Examples of Using Virtual 3D Spaces for Learning

Here are some interesting examples of using virtual worlds for learning, manufacturing and business:

In the manufacturing arena, the level of complexity of today’s assembly lines cannot be accomplished with two-dimensional visualization. A virtual 3D world is needed to make sure all of the manufacturing equipment and human employees work together flawlessly. The use of a 3D world can lead to significant savings. A small manufacturing plant can realize an annual savings of one million dollars and a 5 to 1 annual return on investment. A medium size plant can realize an eight million dollar savings with an 8 to 1 return on annual investment and a large manufacturing plant can see a $50 to $100 million annual savings with an annual return on investment of as high as 10 to 1. Read the article here.

At the car company of Mercedes-Benz, the use of a virtual world simulating the manufacture of an aluminum component for an S-class coupe saved the company time and money. Initially after the assembly line was conceived and developed, a compression-modeling die did not manufacture components correctly in the virtual world so changes were made until the virtual world produced the correct part. If the problem had not been discovered and changed in the virtual stage, it would have been a three to six month delay and several thousand dollars to repair the process on the actual production floor. Overall use of the virtual world has resulted in cost reductions of up to 30 percent in several areas of vehicle planning for the luxury car company. [from paper-based article: Tambascio, S. (2004) The virtual world meets the factory, Tooling & Production (2004) pages 38-40]

IBM’s Academy of Technology held a virtual conference and annual meeting and estimated a savings of hundreds of thousands of dollars. With an initial investment of roughly $80,000, IBM estimates that they saved over $250,000 in travel and venue costs and more than $150,000 in additional productivity gains (since participants were already at their computers and could dive back into work immediately) for a total of $320,000.

Grades in a program at Loyalist College to prepare students for service as a Canadian Border Patrol Officers increased 37% over a two year period after the introduction of a virtual role play within a virtual learning world. Loyalist College Border Service students participate in a simulated Canadian border crossing using Second Life - created by the Virtual World Design Centre, Loyalist College, Belleville, Ontario.



As an added bonus, here is an article describing how virtual reality and assembly simulations in manufacturing are being combined.

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Implementing New Learning Technology? Choose the Right Pilot Group

Before a large scale implementation of any new learning technology, you really need to run a pilot group. You need to catch problems on a small scale and then adjust, correct and modify based on the feedback and experience of the pilot group. Skipping a pilot of a new technology is a dangerous gamble. It could be, as they say, "career limiting."

So I suggest a carefully chosen pilot group, but, you might ask, what does that pilot group "look like"? Here are some suggestions if your are implementing a virtual learning world or Highly Immersive Vitual Environment (HIVE).

• High Technology Comfort Level—You don’t want to provide initial access to virtual worlds to a group that is not comfortable with technology. Choose a group who has historically used and embraced technology and are comfortable using technology as a productivity enhancer. This is especially true since navigation can be difficult at first within virtual worlds.
  
  
• Mix in Some Not So Comfortable Folks as Well-If everyone in your group loves and has a high comfort level with technology, you are not going to get an accurate view of how the technology will roll out to the entire organization. So, while it is good to have a lot of people with a high comfort level, make sure you recruit some people that are not so comfortable (if eveyone is uncomfortable with the technology then the pilot will not be successful so you need a mix.)
  
  
• Choose a Relatively Small Group—With lots of employees spread out all over the place, it is important to start the virtual world project with a manageable group so that any initial unexpected complications can be worked out efficiently with a group who understands that the technology adoption cycle will have a few “rough edges” before it is completely perfected.
  
  
• If you are in a regulated industry, get Legal and Regulatory Personnel Involved from the Beginning—Form a committee that includes individuals from the legal and regulatory department. Many questions concerning the use of virtual worlds will be encountered by legal and regulatory personnel and the earlier the department or departments is involved, the better. Even if you are not in a regulatory environment, you might want to check with those folks.
  
  
• Get Information Technology Personnel Involved from the Beginning—Just as Legal and Regulatory need to be involved early, so does the information technology department. Inevitably with new technologies, complications will arise, you need the IT staff on board to help quickly overcome technical options. This is especially true with virtual world technologies.
  
  
• Choose a Group Interested in the Potential of Virtual Worlds—Choose a group interested in the business advantages of HIVEs. They will spend more time and effort working through the technology to get it working correctly and they will tend to be more comfortable with technology issues they encounter because they will see the busines potential. The pilot group needs to have both technology savvy individuals as well as people focused on business outcomes.
  
  
• Choose a Group that is Easy to Track—Choose a group that will provide you with access and data when requested. Develop methods of keeping in touch with the group to foster an exchange of ideas and input into the issues and advantages of the virtual world interactions.

