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Monday, March 31, 2008

Bored?-Try Dissecting a Frog



This has been around for a while but is a great example of using technology to help teach and save resources. It is a lot of fun. So, if you have a few moments, try dissecting this virtual frog. Good for science and saves frogs! Go to Virtual Frog Dissection and start cutting.
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Friday, March 28, 2008

Second Life Webinar-Today

ID Stadium which is used for in-world presentations.

Today I am presenting a webinar titled "Second Life in Education" for NETWORKS which is is a National Science Foundation Resource Center that is focused on the advancement of semiconductor, automated manufacturing, and electronics education. NETWORKS has a Digital Repository that contains classroom ready resources that are current, relevant, and easy to implement into a curriculum.

NETWORKS also provides a National Faculty Externship Program, Online Webinars, and TechSpectives Blog to keep educators up-to-date with emerging technologies and educational issues. Educators, companies, non-profits and others can join NETWORKS and help create a community of education and industry partners dedicated to the ongoing development of a highly skilled workforce.

It is a great resource, you should check it out. NETWORKS is part of MATEC which is housed at Maricopa Community College. You can also check out their blog written by Mark Viquesney called TechSpectives.

So today I am going to discuss the basics of Second Life and how it can be used in educational settings effectively. To help emphasize my point, here are some video clips and resources webinar attendees may find helpful.

Video showing the educational uses of Second Life created by students.


Interactive science lab created by a team at Ohio State through NSF funding.



To really get immersed in Second Life, attend this U2inSL Concert...not the real thing but close.


Here are some links to other information and resources:

Here is the video for the Second Life office clip.

Virtual Jeans=Real Jeans. Great story about virtual manufacturing in Second Life.

Second Life Books. Here is a list of three books that are helpful for learning about Second Life.

Second Life Resourses. Here are some additional Second Life resources and information.

Also check out the Second Life Education Wiki.

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Thursday, March 27, 2008

The Iron Chef of ID


Last year (seems like a long time ago), I was named one of 2007's Most Influential Training professionals by TrainingIndustry Inc. which was nice but, in no way compares to the honor of being "named", The Iron Chef of ID by Robyn and Brandy at Dishing Design: Making Great Recipes for Learning.

The site is a cooking-oriented ID site, the focus is on design but it uses cooking related metaphors to get the point across.

Here is the instant replay of how I "captured/manipulated" the title:

Background: When Dishing Design was first created, I was listed on the blog roll as "Master Chef". So I sent a quick email and the following chain resulted. NOTE: This relates to the original Iron Chef, not the current American Iron Chef which is not the same at all!

Me: Love Dishing Design, when I have some time I will be adding some comments, but just one simple request...instead of Master Chef...is Iron Chef available?

Dishing Design: LOL – Absolutely you may be the Iron Chef of Dishing Design – does this mean some day we will have to challenge you? ;) Nice, Dr. Kapp! You can be Iron Chef...at your request!

Me: Yes, you will have to challenge me in "ID Stadium" with the secret ingredient of... "concepts"

Dishing Design: You're on! That just so happens to be my specialty dish! hahaha... Ok, I'm done now.

Me: And if the challenger wins...she will have the accolades of all the land.
Chairman Kaga may, one day, oversee the Iron Chef ID Battle in ID Stadium.


Ok, so a little diversion in the land of ID...but seriously, I urge you to hop over to Dishing Design and see what they are "cooking up." Some good things are happening in the ID Kitchen. And metaphors are good ways of teaching concepts.

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Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Face to Face Workshop Suggestions


From time to time, I evaluate workshops designed for faculty members to share best practices and ideas with each other. Here is a list of general recommendations I've gathered through the years. I think these recommendations can enhance any face-to-face workshop or conference.
  • Provide targeted, technical presentations. There is a group of attendees who enjoy and need to know the more technical ends of a discipline or the field, appeal to them as well.

