Blog Book Tour: Learning in 3D #lrn3d

When Karl Kapp invited me to join the blog book tour for Learning in 3D, he dangled a little carrot in front of me.  Apparently, I make a cameo appearance.  So I am reading this book as a scavenger hunt (leave it to Karl to turn it into a game!)…my narcissistic antennae all aquiver.

For those of you who don’t already know, this book is Karl Kapp’s and Tony O’Driscoll’s homage to the 3D Learning Environment – a glimpse to the future of education and training (“the learning function”) and how it needs to evolve in order to stay relevant.

My Experience in Virtual Worlds

A few years ago, when Second Life was first coming onto the scene as the next big thing, I sat in my office and scratched my head. 

Karl kindly offered to give me a tour – and so there we were – flying around, looking at drills, walking through computer parts.  I remember laughing out loud in my office when I just disappeared at some point by accident. 

I dabbled in SL a bit after that, chronicled my Second Life experiences on my blog, but I haven’t been “in world” in probably two years.    Since then, I have sorely neglected my avatar, Bliss Yue.  This week I downloaded SL onto my current laptop and went and said hi.  I haven’t had much time with her yet, but mean to go spend some quality time and see how SL has evolved since my last visit. 

I get the virtual worlds immersive learning environment thingie.  I see the potential, think it’s where we’re going, but don’t think we’re quite ready for prime time.  Not yet.

What’s Really Going On Out There?

I can’t help but making connections to some of what I heard this week out in Las Vegas at ASTD Tech Knowledge 2010.

Allison Rossett  presented findings from a survey of almost 1,000 people about actual eLearning practices.  One of the bottom 5 eLearning practices that people are doing today?  “Authentic, realistic and immersive, like Second Life”. 

As to future aspirations – what organizations are trying to do: “Authentic & Immersive Experiences” came in #7 on the list.

So immersive learning is indeed something people want to do.  I guess the question is when?

Sadly, I left Las Vegas without getting to meet Karl in person!  He presented this morning at ASTD on Learning in 3D.

It’s Not About Instructional Design…

The book is chock full of background, blueprints and case studies.  I’ve taken pages of notes and clipped many a standout quotes, but especially wanted to share this quote from Randy Hinrichs of 2b3d:

“It’s Not About Instructional Design, It’s About Experiential Design --  Yes, we must gain the learner’s attention, inform them of learning objectives, stimulate recall, present new material, provide learning guidance, elicit performance, provide feedback and correctness, assess performance, and enhance retention and recall. But with today’s carnival of content, mixed media, and unlimited access to new information, we must also create a story for the learner in which he or she is the main character.” (p. 88 - Randy Hinrichs, CEO of 2b3d)

Instructional Strategies:

It’s a practical book, laying lays out eleven “archetypes” that you can use to design virtual world experiences.  Think instructional strategies – e.g., a scavenger hunt can be a great way to teach declarative knowledge and facts or orient new hires to a building layout.

1. Avatar persona
2. Role play
3. Scavenger Hunt
4. Guided Tour
5. Co-creation
6. Small Group Work
7. Group Forum
8. Social Networking
9. Operational application
10. Conceptual orienteering
11. Critical incident

Fun Facts

On page 98, you see a screen shot of Abbot Bundy talking to a “pot plant”.  Alrightie then.  I thought maybe things had gone a little wacky here and we were entering some kind of weed growing simulation, but then I realized it was “potted plants”. :)

I do indeed make a cameo appearance.  Well, Cammy doesn’t make a cameo, but Bliss Yue does.   See if you can find her.  I’ll give you a free subscription to my blog if you do!

Bottom line?  Thumbs up!  Definitely a must read if you want to be a part of the future – if you want to stay relevant as a learning professional.

Get a 20% discount off of the book by using the code L3D1 at the Pfieffer/Wiley web site at http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0470504730.html

Check out the book’s website here:  www.learningin3d.info

And thank you, Karl, for inviting me to participate in the blog book tour again.

Games vs. Gaming

The topic that kept me thinking late last night: the difference between games and gaming; between people who play computer games and so-called gamers. Maybe this is an obvious distinction for those who have been long immersed in the immersive learning simulations discussion.

Here's my novice view on the differences between games and gaming:

Games are short, finite experiences. A game can be used as a simple distraction to pass some time; to cleanse the intellectual palate between tasks at work. Tetris. Solitare. Advancing to the next level usually means an increase in speed (the tetris blocks fall faster); the environment doesn't generally change although the degree of difficulty may. They can be immersive, in the sense of addictive. I've said before how occasionally I like to play Counterfeit when in need of distraction and the chance to view a beautiful work of art. Just one more time and then I'll get back to work...

I am a person who occasionally plays computer games. I am not a gamer.

Gaming involves a plot and storyline. Character development. Virtual worlds. Advancement to the next level -- which may be a new environment in that world. Examples are games like World of Warcraft, Zelda, Turok (those limited few to which I have had any exposure). Gaming requires a real time commitment; it might takes weeks of concentrated play to get through an entire game world and finally kill the boss monster and save the world. And a gamer is someone who is willing and able to spend that amount of time. Building gaming games requires a vast amount of resources.

So in the corporate training world, can we ever hope -- and is this even a worthy goal? -- to build a gaming game? Or should e-Learning designers be focusing instead on just trying to build some really good and addictive and immersive games that teach the required topic and enhance the learning experience? I wonder if some of the resistance about using games/serious games/ILS into the corporate training environment stems from the perception that ILS = gaming.

Immersive = Addictive

A couple of weeks ago, I participated in the eLearning Guild online presentation of their 360 Report on Immersive Learning Simulations hosted by Steve Wexler and Mark Oehlert. The conversation was initially focused on defining just what ILS is. I was of the naive mindset that ILS = dragons and virtual worlds and high-end 3D graphics and enormous budgets. Something that will be out of range for most organizations, at least for now.

