movement these past years to encourage more computer programming (coding) in schools ... for all students, regardless of their predisposition.

While the theory and motivation behind this movement are good, the execution is misguided. Here's why:

1. Very few people will ever be suited to a career in programming. Coding is hard. Your brain has to be wired a certain way to be good at it, and to enjoy sitting at a co

Budding Entrepreneur — A Story to Help Children Discover Entrepreneurship

The new movie Champions featuring a team of athletes with special needs reminded me of a book I have to offer to parents and teachers — it's free and I've included it here.

This is the backstory of why I wrote the book.

Way back in 2012, my kids were aged 7 and 4 — old enough to begin learning about something I feel is important — entrepreneurship.

Why? Because I believe that entrepreneurship is more than just running a business. Entrepreneurship is a mindset that empowers individuals to take control of their own future and helps them realize personal goals and objectives. It's about freedom, lifestyle, self-confidence, family, community, and more.

I wanted my children to discover this mindset.

At the time, I had already

The Largest Role-Playing Game In the World Is Not What You Expect

Forget about Dungeons and Dragons or World of Warcraft.

The largest role-playing game in the world is and has always been politics.

Politics is more artificial than it is real. There’s more acting than in most Hollywood movies.

It’s no secret. We all know how it works. The goal is to get your message out while stifling competing messages. To appear to be more likable. To be more popular. To win that all-important vote.

It’s big business in many parts of the world. And, it’s a zero-sum game in most circumstances – for me to win, you have to lose.

There are badges: Councilman, Mayor, Congressman, Senator, Governor, Premiere, Member of Parliament, Minister, Secretary, President, Prime Minister, etc.

There are points: media pickups, debate wins, bills passed or killed, votes, etc.

There are

1-Hour Entrepreneur | How & Why I Created This Free Video Course

— Links to access my course for free are at the bottom of this article —

Many people who become entrepreneurs have no idea what they’re getting into.

Some are accidental entrepreneurs while others pursue this path with purpose.

Many newbies are not prepared for the tsunami of decisions that they have to make each day — and they end up making costly mistakes. Often these mistakes are basic and avoidable.

Mistakes might slow you down or could take down the entire business — yikes!

Check out this excerpt from Inc Magazine:

You might think the above happened when Branson was just starting out as a young entrepreneur in his 20s. Nope. He was in his 50s. More than 10 years *

I Gained Confidence and Courage — by Failing

I gained confidence and courage by failing— that's what two college students recently shared with me after playing a GoVenture business simulation game.

Confidence and courage are two things I strive for my children to have (kindness is another). I suspect that most instructors would love for their students to gain this mindset as well.

How can we facilitate confidence and courage in our students?

The answer is — through experience.

We are a collection of the experiences we've had in our lives — both good and bad. So, if we want to influence behavior, then the best way to do this is by facilitating targeted experiences.

But delivering live experiences in the real world can be costly and expensive. That's where simulation comes in.

Here's what one student share

How Games Will Transform (or Destroy) Business Schools

The value of a college diploma or degree in business has been losing ground for some time now.

Rising tuition costs have made college education unaffordable for many.

What’s worse is the high number of people who drop out of college while still having to repay student loans.

Despite a 2,000% rise in tuition over the past few decades, has the quality of education delivery been improved?

The same old-school teaching methods are still a common practice— lectures, textbooks, case studies, and quizzes.

Even with the availability of video meetings and advanced technology, these resources are rarely used in innovative ways.

It’s hard to find another product or service that has become 20 times more expensive while offering the same or less value.

Change in education has been slow.

I’ve been working to help

This Video May Forever Change How You Teach Business

Why is experiential learning through simulation games such a powerful learning methodology?

I'll show you why (and how) in this video where I play a Lemonade Stand game. The same Lemonade Stand game is used in middle schools, high schools, MBA programs, and Fortune 500 companies.

Want to see the next level of business after the Lemonade Stand?

• For personal learning to start or level up your business career check out <a href="https://goventurecourses.com/" target="_blank"

Assessment Strategies for Educational Games & Simulations

Assessment Challenges

As an instructor, are you spending hours and hours on assessment?

