SFUSD
Amanda Johnson
415 241-6121 x3333
Johnsona1@sfusd.edu

Total Learning Concepts
Carrie Plantamura
(617) 937-2813
www.tlconline.com

Media Contacts
Andrew Kimball, QBInternational, 415-464-8880, ext. 110 akimball@qube.com
Victor Heman, 760-632-1629, vic@vicheman.com
 

San Rafael, CA 8/15/05 QBInternational, a global provider of sales force readiness technology, announces the immediate availability of the AQumulator™ as the newest component of the company’s Qube Learning System. AQumulator is an innovative online game for gathering and prioritizing employee ideas, suggestions, feedback and concerns. The AQumulator posts a question, then automatically gathers confidential, anonymous answers, ideas, recommendations, and opinions. Each idea is evaluated and prioritized based on peer input. Employees can see how their responses and opinions compare with co-workers as they progress through the game-based application.

Employees can rate and prioritize their own responses as well as their peers’ responses using predefined Evaluation Criteria. Throughout the experience, they can check the “Best Ideas” answers to each question which, based on peer responses, represent the most useful feedback or cost-effective ideas.

Using the AQumulator, companies can identify sales or other best practices, identify employee concerns, and gather customer input. The AQumulator organizes employee answers into an easy to navigate Knowledge Base. Companies can track, reward and recognize winning ideas or best practices.

The AQumulator is already in use by major corporations as part of the Qube Learning System, QBI’s online, learning game management platform that transforms basic or complex technical information into useful, sustainable, measurable knowledge.

“Product Marketing managers are using the AQumulator to draw useful information up the sales chain from customers, from wholesalers, from channel partners, and from sales forces.” stated Andy Kimball*, CEO and Founder of QBI. “We’ve seen successful new ideas for product and process improvement from field engineers and other personnel whose voices aren’t always heard.”

In addition to making learning more fun, more comprehensive and sustainable, the Qube Learning System QGames provide valuable user analytics that can help employees focus on their most critical knowledge needs. Managers are able to evaluate the success of their learning or training initiatives and executives can use the data to make critical knowledge transfer investment decisions.

For more information on the AQumulator or the Qube Learning System visit www.qube.com.

QBInternational www.qube.com (est. 1996) helps Fortune 500 companies reduce the cost and increase the fun and effectiveness of online training. QBI’s innovative Qube Learning System is a hosted game-based learning platform for creating engaging effective online learning. The Qube includes four components: QBooks for information delivery, QGames to engrave knowledge in the learner’s brain, Challenge Arenas to increase learner motivation and engagement, and Learning Dashboards to measure individual, team and organizational knowledge.

*Andrew Kimball is a leading authority in organizational learning and human performance technology.

  Media Contacts

Get more of the Qube at www.qube.com
Andrew Kimball, QBInternational, 415-464-8880, ext. 110 akimball@qube.com
Rick Swanson, QBInternational, 415-464-8880, ext. 119, rswanson@qube.com

QBInternational’s Qube Learning System™ uses game-based program
to enhance employee skills in providing help to casino patrons in distress

San Rafael, CA 5/10/05 QBInternational, a global provider of game-based online learning systems, announces the availability of a unique online learning program for casinos that is instructionally effective, rapidly deployed, and fun for learners. Customizable to virtually any industry or training challenge, the Qube Learning System has been engaged by the British Columbia Lottery Corporation for employee training in its network of casinos. The BCLC is recognized for its commitment to providing high-quality entertainment in a socially responsible manner.

The Qube Learning System (QLS), already in use by major corporations in the U.S., is developed around a hosted, game-based development and delivery platform built in a .NET environment. The QLS has documented results across a wide range of industries and has produced average retention rates of more than 80%.

Effective employee training is critical to the gaming industry, and the social responsibility toward recognizing and assisting patrons who may have a gambling problem or other issues is taken seriously. The QLS is seen as an enhancement or alternative to existing training programs because of its high retention rate and entertaining teaching methods.