Mark tried to set me straight on this point. By "immersive", what we actually mean is "addictive." A game that you don't want to stop playing. This could be tetris or solitare. Low-end on the graphic scale, but addictive nonetheless.

Lots of us e-Learning designers have built plenty of games into courses: crossword puzzles; mini-jeopardy; drag and drop. I often find the use of these kinds of games to be somewhat gratuitous. Look, we made a game! Aren't we fun? Aren't we creative? The client asked for a game, and, boy, did we deliver.

I suppose these types of games may actually add to the learning experience by providing repetition of learning points, but to call these games immersive or addictive? Learning designers will have to get a lot more creative in order to take these kinds of games to the next level....perhaps Patrick Dunn can provide us with some pointers on that. Karl Kapp often links to good examples of educational games, although these are typically created for the K-12 environment.

Learning Mate Demo

I'm in search of good examples of cheap but effective e-Learning in the vein of the 21st century designer (web 2.0, ils, etc.).

Found this Learning Mate demo through the eLearning Guild's Immersive Learning Simulations Report Synopsis.

It's not high-end. Not even 3D. Doesn't have dragons. And the narrator (Clark Quinn) claimed it was produced for $15K. I checked out the Learning Mate site and it seems that all of their work is custom-produced; that this is not a template solution or authoring tool.

Games for Girls...

...and by girls, I mean women. Specifically me.

(Image of Torus Trooper -- a game I've never even heard of -- from yotophoto. CC License).

I've been trying to learn about games lately. Inspired by all this blog talk about simulations and immersive learning and Second Life and World of Warcraft. Apparently, I've been missing something that may be crucial to my job.

I've been reading "Everything Bad is Good for You" by Steven Johnson. This week I listened to Brent Shlenker's recent podcast with David Williamson Shaffer author of "How Computer Games Help Children Learn". I participated in the eLearning Guild online presentation of their 360 Report on Immersive Learning Simulations hosted by Steve Wexler and Mark Oehlert.

One of the piece of research that stuck out to me was the obvious gender gap. Men use games a lot more than women. There was little age gap -- "digital native" or not -- men use games more.

This gender gap is striking to me, too, in terms of who is talking about games/immersive learning and instructional design. Mostly men.

Wendy Wickham has blogged on her most recent gaming experiences, but she writes like an outsider peering into a foreign land. I'm right with you. See Playing Games: Big Mutha Trucker and Playing Games: Gauntlet.

Which brings me back to me. I now feel the need to chronicle my own experience in the world of games.

Step back in time to the late 70's/early 80's. Sitting with a group of friends on Mark's floor on a Saturday afternoon. Watching the boys play PONG. It was so exciting to watch that little blip go back and forth across the screen. I probably played a few times, but it wasn't my thing. The way that tennis wasn't my thing. All that hand-eye coordination.

7th grade -- 1981. Saturday afternoon after swim practice at a fast food joint. It may have been McDonald's. Watching Brad Woehl play Space Invaders. I like to watch, I guess.

This is the same era in which the boys would mysteriously disappear for entire afternoons into dark rooms to play D&D. They had these cryptic grid maps and would talk about their characters. Again, not my thing. (Which is not to say that I don't like fantasy or dragons. Hey, I probably read Lord of the Rings at least ten times before I was 13. That, AND I played Bilbo in my 6th grade school play).

Fast forward about 16 years. It's 1997 and my now-husband turns me onto Myst. Once he showed me the basics for moving around and got me thinking about problem-solving in the right way, I was hooked. Immersed. Addicted. I got great pleasure out of that game and still like to quote from it..."the blue pages!"

New Year's 1998-99. 25 of us partied like it was 1999 in a rented mansion in Vermont. One of the guys brought up his Nintendo 64 along with games like Turok and James Bond. Now, these were creative hipsters from NYC who worked for cool companies like MTV and Nickelodeon. The played a lot of games. The ladies got a tutorial and took over. We had a blast, but we were mostly shooting floors and running into walls.

Soon after that, we got our own Nintendo. I really got into Turok and was surprised at how much joy I got out of killing dinosaurs. I liked playing with other people, but I would get killed pretty easily. The solo quest was fun, although I didn't get too deep in the game before it just got too hard. Zelda was even more fun, but again, I couldn't get past those witches and I gave up.

The CTO of my company recently had everyone download a trial version of WOW so we could play during lunch. Of course, my laptop doesn't have the right video card so I just watched over some guy's shoulder.

So now, here I am with young kids. Who's got the time? I'd much rather pass out than stay up until the wee hours wandering around Second Life or playing World of Warcraft.

I'm a female instructional designer in my late 30's. What should I do? Try to immerse myself into gaming because that's what everyone says is going to happen. Or just hire a 13 year old, like Karl Kapp suggests?

Or, perhaps I should get a Wii. According to David Williams Shaffer,

Wii’s are opening up a whole new market of gamers–I’ve had several colleagues
who say their spouses NEVER played games with them until the Wii.

(And I assume by "spouses" he means wives...)

One thing is definitely changing all of this, and that's my kids. My almost 4-year old son and 2-year old daughter are home all day with their dad, who used to play non-graphical games on his Commodore 64. (Now he says he'd be really into WOW if were in his 20s and didn't have kids). So these two kids are definitely digital natives. And it's not just the Elmo keyboard-o-rama game.

The other evening I came home and played Scooby Doo games for an hour before dinner. And I liked it. Our favorite was Mayan Mahem. Sort of Myst-like puzzles, although I'm definitely out of practice from that way of thinking....