Effective training in 3D learning worlds – doing more with less.

If you are thinking of how you and your team will survive current downturn, you are not alone.  Over the last couple of months this became a theme of many conversations I heard and for a good reason.  Training is not going to be immune to this round of belt tightening.  Regardless of the level of your optimism, budget slashing seem to be the inevitable next item on the agenda, or perhaps it already affected you and your organization.  This is exactly the reason why AHG created a new training tool that allows you to cut budget without jeopardizing your work and future growth.  Trying to preserve budgets in current environment is a loosing battle. The better strategy is to concentrate on a solution that saves significant resources while improving training results – KPI’s, time to ready and durability.  Immersive Communication Training System (ICTS) can create uniquely-effective training solutions in 3D learning worlds, such as Second Life.  But this is only half of the story.  The second half is that you do need to hire or involve inside or outside programmers and training designers do not need to have technical background.  You create training simulations using intuitive Graphic User Interface.  If you are capable of using computer mouse to move color rectangles on a screen, clicking them to interconnect rectangles with arrows, then you can create a training simulation as simple as short sales call, or as complex as equipment handling lesson.

Prior to the age of personal computers, professionals would hand-write their notes and then have them typed by typists.  Similar situation still exists in training where instructional professionals design training and have programmers implement it using computer technologies.  It certainly looks like a silver lining of this downturn might be in the 3D learning environments (i.e. Second Life), and technologies, such as ICTS, to get rid of intermediaries.  Doing this might just be the key to preserve and position your team for better future in the times of slashed budgets.

You will find more information on http://www.ahg.com (click on the Immersive Communication Training System button, or click on the direct URL:

http://second-life-training.ahg.com/training_simulations/second_life_immersive_communication_training.htm

)

Think 'Learning Process' Not 'Learning Event'

Traditionally, training has been thought of as an event. You go to a training class or you log into an e-learning module and take the training but then you never seem to have any follow up or follow through. You never again look at those  'action items' you wrote down at the end of class.

Changes are needed.

One of the ways to ensure that training leads to behavioral change is to follow up on the actions learners indicated they would take. Before technology,  follow up was too cumbersome but now you can leverage  technology tools to help remind learners of what they learned and what they need to do to continue the process and to build a learning process around a particular subject.

Perhaps the simplest technology to employ is to send an email several weeks after class highlighting the main performance objectives from the class and reminding the learner of what he or she might do to apply the techniques for class to daily job activities. You may even consider sending an email to the manager to remind her of what her employee should be doing back on the job as it relates to the topics covered in the learning event.

To get a little more sophisticated, you could create a learning blog within the company and encourage the participants from the class to visit the blog and write about how they are applying the information recently acquired to their work processes. You should have someone monitor the site to add additional insights and help explain concepts employees may have trouble implementing.

Another, even more sophisticated approach is to create an on-line social network. This allows for more robust interactions among the former classmates and can be used to post RSS feeds from related blogs as well as connect learners to one another and relevant content.  A good social network software for this type of thing is Ning or IntroNetworks.

Recently I wrote about a process created by Cal Wick where his company has created an entire software application that provides tools for following up on end-of-training commitments of the learners. The software provides a dashboard for managers and allows the learners to follow their progress and the progress of others over time. The level of sophistication is high but the tools are simple and straightforward. 

So next time you are developing a learning event, stop and think how you can leverage technology to transform learning into a process. Your organization will be stronger for it.

Karl Kapp is the Assistant Director of Bloomsburg University’s Institute for Interactive Technologies and a professor of instructional technology. See his own blog, Kapp Notes for information on the convergence of learning and technology. He is the author of the book Gadgets, Games and Gizmos for Learning.   

Virtual Worlds Training for Corporate Executives

Corporations researching virtual worlds as a training platform quickly realize that they lack expertise to fully capitalize on the benefits and avoid costly mistakes.  If they don’t, quite often they become a good candidate for me to talk about during the next seminar “Avoiding Costly Mistakes When Starting Corporate Virtual World Training Program”.   Steve Prentice, VP of Gartner recently noted that early attempts [working with virtual worlds] suffered from a lack of clear objectives and a limited understanding of the demographics, attitudes and expectations of virtual-world communities.  As a clearer understanding of the dynamics of this new media channel develops, Gartner expects this situation to change.  Despite understandable concerns about investment during a time of growing business uncertainty […] the internal deployment of virtual worlds offers most enterprises significant benefits in cost savings and improved productivity. 

