eLearning Guild Demo Fest: Sun MicroSystems

The eLearning Guild hosted a webinar this afternoon featuring the winners of The eLearning DemoFest which took place at the DevLearn Conference & Expo on November 7, 2007.

The Winners Were:

• Seal Works - Ariel
• Can Do It, LLC, 3-D Instructions
• Sun Microsystems
• OnPoint Digital, Sales Quenchers - mLearning
• KPMG - Expense Reimbursement Training
• Oxygen Education - Emag machine

I wasn't able to sit in on the full session, but what I saw was worthy of passing along, particularly the Sun Microsystems New Hire program, which uses web 2.0 technologies and gaming to create a unique onboarding experience.

Project

Sun Microsytems

Brandon Carson, instructional designer

Project: New Hire Experience “Join the Network”

Sun has put a real focus on telecommuting -- many employees don't work in an office.

Publicly available training program.

Wiki Platform

• Using Web 2.0 tools to create a new hire experience
• Built using the Confluence Enterprise Wiki platform
• Brandon said they were “corrupting the real idea of a wiki”. Not truly a collaborative learning platform.
• Strong visual aesthetic.
• In a true wiki, anyone can get on and change content. Sun added a lot of page-level restrictions.
• Lots of widgets on the site
• View other users who are logged in and talk to them
• Watch videos of CEO, corporate commercials
• If logged in behind Sun Firewall, see Tag Cloud and more links to internal information.

Game Based Learning

Finding more effective ways to teach about Sun and the business.

Game based learning programs that teach high level info about business, mission values. “You’ve just joined Sun – now you’re an action hero!”

To get to the game, click on the PLAY icon on the home page, or just go there right now.

A click through text-based adventure game: Dawn of the Shadow Specters

• 20 minute experience
• Writing a relevant story and wrapping that around important content
• Not real interactive – mostly reading the story, exploring different rooms, picking up objects

Video Type game: Rise of the Shadow Specters

• NetGener demographic with exciting twitch speed game play.
• Teach about business practices with more serious puzzles and gameplay. Traditional video game.
• I think he said that it uses REAL game controllers.

More Project Facts

Response so far has been – revolutionary for Sun – lots of good feedback.

• Average age of Sun employee is 42
• Project cost: $150K in external vendor costs
• Project length: Created over 4 months.
• Development Team: 1 instructional designer, 6 game developers, 5 wiki developers, plus additional designers

View the Sun New Hire Project.

I just saw that Tracy Hamilton posted her notes from the session as well. She saw the first two presenters.

Update:
I was just looking at the Enspire Learning website, and it looks like they did the development work on the Shadow Specters Game for Sun.