Are you wondering if students have put the work in?

Are you worried that some students will be surprised and disappointed with their grades (and it's too late to do anything about it)?

Are you worried about cheating?

Educational Games and Simulations Can Help

Here's how:

• Assessment in games and simulations is based on measurable actions and results.
• Results are based on demonstrated behaviors, skills, and performance — not just knowledge or memorization.
• Assessment is available to students in real-time, so they are always aware of deficiencies and how to correct them — no surprises.
• Assessment is automated, saving time and improving accuracy.

Assessment Options

Each game or simulation exper

YIPPEE — Education Philanthropy Done Right

Being in education for nearly 30 years, I've seen a lot of philanthropy applied in the sector. I'm sure most of it has been helpful, but it rarely works really well.

That's why I was pleasantly surprised to discover YIPPEE — this is philanthropy done right and I'm sharing it here with the hope that more funders will learn from this approach to maximize their impact.

What is YIPPEE?

YIPPEE is a website that gives educators points that they can use to buy products. 1 point equals 1 US dollar.

Educators receive the equivalent of $500 just by signing up on the website — which takes 2 minutes. Yup, $500 for 2 minutes of your time.

The products that are available to buy with points are sourced from various publishers who offer high-quality educational resources (some of my GoV

30 Years of Tech I Used to Develop Educational Apps

Here's a walk down memory lane of the technology platforms I used to develop educational games and simulations since I started my ed tech company in 1994.

Asymetrix Multimedia Toolbook

I started with Multimedia Toolbook by Asymetrix. It was a really good and well-refined program. The company was founded by Paul Allen, cofounder of Microsoft. But it was for Windows only and Apple Macs were becoming too popular in schools to ignore so most developers jumped to Macromedia Director.

Macromedia Director

Director by Macromedia was also a great program, but not as well refined as Toolbook. I pushed the envelope with Director creating my first super-realistic business simulation. It won an award at a Macromedia developer conference.

I created all sorts of apps with it, including one that communicated with satellite

Confessions of a Project Manager or Secrets to Project Management?

Confessions of a Project Manager or Secrets to Project Management?

I’m not sure which title is better, so I'm going with both :-)

I’m sharing my experience about how I have successfully managed hundreds of projects— software apps, simulations, board games, toys, books, video production, packaging, marketing, art, live events, and more.

30 years. Hundreds of projects.

The projects were for small businesses, nonprofits, government agencies, schools, Fortune 500 clients, and for our own internal operations, product development, and sales initiatives.

Some projects were high stakes, some were low stakes, and many were in between.

All Successful?

I believe it's fair to say the projects I led were all successful because they were completed as designed.

But not always as planned.

An

Case Study Learning Is Good But Not As Good As This

Case Study-based learning is good.

But not nearly as good as game and simulation-based learning.

A Case Study expects students to care about some problem they have no personal experience with that happened to some person or organization they probably have never heard of.

In a simulation game, the student is the case study. It's their own virtual life. It's their own problem they are investigating and solving.

In fact, it's not just one or two problems. It's a continuous problem-solving activity where they make hundreds of decisions. And directly experience the consequences of those decisions.

If you believe that one case study provides students with a valuable learning experience. Imagine the opportunity to experience hundreds.

If you want a student to care about learning, make it about them.

Gi

Join My New Community for Educators and Trainers

Hey, it's Mathew — my team and I have just launched a private community for educators and trainers to share ideas, resources, and discussions on experiential learning, games, and simulations.

I invite you to join us and get immediate access to free resources.

Here is the link — Skool.com/TeachingSuperhero

This video shows you inside the group —

Why Launch a New Community?

There are over 6,000 educators and t

How To Use 1 Game and 1 Computer to Teach Hundreds of Students

I once played a game live with 350 middle school students in one room — playing together on one computer. It was an amazing experience with students yelling so loud I had to ask them to settle down (in a good way :-)

We were learning about entrepreneurship — together.