  • Make hands-on sessions longer. With the technical sessions, participants would like to really get involved with the subject. An hour or even and hour and a half is not enough time, provide some half day, in-depth sessions.

  • Have different “tracks” through the conference/workshop. Maybe an LMS Administrator Track, an online learning track and a stand up teaching track. Also consider an “Advanced Track” and a “Fundamentals Track.”

  • Have a group session at the end for evaluation. In this session, conduct a focus group. You can also oversee the completion of evaluation forms on a computer perhaps right there before they leave. Have computers available at the end of each day for attendees to complete evaluation forms.(yes do the evaluations online)

  • Consider creating a session that helps identify and bring different parties together for possible collaborative partnerships. See if two or more organizations can discuss issues and then team up to collaborate as a result of the discussions. Maybe have certain topics available around which schools can collaborate.

  • Encourage the sharing of content among instructors. Perhaps have them each bring their best lesson or something to post.

  • Create, before the conference, a way of knowing who was attending in order to form special interest groups and arrange meetings during the conference and afterward with social networking software.

What ideas do you have for making face-to-face workshops or conferences better for the attendees? Please let me know.

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Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Article: Online Communities Go Corporate

A few weeks ago, I was interviewed along with a number of other folks for an online article about the corporate implications of virtual worlds.

The resulting article is titled Online Communities Go Corporate:What Can Virtual Worlds Do For Your SME?

The article, appearing in the online publication Processor, describes how different organizations are replicating, "with some accuracy, the experience of working physically alongside others, including working with and sharing digital 3D models of physical or theoretical objects."

The article also references an article by Susan Kish titled Virtual Worlds:Second Life and the Enterprise where she defines some terms and provides a great graphic showing the inter-relationships between MMORPGs, Metaverses and MMOLEs. (Yeah! to Susan for using the term MMOLE!)
Susan Kish's diagram showing the intersection of various online worlds.


Take a few moments to check out both articles.

For even more information, here is an article I wrote for ASTD Learning Circuits titled Defining and Understanding Virtual Worlds.

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Friday, March 21, 2008

More Help Desk Fun

Tony Karrer at eLearning Technology posted a very funny video about a "helpdesk before computers" in his post Technology Adoption Issues. You should check it out.

So, after I finished watching the video posted by Tony, I viewed a couple of the recommended videos by YouTube and came across this Star Wars Help Desk video. Great accidental learning (if that is what you call it). So, I had to share this video. And thanks again to Tony Karrer for the great link. I plan to use this video in a few upcoming presentations I am giving about technology.



If you haven't browsed the YouTube library for helpful videos, you need to do so. The amount of good information on that site is amazing (of course so is the amount of garbage.)
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Thursday, March 20, 2008

Changing Attitudes about Manufacturing Jobs

The problem:
Many middle school students in the United States decide, during middle school, that they don't want a career in manufacturing. Yes, they decide that early (as many studies show.) Then, years later companies who manufacture products in the US (yes, there are many) have trouble finding qualified college graduates because career choices made in middle school impact a student for the rest of his or her life. (This phenomenon is greatly impacting the fields of science, engineering and technology as well.)

Getting back to manufacturing, as I say in Gadgets, Games and Gizmos for Learning:
Many manufacturing companies have eliminated their apprenticeship programs. Trade and vocation schools are mistakenly viewed as places to send troubled students. There have been well publicized layoffs and plant closures. The signals all are leading members of the gamer/net generation to fear that manufacturing jobs are dead ends. The manufacturing industry will not be able to transfer knowledge to new employees if new employees don’t enter into the field. In fact, many “old economy” jobs are not seen as desirable by the younger generation and the recruitment of these folks is going to be a hot issue in those fields.
This is a problem for an entire industry

One Answer:
To help address this problem, the Society of Manufacturing Engineers-Education Foundation has created a web site geared specifically toward middle school students to teach them about careers in manufacturing as they related the engineering with examples from Nike, Caterpillar and many others. The site is designed to change the image of manufacturing in the minds of the middle school sudents from an "old economy" career choice to something that is cool (which it is).
Manufacturing is Cool web site.

