Bottom-Line Performance

One of the biggest of getting into virtual world and simulation learning is the huge gap – both real and perceived – that separates the minds of the gamer and the non-gamer.  Patrick Dunn makes the excellent point in this recent post that the mindset of a game designer is very different from the mindset of an instructional designer. Game or virtual world designers attempt to focus on experiences, and figure that their players will learn as they experience. Learning designers attempt to break experience down into content first, present the content and then hope the learners will be able to translate that information back into experience.

Clearly, some topics are better suited for a content-focused approach…and there’s lots of great info on this blog’s backlog on that approach. But I’ve been focusing recently on trying to learn more about game design so that I can create better experiences for my learners. To do this, I’ve aspired to become more of a gamer. And it’s harder than I thought it would be.

As Chris Brooker says in this article in the Guardian, most gamers (including those who play massively multiplayer online role playing games , or MMORPGs like World of Warcraft – which is similar in many ways to virtual worlds like Second Life) have trouble explaining the experience to non-gamers.  So I was very excited to read at the end of his article a list of games he suggests people start with. The first one, which you can play for free online right now, is Canabalt  Portal , another game on his list, was also recommended to me by a gamer friend.

Of course not all virtual experiences are games. This post by B.J. Schone highlights 25 Awesome Virtual Learning Experiences Online. Imagine the technology involved in any of the tour experiences being applied to teach new employees how to find things on a corporate campus. Here, Eric Tremblay talks about how one professor of biology has created Genome Island one of the most popular educational islands in Second Life - and all because her husband suckered her into playing World of Warcraft one summer while she wasn’t teaching.

This last link isn’t exactly the type of learning application we generally get to design for – but I found it so interesting I couldn’t resist putting it in for you. Apparently a virtual environment is being used to treat PTSD – with some fairly significant success.

What cool applications have you seen for virtual or game technology?

It’s December, and as the end of the year approaches, it’s likely that you have spent some time looking at training budgets as one year ends and another begins. It seems with the economic slowdown making news and cutbacks haunting everyone’s consciousness these days, everyone’s thinking about ways to make training less expensive.

Virtual worlds do not fit into this particular trend.

However, this does not mean that virtual worlds can’t be the most cost effective solution for a particular training project. Along with other complex simulations or learning games, virtual world learning solutions can be the most effective solution in a variety of situations.

The stakes are high. Flight simulators are the classic example, because mistakes made when flying airplanes are more expensive than building a simulator to practice on. These days high stakes can include legal, as well as physical consequences. In highly regulated environments, for example, the statements of a sales person can have significant consequences for a business. A lot of business have explored sales training in virtual worlds.

The training group is large and or geographically dispersed. Once you have built a simulation or the components needed within a virtual world, the incremental cost for training additional people are small. IBM uses Second Life for applications like new hire orientation, to systemize the experience employees from all over the world have the same experience.

There isn’t any other practical way to simulate the experience. Situations like large-scale emergencies or natural disasters are not practical to recreate in the real world. The Children’s Memorial Hospital in Chicago has created Second Life simulations to conduct disaster drills and improve disaster planning.

It’s December, the time of year when we start to get those catalogs filled with cool gadgets and devices. They’re cool, and they do things we never imagined we could do. Some of us will unwrap cool gadgets before the month is over, and some of those gadgets will go on to be used every day. My ipod, for example, came to me as a gift. I wouldn’t have ever bought one for myself – but I use it all the time and I love it! Some of those gadgets, on the other hand, will be cool for about 10 minutes after they are unwrapped, and then go sit on a shelf somewhere until they are donated some years later.

This month’s topic is cool new technology in training. The first few posts will be about how virtual worlds are being used. As the month progresses, we’ll delve into some other cool-technologies like augmented reality and gaming, and talk about how they can be used in training and communication as well.

Like those cool gadgets in the December catalogs, though, we might well ask whether virtual worlds are something that will fit into our everyday lives (like my ipod), or something that will end up taking up closet space (like, well, my husband’s ipod). As I implied with that analogy, a lot depends on what you are trying to accomplish, and even on your personality. If you – or your learners –have never played video games and can’t quite figure out why people might want to use them for learners, there is going to be something of a learning curve. The average learning curve to become proficient in Second Life is approximately 20 hours. The cost-benefit calculation for using those sorts of tools changes significantly depending on how familiar your audience already is with the technology.

Subject matter is part of the equation, too. If your subject matter is simple and straightforward, and there is a low risk in the case of failure, then the cost involved with creating a virtual version of the task may not be justified. If, however, you are dealing with content where there is a high consequence to failure, it may make sense to create a virtual environment for your learners to practice. Flight simulators are the classic example, but virtual worlds are being used to train people in everything from sales skills to diagnostics to police enforcement and investigative skills.

If you are interested in more of an overview and some case studies, check out this paper . This blog post has links to several research and related articles talking about the pros and cons. Accenture also did a study on virtual worlds  in training.

Have you ever used a virtual world in your organization? Or to learn something outside of work? We’d love to hear about your experiences!