I repeated the same experience many times with various sizes and types of groups — teachers, young adults, underemployed individuals, and more. It always works well and the participants have an enjoyable and memorable learning experience.

And, I'm able to do it with 1 game and 1 computer with the entire experience lasting less than one hour. Although, I can choose to play much longer for a deeper learning experience.

Educators often worry about the time, technical challenges, and costs involved with adopting software games into their curr

Creating Student Camaraderie & Teamwork In Online Courses

One reason online courses fail to engage students is that they lack a sense of camaraderie. Students don't get the opportunity to engage with their classmates in a meaningful way.

This results in students feeling isolated in a lonely learning experience.

Many students choose to go to college for the social experience — and those who do so online often miss out on this valuable opportunity.

Aversion to Teams

Many instructors have shared with me that — since Covid — most of their students do not want to work on projects in teams. They prefer to do things on their own.

I believe this may be due to a combination of reasons:

• A greater sense of control by not having to rely on others— in contrast to the uncertainty felt during Covid.
• A desire to avoid the inconvenience of having to coordi

Rate My Professors — Do Your Reviews Matter?

My observation:

Course evaluations have now become Amazon reviews — "These shoes are uncomfortable when I wear them on my hands — 1 star"

I did some brief research on the impact of RateMyProfessors.com — a popular website where students review their instructors.

If you're an instructor who did not know about websites like this, did your heart just sink? Or are you eager to go and discover your rating?

Perhaps you think sites like this are trash?

Maybe so. But consider how often you review the product ratings on sites like Amazon and how they have influenced your own purchase decision.

The reality is that such ratings do have an impact.

And if it's not RateMyProfessors.com (with its somewhat d

Student Internships — Without Barriers

Internships can be a life-changing experience.

But they are challenging to manage — and controversial.

That's where virtual internships can be an amazing alternative — I'll show you how in the video below.

Here's a comparison of the challenges —

Conventional Internships

• Finding employers willing and able to offer meaningful experiences on the exact schedule that you need.
• The availability of qualified employers varies based on region — some locations may have none.
• Matching students to employers.
• Managing employers and having contingency plans when things don't work out.
• Time and effort to monitor and assess student internship activities.
• The unpredictability of unexpected events — weather, health, etc.
• Accommodating students who are unable to commute or have disabilities or other barriers to emplo

Does School Motivate Students With Fear?

Conventional education doesn’t work very well.

We all know this to be true from our own experiences in school.

And there is one big problem that proves it —- fear is used as a primary motivator for students.

Yes, fear.

If you don’t study, you will fail the quiz.

If you fail the quiz, you will fail your course.

If you fail your course, you will have to repeat it and may be held back.

If you are held back a grade, you will not be with your friends.

If you still don’t comply, you will not graduate.

If you do not graduate, you will be disqualified from most good jobs.

If you do graduate but have poor marks, you will still be disqualified from most jobs.

If you don’t get a good job, you will be destined for a life of low income and unhappiness.

Fear. Fear. Fear.

In my early days of school, the strap w

Fair & Stress-Free Student Assessment

Quizzes and exams are the best part of the school experience.

Said no one ever.

They can be quite memorable, however. The stress of preparing for the test, the stress of taking the test, and the stress of waiting days or weeks for the results.

Oh, and the stress that comes with receiving a poor result — much of which is often caused by the pressure of high-stakes testing that many are ill-equipped to manage.

Fun times.

I recently wrote about the problem with fear-based education.

Quizzes and exams feed that fear.

What's even worse is that most tests are very poor at measuring the success of learning.

I did well in school because I memorized everything. Text, dates, and mathematical patterns for form

Personalized Learning In Education — The Easy Way

The concept of personalized learning in education has been around for a long time. Here is one definition I found online:

Personalized learning is an educational approach that aims to customize learning for each student's strengths, needs, skills, and interests.

Sounds great. Also sounds hard, doesn't it?

How can a busy teacher find the time to do that?

Electronic tools have been created for specific subject areas and courses to offer personalized learning, but I suspect they take a significant commitment to adopt and integrate into a curriculum (plus the costs and lots of administrative approvals).