Thus the name "Manufacturing is cool." The site has some great interactivity and ideas that you might consider incorporating into any training you are creating to change attitudes toward safety or compliance issues or toward a new program or any training where attitude change is a goal.

Think About:
Is any of your training geared toward changing attitudes? What are you doing specifically to recruit young people into your organization? Are you thinking about your industry and whether or not it is attractive to middle school students? Can some of the same ideas in this web site be used in your development of online learning events?

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Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Wii to the Rescue...Wii Causes Injury...Infinite Loop


Yet, another great use for video games. This time the Wii console is used for helping to re-hab from injury...so much more fun than swimming lap after lap in a pool.

Check out the article Break a leg? Try ‘Wiihabilitation’

As the article states:
[Use of the Wii] is fast becoming a craze in rehab therapy for patients recovering from strokes, broken bones, surgery and even combat injuries...Using the game console's unique, motion-sensitive controller, Wii games require body movements similar to traditional therapy exercises. ...patients become so engrossed mentally they're almost oblivious to the rigor.


How does this use track with the story below from from the parody site Wii have a problemAs the story states:
"I've had my Wii for 3 weeks now. I've been playing just long enough to discover that you can do some cool moves in Wii sports, tennis. High underhand balls, smashes and screw-balls. I was practicing the screw-balls with great empathy and excitement. Suddenly I bang the Wiimote up in my ceiling lamp which is made of glass, and cut my index finger all the way to the bone." -David from Denmark


Do those individuals being injured by the Wii use the Wii for rehab? is that some kind of infinite loop? You tell me?
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Don't Educate, Automate

It doesn’t always make sense to teach people. Sometimes it is better to automate the process and eliminate the need for training. Training is time consuming, expensive and not always effective. In fact, many software training programs, classes and manuals are necessary because the designers of the software did not take the time to think through how those using the software would be interfacing with it.

Here is something from Gadgets, Games and Gizmos for Learning that helps explain the point:

In high school, I literally had a lesson on how to fold a map. The lesson was part of a six week class on how to read and use maps. I vividly remember the lesson because it confounded me how re-folding a simple piece of paper could be so darn frustrating. I always had the last flap inside out. Instead of the nice map cover, I had an obscure piece of Pennsylvania highway on the front. I did not do well folding a map and only a little better reading it.

When I got older, I always seemed to have jobs that required me to travel (someone has a warped sense of humor). Therefore, I always had various types of maps in various stages of being folded shoved into the glove compartment of my car—just enough so it would close. The maps had highlighter all over them from my efforts to determine the quickest route to my destination. Then one day, after being forced to take my car because hers was in the shop, my wife bought me an atlas. It had all the maps in a nice neat book I could keep on the front seat. It was a great improvement for the aesthetics of my car.

Then, a few years ago, I started to use automated directions from the internet. It was fantastic; all I needed to do was type in my home address and the destination address. My printer would instantly provide turn-by-turn directions and even small pictures of the route highlighted in purple. I received a printed set of instructions guiding me to my final destination. I could throw away my atlas.

Whenever I traveled, the electronic directions provided pinpoint accuracy for about 99% of the trip. For some reason, they seemed to break down all time during the last mile. The last 5280 feet were always wrong. Leading me to believe that gas stations created the web based directions so you would stop in and ask for directions. It was also a little scary from time-to-time trying to read the directions at 60 miles an hour to determine whether or not I should get off at the upcoming exit which was three lanes over.

Another unfortunate side effect, was that my car now had dozens of sheets of paper scattered about. Every trip required one set of directions for my destination and one set for the return trip. If I wanted to take a side trip, I needed to print directions for that little jaunt as well. These directions were a definite improvement over maps, no folding, but my car was back to being a mess.