Qube Learning System features:

	Instructionally Effective: (4x to 10x more retention and understanding than other online learning options) QGames™ provide fun, yet instructionally effective interactivity. Learners set their own pace using their own learning style. QGames link back to QBooks™ and other materials to create knowledge and provide reliable, valid Learner Analytics to management.
	Cost-effective (25% to 33% of the cost of equivalently interactive custom eLearning).
	Time-effective (New custom projects take hours or days to complete not months)
	Highly motivating and fun for learners (Client users report “Learning Addiction”) Learners compete with one another and with themselves in the Hall of Fame to achieve goals and master the content.
	Success Measurement Tools. Managers monitor learner success using a variety of compelling and useful graphic tools.

QBInternational www.qube.com (est. 1996) helps Fortune 500 companies reduce the cost and increase the fun and effectiveness of online training. QBI’s innovative Qube Learning System is a hosted platform for customizing QBooks for information delivery, QGames to engrave knowledge in the learner’s brain, Challenge Arenas to increase learner motivation and engagement, and Learning Dashboards to measure individual, team and organizational knowledge.

*Andrew Kimball is a leading authority in organizational learning and human performance technology.

  Media Contacts

Get more of the Qube at www.qube.com
Andrew Kimball, QBInternational, 415-464-8880, ext. 110 akimball@qube.com
Rick Swanson, QBInternational, 415-464-8880, ext. 119, rswanson@qube.com

Note to managers: It's OK to let your employees play games at work.

We're not talking about all those hours fooling around at computer solitaire. Where games have their place – and significant benefits -- is in livening up boring corporate
training sessions.

Companies in the U.S. spend about $60 billion a year on training their employees, but there's a good chance much of that is wasted. The reason: Most training sessions are just too dull. (Web-based elearning classes were supposed to fix that, but in reality they
just allow employees to get bored at their own pace.) As a result, employees aren't coming away from the training with the knowledge or skills their employers are paying for.

"Forget learning," says Marcia Sitcoske, director of Cisco Systems Inc.'s Creative Learning Studio, whose mission is to make the company's online training tools more effective and appealing. "People aren't even completing these things, they're so boring."

Training experts insist it doesn't have to be this way. They argue that companies could make their employee-education programs more compelling, and more effective, if they made them more fun -- specifically, more like computer games.
Evidence suggests adults learn more and retain more in courses that incorporate such game elements as competitive scoring, increasingly difficult player levels and fantasy role playing.

But many managers remain skeptical. It's a rare boss who thrills at seeing workers playing games on the job, and adding games to a learning package tacks on extra expense.

 War Games

The U.S. military is a lot further along in adopting game elements in training than are most businesses. In part, that's because learning on a computer is much cheaper and safer than in the field, and recruits come from a generation comfortable in the fast-paced gaming world. The best of the military's training games rival the complexity and richness of some of the best videogames. In fact, a version of Full Spectrum Warrior, a training game developed for the U.S. Army by the Institute for Creative Technologies at the University of Southern California, has recently been released for the public game market.

Outside of a few custom-designed applications, such games remain a rarity in the corporate training world; don't look for Full Spectrum CEO anytime soon. Instead, a growing number of companies are turning to more modest courses that mix
work and play.

In some cases, the lack of good commercial alternatives has prompted companies to take a do-it-yourself approach. Cisco Systems' Creative Learning Studio, formed in 2001, uses technology, high-quality video -- and entertainment – to enliven its vast library of online training tools. It now has about 4,500 e-learning courses of varying lengths.

One such course, for employees and outsiders seeking certification as authorized Cisco "networking professionals," uses a game to help teach fundamentals of building a highspeed network of shared storage devices. Called SAN Rover (for storage area network), the game requires students to race the clock to gather the pieces -- hard drives, switches and other components -- and correctly put together such a network while dodging crashing asteroids.

The game, which reinforces the skills students learn in classes and from their reading, has been played about 2,000 times since it was introduced last June. "More and more people are learning that gaming can be useful in training in the corporate environment," Cisco's Ms. Sitcoske says.

