eLearning Rebel

KPMG is using 3D VMs for recruiting. They first tried out 2nd Life but found out that it was much too complex to introduce. So they went back a few steps to a more recognizable technology based on Unisfair which integrates Web 2.0 technologies. They put on a global recruiting event with 11,000 people and it only cost $200K to market the event and only $50K to setup and run. That’s right … $50K to run a 48 hour global recruiting event.

The Holocaust Memorial in D.C. has created a virtual version of the museum to provide a space to learn in which really is not possible to do on a 2D website.  They trained teenagers how to build in 2nd Life and allowed them to develop on the project.

As a user goes through the 3D VM, it is narrated by actual holocaust victims. This environment allows for a “shared learning experience”. That is a very key point to all of this. In an traditional asynchronous elearning session, you are learning alone. If you could work through the same learning challenges in a team, even a small group you get the added component of the “shared” learning.  Here’s another research opportunity. Do students get more engaged, motivated, retain learning when working in small work groups or when they work through a learning experience alone? If you go into 2nd Life and look up US Holocaust Museum you can teleport to the museum.

Collaboration in 3D VMs is quite a different experience then sitting and watching a WebEx type conference. For example you can have a virtual beach front property where you conduct the meeting and then hang out afterwards and socialize and get to now one another.

Here’s a very cool idea is to have a virtual office location and have open office hours for mentoring, coaching and again wouldn’t be nice to meet in a nice park or island beach which is much more relaxing than sitting in a stuffy office.

Cisco has had a collaboration virtual team department for 13 years in the sales group. They originally built the model off of the IBM model.  The business need was simple, the business shut down travel and people needed to meet and collaborate.

Here’s an interesting concept to explore. In a traditional software application elearning a student goes through a series of screen shot driven simulations but they do it alone in a self paced environment. Imagine now learning in a virtual computer lab with other students also working on software training. You could virtually lean over and ask questions or break into discussions about the process around the software application.

Back here at the 3D Learning Conference. The first presentation is a discussion of a wiki research project taking a look at virtual worlds and their applications in the business world. The speaker is a classic with a beard, long hair and a black Amish style hat. And of course he has a MacBook Pro with lots of crazy stickers on it. I would never put stickers on my MacBook Pro. Yes, I am a MacBook Pro owner.

The theme again this morning, in regards to training applications, is that 3D virtual worlds introduce an opportunity for people to learn together live. Virtual World training evironments should allow for quicker up time to train on various skills and domains.

For the first time in this conference the topic of informal vs formal training. Formal training is not going to away nor will learning management systems. The comment made is that virtual worlds has the capability to integrate both informal and formal learning.

One thing that I have noticed about this conference is that very little has been mentioned in regards to cognitive science and how people learn. Speakers thinks like engagment, interactivity, entertainment .. etc., but very little about the research in learning and this technology supports the learning research. This indicates to me that more research is needed in this space.

How do we get to a tipping point for using this technology? The interface must be easy to use and designed to support the end users goal. Secondly we need to move away from the idea that this technology as a game like technology but a business application.

One comment made today, I have actually been making about high end elearning. This technology will only take off when the gaming software companies get the idea that there is a market for this application. I am not quite convinced. We have had very high end elearning designs now for many years and very few companies have picked up on the business concept of selling other then small highly targeted start-up type companies. So I suspect that this technology will also be delivered only by small highly targeted companies.

An interesting conversation has begun around … what is the business case .. why would we start writing checks (or cutting POs) to introduce this technology as an enterprise business solution? Great point presented, is that we need a few things to work really well like safety training for example. If the safety training industry broadly adopts this technology that’s a great win. We shouldn’t wait for the technology to be on every desktop. The recommendation just made is that we should look for compliance, mandatory type training and focus on this area and then gather research on this area.

Finally, I just heard a very cool idea. During the design phase of a hotel, prior to starting the construction, the design documents were taken to create a virtual version of the hotel. They constructed a model of the building and allowed the construction team to walk through in 3D and have meetings and discussions about the construction of the building before it was even built, which then influenced the construction itself. That’s innovative!

Another idea presented … extend live programs to 365 day per year interactions and collaborations. I have seen post conference Web 2.0 collaboration tools and my experience has been that once people leave the live event, they get back to their job and forget all about the collaboration. We just get too busy to collaborate, innovate .. etc. .. what a shame. Too many emails, status reports and so little collaboration and innovation time.