Enter Global Positioning System (GPS) technology. I now have a small device that looks like a tiny television monitor stuck on the inside of my windshield and plugged into the outlet of my car. It is a GPS receiver. This receiver, no bigger than six inches, displays a map showing the route I need to follow and providing a visual image of my car on the highway. It also gives me verbal turn-by-turn directions from a female voice named “Jill.” It has eliminated both my need to print directions from the internet and the danger of trying to read instructions at 60 miles an hour. Technology has replaced the need to teach people how to read (and fold) maps and it made my car neater.


Can you think of any areas in your company that would benefit, not from training but from automation? Can performance be improved through automating simple processes or even complex ones?
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Friday, March 14, 2008

Nadira Hira Talks about Generation Y

A few days ago at the Kaplan-EduNeering Life Sciences Knowledge Exchange that well known advocate of Generation Y, Nadira Hira gave an awesome presentation highlighting what organizations need to consider when recruiting, retaining and assimilating Generation Y folks into their organization.

Nadira making a point about Generation Y.


For anyone who may not know, Nadira Hira is a writer for Fortune who has really made a name for herself documenting Generation Y from an insider's perspective. She has a bog called The Gig. She has written extensively on the topic of Generation Y. One such article is called Attacting the twentysomething worker. She has also written The making of a UPS driver which described how UPS dealt with training Generation Y. If you'd like to know more, check out, her own fan site.

Nadira explains the parents of Generation Y and how they have raised this group to ask a lot of questions of...everything.


At the small venue conference, Nadira spoke about a number of interesting characteristics and expectations of Generation Y.
  • They are connected to every friend they've ever made through social networking sites like facebook and MySpace.

  • When recruiting, company's must sell themselves to Generation Y employees because the company is not only competing against its direct competitors but against the peace core, public service jobs and the option of returning home to mom and dad's house and hanging out for a while.

  • Generation Y employees want to know the real vision and mission of your company and want a clear description of how they fit into your organization. They don't want the buzz word filled "mission statement" they want the truth. They are looking to be part of something bigger.

  • To get the best from Generation Y, you need to give them clear guidance and assistance to get started and then they will go like crazy but they need clear initial guidelines and parameters.

  • Don't measure face time with Generation Y, measure outcomes. They don't want to follow procedures just because they are procedures, they need to know why the procedures need to be followed...if there isn't a good reason why they have to give a lot of face time, then they don't want to do it. They ask, "Why do you need to see me if I can do my job at home?"

  • If you are a boomer or Generation X manager...think of managing a Generation Y employee like this...how did you raise your own kids? Did you raise them to "speak up" to challenge things that don't make sense, to question unreasonable requests, that they can "have it all?" The traits that we instilled into our children are not entering into the workforce (this was a great insight to me.)

  • The bottom line, as Nadira stated, is that careful consideration of the needs of Generation Y (flexible work hours, meaningful work, wanting to make a different) makes sense for every generation...its just that Generation Y seems to be very vocal about it and wants these things now...not in 20 years.
Nadira and I pose for the camera.


If you want to read what others thought of Nadira's presentation, read Mike Gaal's blog entry Learning, Games, Training and Generation Y.
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Yes, Ok, I Admit, I've Stayed at the Mayflower Hotel, but...

No, I am not "Client Number 10" from the infamous Eliot Spitzer scandal.

My stay was perfectly above board. Last year I was a speaker at the Kaplan-EduNeering Knowledge Summit. I spoke on the topic of Games and the Gamer Generation to over 100 people and had a chance to do a book signing.

During the presentation, I brought a Nintendo Wii and asked an audience member to come up on stage and do some "virtual surgery." Unfortunately, she lost the patient.
Performing virtual surgery with the Wii.


We discussed how games are converging with haptic devices and how that is creating highly realistic scenarios for learning. We also dicussed the future of learning and how it will change based on a heavy influence from gaming technologies.

Here I am signing Gadgets, Games and Gizmos.