 It's All About Competition

Companies also can turn to simple, off-the-shelf games for reviewing and testing. The games don't even have to be that sophisticated as long as they include an essential element: competition.

Borland Software Corp. wanted to give its sales staff an incentive to master details of its product line before an annual world-wide sales meeting earlier this year, and was looking for better results than with its previous PowerPoint-laden elearning program. So it turned to QBInternational, a San Rafael, Calif., e-learning company, to develop online study guides that incorporated a series of games for testing students' knowledge of the material.

The simple games, based on such diversions as tic-tac-toe and hangman, featured a series of timed questions. Each member of the sales staff had to get at least 80% of the answers correct on a series of nine tests interspersed with the lessons, and those who received perfect scores were entered into a drawing for five Apple iPods. Everyone also had to take a final comprehensive exam of 100 questions, and the one with the highest score and fastest time received a $3,000 prize.

Though the games weren't very sophisticated, they were enough to motivate the highly competitive salespeople. Scores in the preliminary exams were posted for all to see.

"All of sudden, people are instant messaging each other, 'You're on top today, but you're going down,' " says Wynn Johnson, director of field readiness for Borland, based in Scott City, Calif. "The competition is a motivator."

Write to Michael Totty at michael.totty@wsj.com

US Sports Camps adds online QBooks™ to enhance campers’ experience, increase knowledge of individual sport

San Rafael, CA 3/7/05 QBInternational, a global provider of custom eLearning services and integrated business skills workshops, announces the selection of its Qube Learning System knowledge transfer tool by US Sports Camps, operators of Nike Sports Camps.

With the availability of the Qube Learning System’s interactive QBooks, campers will now be able to gain advanced knowledge of their particular sport, engage in online competition and begin an entertaining camping experience, before they actually attend summer camp. US Sports Camps, along with its Nike Sports Camps, offers a network of over 500 camps in 15 different sports with unique instructional programs for all ability levels.

The interactive QBooks combine the look-and-feel of an actual page-turning book with the functionality of a web page. Campers will be able to move back and forth between the QBook and other hyperlinked content, write notes, print pages and save the QBook on their computers for reading anytime. Campers can also jump into the Challenge Arena to play games related to their sport.

Andrew Kimball*, CEO of QBInternational, stated “The rapid deployment capability of the Qube Learning System allows us to deliver QBooks designed for each individual sport such as basketball, tennis and soccer by early spring so campers can begin their experience before attending the camps in June.”

Steve Pence, President of US Sports Camps, stated “We are extremely excited about the Qube technology and the endless possibilities that lie ahead … should be a great journey together.”

The Qube Learning System, already in use by a wide variety of industries, has four core components:

	QBooks incorporate a variety of text, graphics, video, links and navigation tools that together provide an instructionally effective content delivery mechanism.
	QGames are the heart of the Qube’s “Learn by Play” instructional design. The result of decades of research, QGames consist of a wide variety of field-proven, easily customizable, interactive, and engaging game frames that can accommodate customized questions and answers on any topic.
	QLibrary are customizable, web-based administrative ‘launch pads’ where learners log in to access their organization’s QBooks, QGames, and other reference resources.
	The QLibrary also provides a host of learning analytics that provide an adaptive learning environment for the learner.
	QLibris is an online authoring platform used to develop custom, game-based QBooks, QGames, and QLibraries, while also providing learner and platform administration.

QBInternational www.qube.com (est. 1996) helps Fortune 500 companies reduce the cost and increase the fun and effectiveness of online training. QBI’s innovative Qube Learning System is a hosted platform for customizing QBooks for information delivery, QGames to engrave knowledge in the learner’s brain, Challenge Arenas to increase learner motivation and engagement, and Learning Dashboards to measure individual, team and organizational knowledge.

*Andrew Kimball is a leading authority in organizational learning and human performance technology.

  Media Contacts

Get more of the Qube at www.qube.com
Andrew Kimball, QBInternational, 415-464-8880, ext. 110 akimball@qube.com
Rick Swanson, QBInternational, 415-464-8880, ext. 119, rswanson@qube.com