Ernst & Young did a control study with one group in a traditional instructor lead training and one group in a virtual learning environment. Those that went through the virtual learning environment “felt” a bit more anxiety about approaching the job, possibly because they had a more authentic experience and learned what could happen in a real life challenge. The virtual learning version was more most effective. E&Y did build a learning environment in 2nd Life. This was a fully self-paced course with tracking of their tasks that they had to complete. Students actually improved both performance in their grades in the program as well as their interest level to stay in the program.

Loyalist College has been using 2nd Life for over 2 years and have had over 1000 students passing through their 2nd Life based courses. For example they simulate working as a Canadian border patrol person. Prior to 911 students were allowed to work as students at the border but after 911 they needed an experience. 2nd Life provided a heightened level of engagement. They used live voice to simulate what actually happens.

With the introduction of virtual worlds at Appalachian University the University discovered that students spent more time in their courses then before. The 3D environment is going to be used to break down silos.

Research is still needed to determine whether learners are more or less engaged in a 3D envioronment vs. a live lecture. It’s the pedagogy and application of cognitive science stupid. If giving a lecture in person is not engaging then converting that to a 3D virtual environment with the same pedagogy, the engagement will not change.

3D virtual environments have the potential to break down the barries of being in a “course”. You are in a “learning environment” not a “course”.

Some of the current studies is explore how people react and behave in a virtual world, specifically working as a team. The problem with comparing the virtual world environment with class room because the vm environment allows for ways of learning, e.g., immersion experiential learning. Realistic problem solving with coaching and feedback is a more effective pedagogy as opposed to sitting in lectures as a passive observer. So it’s not necessarily the 3D environment, but the opportunity to practice real-life problems. For example in a course on how to be an entrepreneur, you can be assign a group to start a small company in the real world or in 2nd Life which is much more cost effective and can be achieved with a globally distributed team.

Online you can teach things in ways that would be risky in the real world. For example, have your avatar dress in odd costumes or take on another shape, or color and learn about diversity or what it feels like to be subject to racism for example. This would be highly risky to do this in the real world but in a virtual world you can run some pretty crazy experiential learning events.

Rather then create virtual Universities or Training Centers that look like the real world, let’s be a bit more innovative and create virtual environments that allow our students to do things in the virtual learning environment that we can not do in the real world.

Opening Session:

Sitting in Gallaudet University in Washington D.C., attending the 3D Training, Learning and Collaboration. They are starting out with Tony Driscoll from Duke University, The Fuquoa School of Business, previously worked at IBM. The core theme of the conference is to look at how 3D environments can be used to solve a business problem. Is there a need that people care about, that impacts the business?

First thing we are looking at are the trends in the industry through a panel of experts. Starting out with some interesting questions about enterprise adoption and typical applications of this technology. First panel speaker, Erica Driver, comes from a company called ThinkBalm. Erica is suggesting that we are in the very early seed stages of this technology. We are barely in the innovation stage. Although learning and training is one of the more common areas to apply 3D environments there are several other applications such as customer interactions. The second speaker, Eilif Trondsen, an economist currently works with a spin-off from SRI out of Stanford and is now working with virtual worlds at work. As Eilif has traveled around the world speaking he has discovered that there is very little adoption even in the universities.

Emerging technologies … connecting the virtual to the real. This includes inputs of real data from sensors into the virtual world.

Steve Prentice from Gartner, Inc pointing out that the economy can impact this new innovation. In a difficult economy it is a tough sell to introduce a new technology in the early innovation stages. Steve, mentions that virtual worlds are all about people and social networks. Another obstacle is the IT department so that companies can work with this technology behind the firewall. The other problem is the user interface. These early user interfaces are much to complicated even for technical people. We also need to look at this realistically and ask the question when does this technology improve the business and when does it simply not work? For example if a discussion is only about content, technologies like WebEx work just fine. Presenters and participants need to do thinks differently in this environment. It’s not the same as sitting through a power point meeting. Many companies don’t even use WebEx sorts of technologies.

A second economist, Robert Cohen from Athena Alliance, is on the panel looking at how virtual worlds impact business. Robert has discovered that virtual worlds can enhance training and teamwork much like what occurrs in multi-player online games such as Halo. For example, two companies working in collaboration or if a company is working in collaboration with many different organizations, they assemble a virtual team to solve complex business problems. Another application is the facilitation of the merging of companies, such as a large pharmaceutical purchasing a small bio-tech firm. Another obstacle mentioned is bandwidth. There will be significant need for investment in increased to bandwidth to support the introduction of virtual worlds.