I also discussed how the upcoming generations' views of video games and the Internet and Web 2.0 technologies. As well as thier high comfort level with technology.

I met some really great people at the conference and had some great conversations.


What reminded me of this incident (the presentation)? Currently, I am in San Franciso at the Kaplan-EduNeering Life Sciences Knowledge Exchange talking about Trends in Learning Managment and having a great time with EduNeering clients and learning how they are deploying Compliance Wire and other tools to improve thier operations and, again...signing books:)

Here I am in San Fran signing books for a great audience.


So, yes I was at the Mayflower but for a much different reason than the former-Governor.
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Monday, March 10, 2008

Who's Responsible for This?


ASTD's Big Question this month (March) is actually two questions and since I helped Tony Karrer tweak the question a bit, I feel I must offer some type of answer (plus I aways enjoy the discussion around the Big Question.)

So, here is the big question for this month:
  • Do educational institutions and corporate learning & development departments have responsibility for supporting Long Tail Learning? Do they have responsibility for learning beyond what can be delivered through instruction? If so, what is their responsibility? Where is the edge of responsibility?

  • Similarly, does the instructor have a responsibility to help students make sense of or deal with content he or she did not teach the students? In other words, if a student finds information on the Internet or some other place, how much time and attention should the instructor allow for the discussion of such content? Should it be discussed at all if it is non-conventional or generally thought of as not credible or contradicts the instructor? Who determines credible research? Is all non-referred research questionable?
I think corporate learning departments need to go through the same evolutionary process that the quality control departments of manufacturing companies have gone through over the past 50 years.

Prior to the 1980s, most manufacturing organizations "inspected in" quality. In other words, there jobs were like policemen, they randomly stopped and inspected products to find defects. If a defect was found the entire box or lot or whatever measure was used was scrapped and the production workers simply re-did that production run with, hopefully, better results.

Then in the 1980s with the advent of all types of quality movements, philosophies and ideas, the quality department changed from inspecting in quality to helping create processes and procedures that helped to ensure quality was part of the standard operating procedure. They didn't inspect a part after it was manufactured, instead they showed the operator how to determine if a machine was running in tolerance or trending toward non-tolerance. They didn't hold a product up to the light to see if it had defects, they looked to see if the SOP was followed and whether or not the process was accurately performed time and time again. People at first thought that quality would be prohibitively expensive but found that quality actually reduced costs, less mistakes, less recalls, less rework. The quality department became experts in the quality process and taught others how to create quality products through quality processes. They weren't the police any more, they were the architects.

Training and development departments need to become the architects of learning within an organization but not the sole builders. It is the responsibility of the learning organizations to create the standards, best practices and suggested SOPs for creating content and then let the learners within the organization create the content under those guidelines. Trying to hoard the creation and dissemination of knowledge in one area is non-sense but so is expecting a line manager to know how to create good instruction. However, if the line manager follows guidelines created by learning and development professionals (who have a degree) then he or she can create something that meets the needs and is acceptable at a basic level.

This is a model that can work with large organizations where every person may need to create some type of instructional piece for someone. Organizations need to have training SOPs that can be followed by others to create instruction in a wiki, blog or PowerPoint when needed. Learning and development professionals must stop trying to create all the needed instruction (loosing battle) and start creating templates, guides and performance support systems that can be used by others to create instruction on an ad hoc basis.

Turning to academia, I think the instructor has an obligation to the learners to allow all types of content into class (as long as it is related) so an open debate can be had about its appropriateness. No one person can know everything and every field as a story of a rogue researcher that is ridiculed and then, much later, the field finds out the researcher was, all along, correct and the entire field was under a terrible mis-conception. On the other hand, there is a lot of quack research in all types of fields. In a classroom, in academia, I think one must discuss the fundamentals and basics to give the students a solid academic leg to stand on. Then, other contrarian views can be discussed, weighed and considered. It is a bad practice to dismiss an idea out-of-hand. Academia, of all places, should allow a healthy debate and discussion of many views and ideas and allow the learner to ultimately decide what is correct based on an understanding of the facts.