What if you don't have the time and budget for that?

There are much easier ways to apply personalized learning.

Simulation games are one example

Simulation games offer a similar experience for all stude

How To Invest a Small Amount of Money

I suspect this may be a question that lots of students have for their instructors. Hopefully, my answer here may help.

When you have very little money and social media is full of humble bragging about making big money investing in real estate, stocks, bonds, crypto, you name it ... what should you do?

You already know that investing a small amount of money in any of these options is unlikely to turn into a lot of money.

And the bigger the risk you take, the more likely you are to lose it all.

What to do?

Here's the answer — Invest in yourself.

Use whatever time and money you have available to gain new skills.

Enroll in courses, attend events, or work internships.

Do something that opens your mind and gives you skills that will move you forward.

Be careful with taking on big debt to do this — start by finding

Teaching Ethics With a Business Simulation Game

Ethics — a timely topic in our changing world.

It seems there are more ethical failures these days than ever. Or perhaps there are not and it's our enhanced communications that make them easier to spot and share.

In any event, ethics is an important topic in education to prepare students for the real world.

Ethics can be both simple and complicated.

In my business, I like to simplify it by saying that "we always do the right thing even if it costs us money."

Of course, ethics can be more than that and there is a lot of nuance that can be difficult to capture.

How can we teach ethics?

There are plenty of real-world examples of ethical failures, so using case studies is an obvious approach. Role-playing can also be effective.

In this video, I demonstrate how we enable students to **directly expe

How To Teach Business Strategy With a Simulation Game

Strategy is one of the most difficult business concepts to teach and learn.

Those of us who grew up playing board games likely have an advantage. Board games are an effective way to experience and practice strategy — but they are not nearly as good as software simulation.

Why? Because board games take a long time to play, and only a few people can play together. Games with deeper strategy require so many hours of play and so many rules to follow that they are not practical for most educational environments.

A business simulation enables deep gameplay that is more widely accessible and can be played by many people together in person or online, synchronously or asynchronously. And, it can provide data — lots of data.

In this video, I demonstrate how we use a Strategy Guide in an **online business

Teaching HR and Employee Management Using a Simulation

I think most entrepreneurs will agree that one of the toughest aspects of running a business is managing employees.

Resumes, skills, salary, benefits, scheduling, morale, productivity, customer service, training, layoffs, and the list goes on.

Mistakes will be made — guaranteed.

No-win decisions will happen — guaranteed.

The complexities are astounding.

So, how can we learn to manage all of this before we're in the trenches?

How can we learn to predict problems before they happen and avoid common mistakes?

How can we gain years of managerial experience in minutes?

There is only one way — simulation.

In the video below, I demonstrate how the hyper-realistic GoVenture Entrepreneur simulation is used to help people of all ages learn HR and employee

How to Create Learning Outcomes, Objectives, and Standards With AI

As an instructor, you are expected to achieve specific learning outcomes, objectives, or standards.

When you are creating or adopting a new resource, you may have to go through this exercise manually, which can be quite time-consuming.

Now there is a fast and easy way to do this — with Artificial Intelligence.

I did this recently for some new products I had designed. Here’s how I did it and you can do the same:

Food Truck Entrepreneur Board Game

• The rules of the game are in a PDF document. ChatGPT 4 will accept documents (version 3 does not).
• Here is the prompt I used: I’m going to upload a PDF document of the rules of a board game called Food Truck Entrepreneur. Create a comprehensive list of topics covered and learning outcomes.
• You can see the unedited results at the bottom of this p

All Teachers Must Do This One Thing With AI — Or Else

AI this and AI that. It's all too much.

But here is one thing all teachers must know and do.

You must knowthat your students are also struggling with this information overload and uncertainty.

So you must do this one thing — you must clearly explain your guidelines for student use of AI in your specific course.

Are students not permitted to use AI in any way?

Are they allowed to use AI in a small way?

Are they allowed to use AI in a big way?

You have to tell them.

Because if you do not, students are left to wonder — "Am I being resourceful by using AI or will I be accused of cheating?"