To help corporations realize this potential to its fullest, AHG started a series of new courses taught by a team of experts who have real life experience creating, consulting, and supervising successful Second Life / Virtual World programs. We share our expertise in a series of hands-on courses that encompass corporate training, HR, marketing and other activities as related to corporate use of virtual worlds.  AHG offers two separate tracks: Executive and Instructional Designer / Developer. Instructional Designer track provides hands-on training focused on day-to-day development and maintenance of Virtual World projects. After the courses are completed, students are able to design and build Second Life environments, create simple scripts, implement and modify scripts developed by others. They also develop an understanding of human factor issues that affect productivity and quality learning in virtual world environments, techniques to "flatten" learning curve, importance of standards, methodologies, and life cycles in the management of Second Life projects and resources. 

Executive Track courses provide in-depth understanding of virtual worlds from an executive perspective as a tool for the creation of a sustainable competitive advantage. These courses offer up-to-date information on theory behind successful Second Life implementations, practical approaches, promising new developments, successes, and problem areas in other companies’ implementation of virtual worlds in corporate environment.  As an added benefit, AHG shares audio recordings from our Second Life round table where executives of companies such as Accenture, Michelin, Philips and others describe their experience with Second Life projects.

You will find more information on http://www.ahg.com/courses/second_life_courses.htm

Second Life Corporate Training Roundtable Audio Record

Late June, Linden Lab celebrated the fifth anniversary of
Second Life.  The whole week, starting  June 30 was devoted
exclusively to business uses of Second Life.  AHG, Inc. was
asked to run a round-table discussion "Starting Corporate
Training Program in Second Life: Best Practices, Security
Concerns and Future Developments".

An hour and fifteen minutes - long roundtable discussion
was full of insightful information from people who have
implemented Second Life projects on an enterprise level
and now have unique prospective on both advantages and
deficiencies of Second Life and virtual worlds in general.

Panelists included Chief IT Architect of Michelin and
Business Director of Linden Lab,  Senior Analysts from
ThinkBalm and O'Reilly, Accenture Internet Channel Lead
and Business Director of Royal Philips Electronics, computer
and behavioral scientists.  We discussed security issues,
corporate use and growth patterns,  world-wide recruiting
project,  ways Second Life helps in enterprise mission,
and other issues of importance.

The audio record of the event  is now available for
download. If you are interested, you can request audio at
the following page:

http://www.ahg.com/Second_Life/roundtable_reg.htm

Second Life roundtable / corporate training

It’s hard to believe, but Second Life is officially turning five years old.  Linden Labs (the company behind the Second Life) is celebrating the anniversary with a series of expositions, discussions, conferences and other events.  The whole week, starting June 30, will be devoted exclusively to business uses of Second Life.  I was asked to run a round-table discussion "Starting Corporate Training Program in Second Life: Best Practices, Security Concerns and Future Developments".  We already have a list of respected panelists that includes folks from the industry who implemented Second Life solutions in training and marketing, analysts with well-known technology and market research company, business liaisons from Linden Lab and others. 

Given that you are reading this blog I think it would be inconceivable to miss this opportunity to gather more valuable information in one hour then you otherwise  would be researching for years.  And the best part:  you will be getting information directly from the people who has been involved in business implementations of Second Life solutions. 

Tentatively, we set up round table for Monday, June 30th at 9 AM Pacific / 12 noon Eastern.

Please, e-mail me at info1 @ deltaltraining.com if you would like to attend.

Right now we are researching possibility of streaming video+audio from Second Life using GoToMeeting for those who would like to be present, but their corporate network prevents them from connecting to SL directly.  If this works out, the number of people who will be able to connect using GoToMeeting will be limited to 15, "first come/first served, single computer connection from a company," so if your firewall "filters out" Second Life, but allows GoToMeeting connections, you might want to register asap.

New Hire Orientation in Second Life

Last month I was privileged to be a part of a VBusiness Expo panel on corporate training and, along the way, came across several interesting ideas that I wanted to share with you. 