Any more ideas? Any disagreements?
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Final Top Ten Annoying Technology Phrases

A few entries ago, I asked for some help in figuring out the Top Ten most annoying technology phrases...here is the list with some wonderful input. Check out the original post and be sure to check the comments. They are especially good for some laughs.

10. No, no move your mouse to the left (or right or anywhere "Back-seat computer driving")

9. Are you a Mac or a PC Person? (Parody here, not totally appropriate for work) Collection of PC v. Mac Commercials

8. I thought I sent you an email about that!

7. No, I didn't get that email, can you resend?

6. Didn't you read my Tweet? (or any Twitter related terminology "retweet" or "neeweeter". See Twitter Terms for more...as if you need them.)

5. "This will change everything!" or "This is a game changing technology."

4. "That's so old, I blogged about it last week."

3. "I'm a Web Evangelist"... or "Web Guru" or... "Web 2.0 Expert" or on the other side "I'm a web casualty" or "I'm a webreck."

2. "Why would I want to blog?" (or Twitter or Join Facebook or...)

1. "It’s not about the technology..."

Honorable Mentions:
My company blocks_____(get a web enabled phone)
Sent from my Blackberry (or iPhone)

How did I do, was your top not included? do you have a new one? Add a comment.
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Violence in Video Games: Really Not Fun

Mortal Combat, Death from Above.
So we always thought violence in video games was gratuitous and unnecessary but game developers keep saying, "that's what makes games fun." Well, it turns out violence does not make games fun. It's gameplay...of course, haven't gamer's been saying that for year. We'll we needed some scientists to "prove" it.

An interesting article All That Gore Gets in the Way of Gameplay over at Wired, indicates that violence is not necessary to have fun. According to Wired:

In a paper in January’s Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, a group of researchers found that violence might be the least compelling part of our favorite videogames. In fact, sometimes it gets in the way of the fun....The results? The amount of violence in a game did not predict how much gamers enjoyed it. When researchers asker players to pick their favorite titles, the highly violent games did not enjoy better word-of-mouth than less-violent ones, nor were they more likely to inspire players to buy a sequel. In fact, for some players rated violent content as “weakly negatively” related to enjoyment: The more gory the game, the less they liked it. (The only exception was a small minority of players who scored high on scales of aggression.)“Violent videogame content adds little or no unique predictive variance to player enjoyment,” as Andrew Przybylski, a doctoral candidate in psychology and clinical social science at the University of Rochester in New York and his colleagues concluded in their paper.

So destroy, crush and mutilate your violent video games...just because they are violent doesn't mean they are fun.
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Fun and Games in June

Here are two game conferences which might be of interest. June is a busy month for me so I will not be attending either one, but, if you are close by, you may want to attend one of the conferences:

Pittsburgh
The first is the Game Education Summit. This conference will take place at Carnegie Mellon University’s Entertainment Technology Center (ETC) in Pittsburgh, PA, on June 16-17.

Confirmed speakers and attendees include executives from Electronic Arts, Ubisoft, Microsoft, Sun Microsystems, Sony, THQ, Blizzard, Divide by Zero Games and Obsidian.

The academic conference, the only one of its kind, will offer an ambitious seven tracks, covering course overviews, opportunities to hear from industry professionals, sessions on narrative writing; showcasing creativity and development tools for traditional games, as well as sessions on games for “serious” applications such as government and health care training. A special track will cover the IGDA recommended curriculum. Interested parties can register for GES at gameeducationsummit.com. Early Registration for the conference is $349 per attendee. At the door registration will be $399.

Harrisburg
The other conference is the the Learning and Entertainment Evolution Forum (LEEF) at Harrisburg University of Science and Technology in Pennsylvania.

The schedule for the two-day event, set for June 18-19, will include more than a dozen case study presentations that explore and analyze the use of games, simulations, virtual worlds and console games for learning and performance. With titles ranging from Consultative Sales in a Virtual World to Developing Entrepreneurship with Series Games, each 2-hour case study session will include a high-level overview of the project, hands-on engagement, and group analysis of how to apply the project’s best practices and lessons learned.

Virtual
If you want to hear my take on games and simulations you can catch me on May 21st at Tony Karrer's E-Learning Tour of which I am participating and hosting the games and simulations leg of the tour. Check out the details here.
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You are Your Avatar: Your Avatar is You

* Here is a link to alternatives to Second Life. Otherwise, here is a couple of research articles about behavior in Virtual Worlds.


Abbott Bundy and Karl Kapp...the same in and out of world.
Your virtual world avatar is more an extention of yourself than you think!