It is not fair to you or your students to have such uncertainty.

Having basic guidelines can help avoid problems for everyone — and you can always revise them later.

Should Startups Use Spreadsheets or Apps for Accounting & Customers?

This is a question that every new business has to consider — should you use a spreadsheet for your financial transactions or go directly to an accounting app? Should you use a spreadsheet for customer relationship management (CRM) or a CRM app?

I've founded several businesses and have struggled with this question many times over the past 30 years. I'm sharing my conclusions here to help other startups.

I should point out that I'm not an accountant but I'm pretty comfortable with accounting. I design business simulations with fully functional accounting modules. I teach a highly-rated online accounting course with tens of thousands of students enrolled. And, I've designed and set

How To Design Better Multiple Choice Quizzes — 2 Tips

I'm going to show you two ways to improve multiple-choice quizzes.

Testing using multiple-choice quizzes is certainly not a good way to assess skill or behavioral change, but it can be okay for measuring current knowledge.

I say current knowledge because students who memorize concepts to pass a multiple-choice quiz typically forget the answers within a few days. This begs the question of why multiple-choice quizzes are so widely used in education — but let's leave that for another discussion.

Tip #1

Present 3 multiple-choice answers instead of 4.

Have you ever wondered why many quizzes include 4 answers? It turns out that research shows no meaningful difference in results between 3 or 4 answers.

So, it's better to offer 3 answers because it's easier for teachers to create quizzes and students may f

Play a Simulation Modeled After Your Business or a Different Business?

This is a question that must be addressed when you are considering adopting a business simulation for your company —

Should you use a simulation that models your business or a different business?

To answer this question, we must consider the objective for playing the simulation and the profile of the participants.

Common objectives for playing a business simulation are for training purposes, as a customer empathy tool, or as a team-building activity.

Same Business

Use a simulation that models your business when you want participants to learn concepts, processes, KPIs, or other factors specific to your business.

For example, a bank engaged my team to create a simulation that modeled the job of a branch manager. They wanted bank managers to practice making realistic decisions and experi

Business Simulations for Education VS Forecasting VS Entertainment?

When designing or choosing a business simulation, there are three categories to consider, based on the objective of the program:

• Entertainment
• Education
• Forecasting

Three Categories

Entertainment*simulations are games designed for fun. Some of the most famous have been Capitalism, Sim City, Roller Coster Tycoon, and more. Keep in mind that this article is about *business simulations, not other subjects.

Educational simulations are designed to teach business. My GoVenture line of games and simulations falls into this category.

Forecasting simulations are designed to predict the future — or perhaps to model or identify possible outcomes. Process simulations may also fall into this category.

Interchangeable?

A business s

Help Me Design a Board Game — Part 1

I've been picking away at a new board game for a few years now. I made some progress early on but got stalled with other priorities. I'm now going to push to get the game done.

I think it might be a fun experiment to share my design progress here in my newsletter — and create a better game with live feedback from you — where you can influence the design.

If people choose to follow and post feedback in the comments, I will take your direction with the design of the game and continue to post my progress with gameplay refinements and design sketches, and continue to ask for your feedback.

About The Game

This will be an educational board game to help players learn personal finance — but more broadly about life, money, and happiness.

I know what you are thinking — The Game of Life!

Wikipedia says this game was created in 1

Help Me Design a Board Game — Part 2

Part 1

In Part 1 of this board game design experience, we:

• Defined the target player and customer.
• Identified the concept.
• Set the overall goal of the game to be Happiness, which is made up of three metrics = Financial Wealth + Lifestyle+ Friends & Family.

Nothing is finalized yet, but we have enough to move on to the next stage of the design.

Game design is an iterative process where we might make a tentative decision to allow us to move on to the next stage to see how things play out. Then we can reevaluate and adjust as we go.

Part 2 — What will players do?

This stage involves identifying what players will do in the game. To determine this, we must consider the main concepts we want players to expe

Help Me Design a Board Game — Part 3

Parts 1 & 2

In Part 1 and Part 2 of this board game design experience, we:

• Defined the target player and customer.
• Identified the concept.
• Set the overall goal of the game to be Happiness made of 3 metrics.
• Identified 5 Phases of life — Youth, Education, Career, Family, Retirment.
• Identified 6 Choices that are repeated — see below.

