Mobile eLearning Virtual Worlds, Environments, and Serious Games

During the 3DTLC conference I was watching the twitter streams of @moehlert and @koreenolbrish (and others).  It reminded me how powerful virtual worlds can be as learning tools, and that there are organizations making them a large part of their training organization.

There are many great blog posts regarding the event (here's one and another and another).  But your best resource from the event conversations is search.twitter.com and search the term 3dtlc.

One comment that was tweeted mentioned a need for VWs to begin making their way onto mobile devises.  Of course I'm very interested in seeing that as well...but I feel like its still a long way off before that works correctly.

or is it really that far off?

I tweeted back that I liked the idea but couldn't see how my World of Warcraft interface could work on an iPhone.  Surprise!  MMOSITE.com has a post with video showing World of Warcraft playing on an iPhone. Wow!  Now I CAN see how VWs will work on an iphone.

It doesn't matter to me whether or not WoW makes it onto the iPhone.  What DOES matter is seeing that it is possible to have a virtual environment on a mobile device.

Both mLearning AND Immersive Learning Simulations still seem too futuristic for many organizations.  And the ROI is not immediately apparent.  Opened-ended "environments" for learning also don't fit neatly into the ADDIE model for instructional designers.  And that is a major hurdle for the industry.  If the creators of learning content can't figure out the value and how to work with these new tools then the proper learning models will not get created.

I'm not saying that learning content will NEVER get created, but the adoption will be slow within corporate elearning. 

Some day the culture will catch up with these amazing new technologies and we won't even think twice about their exhistance.  I'm guessing that as I grow old I will be spending WAY too many hours "INWORLD" throughout my golden years.  Until then, I'll have to settle for a few minutes here and there as life permits ;-)

My Thoughts on SoMe and ADDIE model

Hi Andy! And others from The eLearning Guild's online forum opening session. I wanted to finish my "chat" thought here and see how it turns out. Let me know what you think.

Cheers!

Brent @bschlenker

Mobile post sent by bschlenker using Utterli.  Replies.

Google spotlights news timeline, labs work | Webware - CNET

I love timeline views! Probably one of my favorite visual tools for
learning.
So I'm psyched to Google offering this view of their incredible data.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10223607-2.html

Ten Commandments of eLearning - What are yours?

I found Cath Ellis via Twitter (@cathellis13) by checking my saved search in Tweetdeck for eLearning.  She was discussing her list of eLearning 10 commandments.  A couple of us requested her list and she responded on her blog with a post titled Ten Commandments of eLearning.

I like this list and it is inspiring me to write my own.  I would like to encourage others to do the same.  Some of Cath's commandments align directly with some of my own elearning elements, but I've never put them into a list like this.  Its a great exercise and will post my list soon.

And remember...there is no right or wrong.  Your list may differ simply because you are working in a different industry.  And that's okay.  If one of Cath's, or someone elses, doesn't work for you that doesn't mean its wrong.  One thing I've discovered over the years is that not every elearning model applies to every elearning deveopment situation.  So, don't be negative with your comments...BE NICE!  Maybe that should be #1 ;-)

Cute Beats Smart - Corporate Working Application?

I love this article!  Tweenbots: Cute Beats Smart Why?  Because of the HUMAN element.  Human's assisting a robot to reach its goal.  People working WITH technology to get things done.  Simplicity in design has always been held as the ideal.  But more often then not when applied to technology solutions we don't insert the interaction and interconnection of human behavior in our solutions.  Why?  Because humans are unpredictable.  And in our scientific culture everything must be exact and perfect and...well...explainable...rational...and have some sort of ROI. 

Its impossible to explain WHY people helped the little robot reach its goal.  But many people did...for many different reasons.

Do we TRUST our employees enough to include them and their behaviors, in our eLearning solutions?  Do you trust that you have hired smart people who can manage their time, and participate in life-long learning?  Or do you need to put a mandate on everything so that you can enforce compliance, and "get results"? 

It certainly helps us sleep at night knowing that you have checked off the line item that ALL employees have been trained on x.y.z skill.  But wouldn't you feel much more secure in knowing that your employees have LEARNED and APPLIED x.y.z skill?

I believe new media and web technologies allow us to manage the more fluid nature of learning in ways never before possible.  Manage is probably too strong of a word, but i use it to make you "control" types a little more comfortable with the idea of chaos.  Learning is messy and a certain level of uncertaintly and chaos is required.  Formal, structured, training "events" cannot, by design, encourage and support uncertaintly and chaos. 