One of the presenters was Scott Randall attacking issues of trying to get specific messages through to your employees (especially those under the age of 35 - Gen Y) in an age of information overload.  His solution - to put it briefly - is to use "semiotic domains", that is "any set of practices that recruits one or more modalities (oral or written language, images, symbols, equations, sounds, gestures, etc.) to communicate distinctive types of meanings."  As one of those domains Scott emphasizes virtual worlds that acknowledge the audience’s learning orientation, engages them on an emotional level and speaks their language. 

There is much to say about virtual worlds in general and, as you know, I am not impartial in this regard.  The reason I became so interested in this presentation is that among other things it dealt with new hires and Gen Y peculiarities.  This is the subject of
Robotic Instructors in New Hire Orientation and Onboarding simulation
we just competed. 

Robotic Instructors are avatars that are operated by a computer program.  They log in Second Life on demand, provide a guided tour or lesson(s) for trainees and log out after the session is completed.  Robotic Instructors can ask trainee to repeat specific steps and provide a feedback.  Importantly, the simulation is completely controlled through a graphic web interface.  Non-programmers, such as instructional designers or training specialists, can modify an existing simulation or even create a new one without a single line of code.  Simulation is located outside Second Life network and thus provides high security for the enterprise applications. 

Gartner predicted that 80 percent of internet users will have a "Second Life" in the Virtual World by the end of 2011, but cautioned enterprise to take "baby steps" -- experiment with virtual worlds, but not start massive projects.  Robotic Instructors simulation ideally answers this recommendation.  With a minimal starting investment and strong opportunity for growth, incredible flexibility and enterprise-level security it might be a good way to test virtual world simulations. 

Second Life: best practices.

It is characteristic of a paradigm shift that significant differences and disagreements on implementation strategies exist during early adoption stage.  As a result, I was not surprised finding myself in the middle of such disagreement past Friday, April 25^th.  That day I was privileged to be on the Corporate training in Second Life panel of the vBusiness Expo (http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/marketwire/0389917.htm). [An important note: Congratulations to Clever Zebra (http://cleverzebra.com) for great organization – rarely have I seen an event run so smoothly in any life – real or otherwise.] The discussion highlighted two opposing approaches in using Second Life in corporate environment.  Champions of the first approach first and foremost see Second Life as a social tool best suited to facilitate communication within the enterprise. Indeed, few people would argue that Second Life is a great communication platform.  What I would argue, however, that social networking is the most obvious, but not the strongest side of virtual worlds in general and Second Life in particular.  Indeed, you can find other tools that allow your team to remotely communicate, often using wider possibilities, such as use of whiteboard, VOIP, streaming video, etc.  In many cases your team will even feel more comfortable using remote conferencing tools, so if conferencing is the only reason you consider Second Life, you will be better off googling “remote conferencing software”.  My search produced 2,750,000 results for this term.  Not surprisingly, though, search on double-term “remote conferencing software”+”Second Life” produced no (as in “zero”, “null”) results, in its own way proving that Second Life is not a remote conferencing software. 

You might be surprised to hear that from such as committed supporter of Second Life corporate use, but I agree – if anything, conferencing is only tangential, at best, use of Second Life in the enterprise.  Second Life is unmatched in corporate training where it allows you to create experiential, immersive environment.  Even more importantly, it has tools to create training simulations in distinctly different areas, such as teamwork and leadership, communications, project management, technical training and others (see Second Life training simulations). Remote conference does not benefit much if every team member is represented by a three-dimensional avatar.  However, ability to run your three-dimensional avatar through a sales simulation in an environment closely resembling the real thing, or ability to assemble/disassemble piece of machinery in 3D before doing it in real life, or training tag-out/lock-out or other OSHA requirements, or training managers in giving meaningful annual reviews, or dealing with difficult people – these and other areas where companies spend a bulk of training budget and time – all benefit from the inherently strong experiential and 3D qualities of  Second Life.

Up until recently wider acceptance of Second life in corporate training was blocked by necessity to conduct training in a synchronous mode with instructor leading training at all times.  Indeed, in e-learning we expect trainees to be able to learn and practice on their own and instructor serve as a figure of authority and a safety net.  With the introduction of specialized e-learning smart robots (see Second Life robotic avatars) Second Life training can be switched to asynchronous mode.  Smart robots look and act as if they represent real people, but in fact are operated by computer software.  Every time a trainee logs in to complete assigned task the system logs the process for future assessment by trainee and instructor.  Detailed reports on specific tasks and progress reports are available.  Since robotic avatar software and training-related data are located on a corporate network outside Second Life data security is drastically improved.  This raises the whole issue of data protection and security in Second Life – too far from the topic of this post, but I hope I will have a chance to return to it next time I get to this blog.