Nothing is finalized yet, but we have enough to move on to the next stage of the design.

Game design is an iterative process where we might make a tentative decision to allow us to move on to the next stage to see how things play out. Then we can reevaluate and ad

Help Me Design a Board Game — Part 4

There is much to cover in this update so I recorded a video to show the storyboards I've been working on and the thinking behind them. If you need to catch up on the Parts 1,2,3, find them here.

Share Your Thoughts

Post comments in our Teaching Superhero Community

Am I on track?

Am I missing something?

Do you have any suggestions?

Should I

Help Me Design a Board Game — Part 5

Lots of progress being made now. Watch this video to see where we've landed for the gameplay and components. If you need to catch up on Parts 1,2,3,4 find them here.

Share Your Thoughts

Post comments in our Teaching Superhero Community

Am I on track?

Am I missing something?

Do you have any suggestions?

Should I keep posting about this game?

Help Me Design a Board Game — Part 6

Very little progress made since my last post.

So why post this instead of waiting until I have progress to share?

Because this is part of the design process.

Sometimes we make a lot of progress and sometimes we don't. We all have competing priorities in our work and life.

Slowing down is not a bad thing when it comes to design. Because it allows us to return to our creation with fresh eyes. And bring new ideas to it.

One reason I have not made much progress on this new game is because I was working on finishing two other board games and a software simulation. An interesting thing I have learned about designing new products is just as you feel like you are getting close to finishing, a lot of new tasks seem to appear. So you end up spending more time at the end than you expected.

But it's all good because some of the thinkin

Help Me Design a Board Game — Part 7

Watch this video to discover the results of the first paper prototype. If you need to catch up on Parts 1 to 6, find them here.

Share Your Thoughts

Post comments in our Teaching Superhero Community

Am I on track?

Am I miss

Help Me Design a Board Game — Part 8

Big step forward since my last update.

Here is what I accomplished:

• I have a draft design of the main gameboard.
• I further simplified some of the game mechanics.
• I wrote the instructions — and achieved my objective of making them "read as you play".

Need to catch up with Parts 1 to 7 — find them here.

Gameboard Path

Here is the latest design.

• It uses a snake path and I horizontally aligned the blue phases of life.
• Many of the spaces are repeated multiple times, so to save space and make the gameboard less cluttered, I'm using a legend on the left side of the board that has icons and text descriptions. This saves me from having to repeat the text on every space. Whether this is a good gameplay decision or not remains to be seen.
• Some o

Help Me Design a Board Game — Part 9

Since my last update, I did a quick playtest using the components I shared previously. The test went well and it helped me identify a few important changes which I describe below. Catch up by reviewing Parts 1 to 8.

Playtest?

I should note that these early playtests are very controlled.

With the game components being very rough and the rules not fully defined, it's not useful to just have a bunch of people try to play the game on their own or with some guidance. They would not be able to get far enough to provide meaningful feedback.

Instead, I play the game with one or two other people to directly experience the gameplay in its roughest form. I watch the other player(s) and ask very specific questions along the way to get a sense of how they feel about

Help Me Design a Board Game — Part 10

Since my last update, I was working on some other projects, including taking a deep dive in real-time board game mechanics. This delayed my work on this Personal Finance Board Game, but I'm back at it and did another round of testing on my own with the latest version.

The video below shows what the prototype looks like and how it plays.

Catch up by reviewing Parts 1 to 9.

Designing Balanced Gameplay — Using Math, Yuck! 🙂

One of the many challenges game designers face is ensuring the gameplay is balanced.

No action should be so strong as to overpower player strategy. Otherwise, players will feel the game is too random and unfair.

Math to the rescue! Don't worry, this is easy to follow and you can use AI to do it for you.

Powerups

Here is one example of a simple powerup I designed for our upcoming new Lemonade Stand Board Game.