But maybe there is a new instructional design model, waiting to be defined, that DOES take human behavior into consideration as an important element.  Maybe?  Here's to hoping its discovered soon.

Network Effects - Collaboration Curve - MMO Serious Game

The Informal Learning Blog by Jay Cross exposes the introduction of the collaboration curve to the learning community in this post.  Cool stuff.  I must admit I became more interested in reading the Harvard Business blog (The Big Shift) post "Introducing the Collaboration Curve.", when I saw the words World of Warcraft.  Expanding the idea of network effects one step further with the collaboration curve is intriguing to me because it puts a name to an idea that we have all been discussing.

The basic idea as it relates to WoW is this...

"It takes roughly 150 hours of accumulated game play to earn the first 2 million experience points but players on average are able to earn another 8 million experience points in the next 150 hours of accumulated game play. Even though, within the game, experience points become more difficult to acquire as you advance, World of Warcraft players are improving their performance four times faster as they continue to play the game."

I can relate because I am now "playing" WoW WITH someone, AND enjoying the benefits of belonging to a Guild (a group of players).  This SIGNIFICANTLY changes the game because it is more fun.  Its more fun because I'm learning more.  I'm learning more because other guild members are willing to share.  And in turn I'm happy to share what I know with others as they enter the game/guild.  This is the basic idea of the Collaboration Curve.  We all become exponentially more productive as we begin to collaborate with more and more people.  Since I get very little time to actually play, my limited time "in-world" has become a lot more productive.

If you are reading this blog post, then my guess is that you have experienced the collaboration curve...and network effects. 

The up side of collaboration MUST be more important than the potential downside of collaboration, right?  Wait...huh?!  There's a downside?  Well, there must be some sort of downside to having productive employees because many prominent organzations do not allow the use of the tools that enhance and support collaborative efforts. 

Other items of interest I found while surfing this topic:
Learning curve
Experience effect

12 Brain Rules continue to stir interest with Instructional Designers

Dr. Medina, author of Brain Rules was the keynote at DevLearn08 and he was outstanding!  The book and his keynote address learning and education at great lengths.  If you are an instructional designer looking for deeping understanding of your career, then you MUST read this book.  Learning behavioral theory is one thing, but understanding the specifics of how the brain truly processes environmental stimuli is far more enlightening...IMO.  Perhaps Graduate ID programs should include a course on neuroscience.

Brain Rules Conversation
If you missed the conference and/or still need to read the book, then buy it now and follow along with Clive Shepherd's discussion.  Clive is addressing all 12 of Dr. Medina's brain rules on his blog Clive on Learning.  He's up to #4 today, so you can still get in on it: Rule #1 Rule #2 Rule #3 Rule #4

What you will find after reading the book, or watching the many YouTube videos, is that your/our current instructional design models are in direct conflict with how the brain actually functions...go figure.

Some of my previous posts on this topic:
There is no Brain2.0...so why Learning2.0?
12 Brain Rules - Become a Fan! - Brain Rules for StoryTellers
Discover The Brain - and James Gee

The Twitterprise - 2009 is about our Corporate Cultures, NOT the Technology

I follow @marciamarcia on twitter...and have done so for a while.  Totally forgot that she also writes for FastCompany. Sorry, Marcia ;-(

She wrote an EXCELLENT article titled "Twitterprise: Bringing Whole Selves to Work".  So much great stuff in it that you must follow the link to get it all in.

The reason I like the article so much is that it truly gets to the heart of all this 2.0 stuff.  After the honeymoon buzz of new technologies wears off, we are still left with the realies of dealing with the people in our organizations.  The technologies are USELESS without the complete and total transformation of our internal corporate cultures.  And this isn't something you can just mandate, or solve by sheep dipping the masses in a Learning 2.0 Course.  In order for the tools to truly be successful people must USE them on a personal level as well as a professional level.  How people do that is completely up to them.  Some will engage more than others, but the reality is that they MUST engage at some level.

In my decade+ of corporate experience I've seen many extremely talented individuals pidgeon-holed into specific job functions that NEVER truly let those individuals shine to their full capacity.  I felt that way at times myself.  In fact, I do believe it was the act of blogging that inevitably pulled me out of the corporate hole that had been dug for me...by my own hands as well as others. 

Being comfortable with who we are is an issue for all of us.  And exposing who we are to the world just doesn't seem right to so many.  I guess for so many decades corporate life has been a "game" that we all played from 9 to 5, and then return the "real world" and our real selves in the comfort of our own homes.  Its all very sad to me.

My hope is that these new technologies will help us all become more productive corporate and civic citizens, as well as better friends, and family members.