In fact, most people behave in a similar fashion within a virtual world as they do in the physical world. Researchers at California State University in Los Angeles have found that “People don’t go online to leave their bodies behind and find new selves, but instead seem to be taking their offline selves, including their biological selves, with them.”

In the study, published in the “Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology” the classic sex differences in play preferences of fifth graders, characterized by rough-and-tumble games among boys and intimate conversations among girls, existed even after youngsters adopted a range of personas for virtual encounters In fact, only 13% of the participants decided to switch genders. The vast majority stayed true to their gender and their physical world behavior even when they changed genders of their avatar. Check out the full article at Playing for Real in a Virtual World.

In another study, researcher Paul W. Eastwich at Northwestern University found that “interactions among strangers within the virtual world are very similar to interactions between strangers in the real world.” Even in the area of racial bias. Eastwich goes on to say “You would think when you're wandering around this fantasyland … that you might behave differently, but people exhibited the same type of behavior -- and the same type of racial bias -- that they show in the real world all the time.”

The sense of who a person is and what they represent is clearly reflected in the online behaviors of their avatars. One's sense of self is merely extended into the virtual space. Read the article Researchers Find Racial Bias in Virtual Worlds for yourself.

As you can see, much can be infered from how you choose to represent yourself as an avatar within a virtual world. You can change hair styles, body type, skin tone, and other elements of the avatar to create just the right look for the virtual extension of your physical self and, it turns out, you act the same way in world as you do in physical space whether you mean to or not.
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E-Learning Tour

Abbott Bundy giving a tour.

On May 21, Tony Karrer of eLearning Technology is hosting and providing an E-Learning Tour of which I am participating by hosting the games and simulations leg of the tour.

A full description of the tour and critical information is below. It is a great line up of current trends and concepts within the field and you should sign up if you've got the time, it will be highly informative.

Event Description

One of the hardest things to find are real-life examples of different kinds of eLearning solutions. On May 21, Learn Trends will be hosting a free online event where the people who have developed interesting eLearning solutions will demonstrate and briefly discuss what they've done.

Moderators:

Bob Mosher - Performance Support Tools
Judy Brown - Mobile Learning Solutions
Karl Kapp - Games and Simulations
Tony Karrer - Self-Paced and Other eLearning Solutions

More information about the moderators can be found at eLearning Tour description.

Demonstrations will showcase a variety of different kinds of eLearning. We hope they will vary from practical solutions to common problems to leading edge solutions

Time: May 21, 2009 from 9am to 12pm (Pacific Time Zone)
Location: Online
Event Type: webinar

For more details about the event, you can visit and comment at eLearning Tour-May Learn Trends.

Hope to see you there, virtually.

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Avoiding the Virtual Ghost Town

It can be lonely in a virtual world with no friends and nothing to do.
One common mistake organizations make in designing learning experiences in virtual worlds is failing to have specific learning objectives, either formal or informal, for the intended interactions. Some organizations create a virtual space with only vague learning outcomes and no formal assessment plan. Then, after a few months of inactivity, no visible learning outcomes and frustration, the organization drops the virtual world because it doesn’t seem productive.

The lack of learning in these instances is not a result of a failure of virtual worlds; rather it is a result of poor instructional design. Virtual worlds, like other types of planned learning events require attention to instructional design to meet their desired goals. Even if the goal is to foster informal learning, the virtual world environment must be structured appropriately to encourage and enable interaction between and among learners. If not, the result is a virtual ghost town. No one comes to visit and the place is empty.

When creating virtual learning environment, the basic tenants of instructional design still apply as they do with any new technology that enables learning. Organizations do not need to completely throw away the concepts of aligning objectives, tasks and measurement just because a new technology is available. A systematic process is required to ensure that optimal learning can occur.

Having said that, the development of a 3D learning event is far more complicated than the creation of a few slides and a couple of multiple choice questions. Ultimately the design process for creating a virtual learning world requires a modification of the traditional skill set of an instructional designer—a modification, not a totally new approach.

As a result of the modification, the design and development efforts for 3D learning events require a higher level of effort both in time and resources. The process demands both a careful crafting the learning environment (the context) as well as the mapping of the content to the appropriate Learning Archetype, the creation of learning spaces, activities and planned interactions.

You don't just "whip up" a virtual learning space or educational event, planning and foresight is required. Once a space is created, various learning events can happen which might be more impromptu but initial work is required to make the space appropriate for the type of learning interactions you envision within the virtual worlds These worlds aren't a panacea, they are another tool and need to be treated as such.
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iPhone Learning Links

We all know how much fun an iPhone can be with over a billion apps. Here is a great list of the 100 Best iPhone Applications for Learning. Check it out and download a few.

I have to admit my favorite is still solitare (not sure it is "learning") but I know that one day I will defeat that game!

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