Players roll a die to compete to sell lemonade to customers — highest roll wins the sale.

Players can gain an advantage by purchasing one of the powerups shown here:

<img src = "https://books.playgoventure.com/u/1723668541624-AbJDzv.png" style="width: 50%; display: block; margin

Quick & Easy Way to Create Board Game Paths

A time-consuming aspect of designing board games is prototyping the player path. It takes a long time to set it up in a graphic design program and then more time as you tweak the gameplay.

In this video, I'll show you a magical way to improve this. I'm using Adobe Illustrator, but other graphic design tools may do the same.

Play Our New Game — WORD6 — It's Like Wordle & Scramble

What if you married Wordle and Scramble?

You get WORD6— a novel word-game that challenges your vocabulary and puzzle skills.

Two themes are available — Entrepreneur words and Digital Marketing words.

The games reset every day at midnight with a new word.

No downloads, just click to play.

Play for free at GoVentureGames.com

Gameplay

No downloads, just click to play.

Play WORD6 for free at GoVentureGames.com

How To Create Realistic Consumer Behavior In a Simulation Game

In a previous video article, I shared How To Design Artificial Intelligence in Games — Simplified!

In this article, I show how consumer behavior can be modeled.

You may be surprised at how simple this is, yet how versatile and realistic the end result can be.

Purchase Decisions

Consumers are people who buy things.

Typically, consumers make their purchase decisions based on three factors: Price, Features, and Brand.

• Price is the cost of the item.
• Features are the properties and benefits offered. For example, for a smartphone this may include display size, weight, battery life, camera quality, reliability, app ecosystem, and more.
• Brand is how w

Free Lemonade Stand Game — Discover Powerful Learning

We've made a free version of our popular Lemonade Standsimulation game available for everyone to play at FreeLemonadeStandGame.com — no login and nothing to download, just click and play.

Playing this game for just a few minutes will help you discover how amazingly powerful games are for learning and teaching. Allow me to explain ...

A simple explanation of why games and simulations provide powerful learning opportunities

On first look, one might assume that Lemonade Stand is a simple game for kids.

But, on deeper investigation, a powerful learning experience is revealed.

Give it a try and you'll discover how a simple game can provide deep learning that is much more effective than traditional methods. Keep reading to discover how these concepts c

How To Write Game Rules

Writing rules and instructions for a tabletop game is very challenging.

It’s like writing a legal contract where you have to capture every possible scenario, but must do so using brief and clear language that anyone can understand.

I find it to be the most difficult of all the writing tasks I’ve done over the years — business plans, project proposals, teaming agreements, legal contracts, books, design guides, technical specifications, and more.

The good news is that I’ve created a style that makes it easier — not easy, but easier — and I’m sharing it here.

Some people may not agree with all of my style choices, but hopefully each choice creates awareness of what you need to consider. I’ve read many rule books that could be improved if the writer or layout designer had at least considered an alternative option.

Rule Book Style Guide

How Students Can Develop AI Prompting Skills By Playing Business Simulations

Artificial Intelligence (AI), particularly Large Language Models (LLMs), has revolutionized many fields, including education. While AI presents exciting opportunities, it also raises challenges for educators concerned about students using it to complete work independently rather than developing essential skills themselves.

However, learning how to effectively use AI is just as critical as learning without it —students who fail to develop AI proficiency will face significant disadvantages in the workforce.

The following activity is designed to help students enhance their AI skills while engaging with business simulations, like GoVenture simulations

Instructors may assign this activity to their students as part of their curriculum.

About G

Game Design Worksheet

TLDR — Download our helpful worksheet to design your own game.

I find it amazing that so many people want to design their own board game, card game, or tabletop game. I've been designing (and selling) games for 25 years and it's a very fulfilling experience. But certainly not easy to do, and it's hard to know how to get started.

Even if you never publish and sell a game, the journey is interesting and helps you build amazing skills. It's also a great STEAM activity for students.

So to inspire more people just get started, my team and I have created a Game Design Worksheet that makes it super easy to follow a step-by-step process.

I can't promise that you'll design a great game, but I'm sure this will make it easier for you.