Friday Fun: But Learning Related

  Mobile Learning is a hot topic in many fields, it is not the download of an e-learning course on a small screen--rather it is a careful use of a mobile device to deliver small chunks of learning or performance support right when a learner needs it. To make mobile learning work, think "outside of the course." You need to think about learning via text-messages or short videos as well as audio files for instruction. Even applications where learners can call in to each other and leave a message, or consider an online glossary or a quick mobile game that reinforces learning. The applications are almost endless.

Plus, almost everyone owns a mobile device of some sort or another so the use of mobile devices for learning is a natural next step.

So if you are curious about checking out some thinking on mobile learning, check out this interesting demo from Wizdom and test your knowledge.

Also take a look at mlearnopedia. Its got great resources and information and check out David Metcalf's book

Karl Kapp is the Assistant Director of Bloomsburg University’s Institute for Interactive Technologies and a professor of instructional technology. See his own blog, Kapp Notes for information on the convergence of learning and technology. He is the author of the book Gadgets, Games and Gizmos for Learning.   

Friday Fun

It's Friday before the holiday week and things are crazy. If you  need a little fun, here are three interesting and educational distractions that you might enjoy.

If you want to seem like you are working and not taking a break, view each of these learning pieces in light of the training you are planning on developing in 2008. Can you create e-learning that is fun, engaging and educational? Can you take a simple story and make it exciting and interesting? Can you re-configure your quizzes and assessments to not seem like quizzes and assessments? Can you take a difficult concept and convert it to an online board game?

First, check out a nice holiday story presented by the folks at Enspire Learning. An enjoyable tale titled How the Finch Stole E-Learning. Great captivating and enjoyable story told simply but effectively and if you listen closely, you will hear an underlying message...consider the same approach for some of your e-learning.

Next consider how much work it takes the US Diary council to get kids to drink milk, not an easy undertaking with all of those sweet competing beverages. So they created a highly interactive online board game called Get the Glass. Take a few moments and play this game to see how interactive and how effective e-learning can be when graphics, programming and imagination are not limited (you know, by budget.)

Next, here is an assessment created by a group of students at Bloomsburg University's Instructional Technology program, they routinely work on great stuff like this.   This is based on my book Gadgets, Games and Gizmos for Learning (a great corporate Christmas or Holiday Gift by the way). The assessment identifies what level "Gamer" you are based on how you answer a series of questions. Try your hand at Gamer Rater.

So while all three of these activities are fun and engaging, you can also use them to help you think about what you want your e-learning to look like in 2008. Enjoy and Happy Holidays to all.

Karl Kapp is the Assistant Director of Bloomsburg University’s Institute for Interactive Technologies and a professor of instructional technology. See his own blog, Kapp Notes for information on the convergence of learning and technology. He is the author of the book Gadgets, Games and Gizmos for Learning.   

Gadgets for Learning

It is coming up on a special time a year, a time that many look forward to with great anticipation...its the time when electronics companies release new GADGETS! Interestingly, a number of these gadgets have some serious potential in the world of learning.

I'm not the only one tuned into this topic, Susan Smith Nash over at Learning Queen recently had a post titled Top Gadgets that Change ELearning and Tom Crawford and Mark Oehlert have been having an ongoing discussion about Amazon's new Kindle which you can read about in:

• Kindle the Universal Textbook?
• Kindle...The Single Purpose Device
• Tom and I disagree and then I Kinda Support his Argument?

I had a post about the Kindle as well Amazon.com Announces New Electronic Book...Kindle

And of course all the buzz about the iPhone and iTouch has hardly worn off. So what is a learning professional to think about all of this technology and how does it impact learning design, delivery and strategy.

First I think technology needs to come second to meeting the business and learning objectives. Design learning events that are needed and necessary...do not design around a device.

Find the learning need first. When you think about meeting a burning learning or performance need, the right technology just appears, you don't need to force the learning to match the technology.

Karl Kapp is the Assistant Director of Bloomsburg University’s Institute for Interactive Technologies and a professor of instructional technology. See his own blog, Kapp Notes for information on the convergence of learning and technology. He is the author of the book Gadgets, Games and Gizmos for Learning.