We in academia must teach our learners how to examine research for flaws and how to interpret studies. Careful consideration of many view points is valid but we must also teach our learners how to tell the "snake oil" salesperson from someone with a legitimate alternative point of view....much easier said than done...I admit.

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Presentation Tips


Recently a few people have asked me about the best way to create a presentation. It seems that they are stuck or have colleagues stuck in the "dump as much as you can on the slide" development technique.

I even received an email the other day from someone who had read Edward Tufte's PowerPoint Essay and who wanted to know if ANYTHING good could come from PowerPoint....

The answer is yes.

But you need to be careful. So first I offer my version of Avoiding Death by PowerPoint which provides some techniques for taking boring bullets and adding a little excitement.

Next here are some tips from the "Presentation" portion of my book Winning E-Learning Proposals.

  • Be careful with your background and text. Too many times the creator of the slides develops a multicolored background with multicolored words and expects the viewer in the back of the room to read the dark text on the dark background. It doesn't work.

  • Use 24-point font or larger. Remember that when you are creating the presentation, you are right there and can see it up close. In a conference room or other presentation area the viewers are further away from the screen and they don't all have 20/20 vision (especially if they are over 40 like me.) The guideline of 24-Point font usually accommodates most people and most rooms.

  • Follow the 6x6 rule. This means a slide should have no more than 6 lines of text and no more than 6 words per line. The slide should NOT be your notes. It should contain key words that prompt you to recall the information you are presenting and leave the audience wondering what you are going to say about bullet three.

  • The graphic images you put on your slides should have a direct link to the information on the slide. "I put this picture here because I like it" is not a good reason to add a visual. Visuals need to add meaning.

    Don't talk directly to the slides...turn around and face the audience.


Here is another link to the topic of Avoiding Death by PowerPoint from ZD Net.

Also check out Think OutSide the Slide. Contains good example in the opening page of transforming slides into meaningful visuals.

Also check out this book (not directly related to PowerPoint but good stuff...Say It with Charts by Gene Zelazny.)


Finally, if you really want to know about creating effective presentations in general and great presentations with good PowerPoint...go to Presentation Zen. This is Garr Reynold's excellent blog about all-things-presentation and should be a must read for anyone creating a presentation.
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Friday, March 07, 2008

Apple iPhone Opens Up...


Apple has just released its developer kit...cool stuff. Check out this video of Jobs talking about what you can do in terms of software creation for the iPhone..at the Apple March 6th event.

So this weekend, get a hold of an iPhone and start developing some neat software. I think this has the potential to push mlearning over the tipping point and really accelerate its adoption.
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Wednesday, March 05, 2008

Virtual Jeans=Real Jeans

In the future this...


May morph into this...

Here is a piece from a software review I did for the March/April issue of APICS Magazine...
There is a Second Life factory called the Double Happiness Jeans factory. The factory specializes in customized jeans. The production process at the manufacturing plant enables a customer to customize an order to their exact specifications. The company offers several stylish cuts to fulfill different fashion needs – flare, skinny leg, boot cut and relaxed. Customized details include a choice of rinse, pocket style, rivet design, hemline and fly.

While the Double Happiness Jeans factory is similar in many ways to typical textile factory, it is anything but typical. The Double Happiness Jeans factory isn’t a physical factory at all. In fact, the entire plant exists only in Second Life and has no physical assets or inventory. The only place the factory exists is in a virtual, three-dimensional world known as Second Life.

The virtual factory creates real-world products using Second Life to design and customize the jeans.

When a customer orders Happiness Jeans, they are “manufactured” virtually. The jeans travel through ten or so work stations until they meet the customer’s design request. At the end of the 20 minute production process, the jeans enter the real world through a printing process. The data gathered in the Second Life software production process is printed onto a large-format printer loaded with a canvas material that breathes and stretches when it is worn (similar to denim.). The customer picks up the “print out” of the jeans, cuts out the four separate parts and stitches them together. He or she can then wear them around town.