The Worksheet is free and you can print it or fill it out in your browser

LinkedIn doesn't allow me to post a PDF

Board Games in School? A Fun & Effective Break from Technology

Educational technology can be amazing when done right.

But we also need frequent breaks from it — both students and teachers.

Experiential group-based learning offers a fun and effective way to learn and a good alternative to ed tech.

You can do this with your students using board games, card games, and tabletop games.

More Than Monopoly

The term "board game" often reminds people of the original Monopoly.

But modern gaming has gone much farther than the old-school "opoly" format. (And so has Monopoly with its countless variations).

There are thousands of games to choose from, and games are typically very affordable — used or new.

Educational?

The vast majority of games are designed for entertainment — not education.

Regardless, all games are educational — even if that is not t

Educational Games Students Can Play With AI Michael Jordan & Kendrick Lamar

Here are some super-easy examples of how you can help your students learn and practice any concept — using interactive games hosted by AI.

• You can do this with nearly any concept.
• You can make the game fit any timeframe.
• Assessment is automated with a PDF of the results (but not all AI support PDF creation).

Getting Started

Simply copy one of the prompts below and ask students to paste it into the AI of your choice.

• Text in bold can be customized to match your preferences.
• The blank is for students to enter their name.

Instead of showing you what happens, I encourage you to give it a try — it only takes a minute to experience an aha! moment with this.

• OpenAI ChatGPT — chatgpt.com/chat
• Google Gemini — <a hre

Enrollment Decline — Schools Have Lost Their One Competitive Advantage

Many colleges and universities are having a tough time these days with enrollments.

But there is one reason that I rarely see mentioned and it's super important to acknowledge — geography.

For the past decades, most schools have had a single competitive advantage — their location.

They draw students from their surrounding communities. But what happens when many courses are offered online? And when students increasingly choose courses they do not have to attend in person?

Here's what happens — your program becomes commoditized. It looks like every other online program offered by every other school.

com·mod·i·tize— to render (a good or service) widely available and interchangeable with one provided by another company (source: Merriam-Webster).

Your geographic competitive advantage is no

Unique Way to Increase Student Enrollment & Recruiting

Typically once or twice a year, middle school students visit high schools to discover courses and programs available to them when they transition. High school students visit colleges to do the same.

Various program hosts deliver some type of tour and presentation. They may have 20 to 60 minutes to wow the participants into signing up for their programs.

The most common result — big yawn, small wow. 🙃

There's a better way. I'll share how colleges and high schools use games to win more students. And how multinational companies use them to recruit new employees.

This article is focused on business education, but the concept can be applied to any subject if you can find the right type of game to use.

Recruit Students or Employees With a Fun Event

Example — Play a business simulation competition:

• Very eas

All Games Are Educational

Imagine all of the human energy being devoted to games.

And people do it because they want to.

People skip school, work, and sleep to play.

Many even pay to do it.

Talk about motivation!

Games are great for entertainment and escapism.

But, can we harness this enormous power to advance human kind?

The answer is — yes!

You see, all games are educational.

Our brains are wired to learn, no matter what we are doing.

Whether we are flinging angry birds, shooting aliens, or leading a guild into combat, our brain is learning.

But ... with games designed for entertainment, our brain is gaining knowledge and skills that may or may not be useful in the real world.

With a game designed specifically for education, the learning and skills become much more transferrable to the real world.

**Games that help us succeed in

Universities Have 3 Years to Change Before AI Crushes Enrollments

AI is transforming education unlike any other previous technology.

But not how you think it is.

It's not because educators are using AI in ways to improve student learning (although some are).

It's not because school administrators are using AI to replace teachers (although some are).

The real reason AI is transforming education is because students are using AI to game the entire school system. Students are using AI to do their thinking and their assignments. It's cheating on a mass scale never before possible.

It's a nightmare scenario for educators. Accept the cheating and you become a diploma mill. Try to catch the cheating and you waste countless hours on policing that's never going to be foolproof. Report the cheating and you open a can of worms full of drama.

It's a nightmar