In the Double Happiness application, the data collected in Second Life at each work station is fed into to a computer running the graphics application, Adobe Photoshop, via an Application Program Interface (API) developed specifically for this application. The data is then sent to a printer for the creation of the final product. While the data could be entered directly into PhotoShop, Jeff Crouse, one of the co-founders of Double Happiness Jeans, stated that “this project is about a performance of a manufacturing process, and allowing people to see labor that goes into the goods that they consume - even if it is not real labor.”

To Learn More:


Check out the Double Happiness Manufacturing web site.

Or this article about it in the New York Times.

Also, here is a great blog posting from the Business Communicators of Second Life Blog: Virtual/RealWorld Custom Manufacturing Project: Double Happiness Jeans

Is your organization considering production in a 3D World...why not?
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Have you ever had the URGE to play a video game while driving?


This is an older story but I still find it interesting.
Nissan North America Inc.(NNA) and Microsoft Corp. have merged automobile design and gaming technology to create the first-ever fully integrated gaming system within a vehicle. Conceived by Nissan Design America Inc. (NDA) and equipped with the Xbox 360™ next-generation video game and entertainment system from Microsoft, the Nissan URGE concept car allows drivers (while parked) to play “Project Gotham Racing® 3” using the car’s own steering wheel, gas pedal and brake pedal while viewing the game on a flip-down seven-inch LCD screen. “PGR® 3” is developed exclusively for Xbox 360 by Bizarre Creations Ltd. for Microsoft Game Studios.
--Credits to MaxConsole for the reminder.

Here is what I say about it in Gadgets, Games and Gizmos for Learning

Nissan, the large automobile manufacturer, has teamed with Microsoft to create an automobile design that has the first-ever fully integrated gaming system within a vehicle. The concept car, named the URGE, has a built-in Xbox that allows the driver, when the car is in park, to play a racing game [16]. While playing the game, you press the car’s gas pedal to go faster, tap the brake to slow down, and turn the steering wheel to maneuver around virtual cars. In essence, the car becomes one giant game platform. Think driver’s ed.

An even more critical application for a virtual driving simulation is in the area of truck driving. A simulator, built into a truck or bus could help to prepare and test individuals for a commercial driver’s license. Providing a safe learning environment for people preparing for their commercial driver’s licenses is important.

The need for drivers is acute. The national newspaper, USA Today reported that consulting firm Global Insight estimated that in 2005 the trucking industry was short 20,000 drivers and is forecasting a gap that could reach 111,000 in 2014 based on demographics and demand for transporting goods.




What other video games could be merged with our modern conveniences...a cooking game and the stove? Weight loss game and the fridge?
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Monday, March 03, 2008

Eclectic Happenings

This post is a collection of a number of interesting things happening in the blogosphere which don't all fit under one nice, neat category.

First, I have added my comments to the discussion about needing a degree to be an instructional designer. It has been a great discussion, check out the comments in my post We Need a Degree in Instructional Design.

Second, Catherine Lombardozzi over at Learning Journal has posted some work she has done on a model called Learning Environment Design . A very interesting model and worth checking out and considering. It could change the way you design instruction.

Third, a couple of former students of mine have created an entertaining and informative blog titled Dishing Design. It is a fun and clever way of investigating issues involved in instructional design from a couple of consultants in the field.

Fourth, I recently answered a few questions in a webcast format concerning the creation of effective questions for compliance training for Kaplan-EduNeering. Check out February 2008Webcast: Proficiency, Testing and Best Practices

Fifth, a number of Bloomsburg University Instructional Design alumni have sent me their blog address for inclusion on this blog. That's great...but a number haven't (not great)...if you are an alumni and haven't already done so, please send me your blog information for inclusion on this blog...or you'll have to take RFP all over again.:>{
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