Learning in 3D Blog Book Tour: Success

By all accounts, the Learning in 3DBlog Book Tour was a resounding success. Books were sold, buzz was created, consulting and speaking engagements obtained and the collective conscious of the learning community was raised in the area of 3D virtual worlds for learning. So, first of all, thanks to everyone who participated in the tour and who followed the tour, we are so pleased with results and the enthusiasm surrounding the subject.

Here are some highlights, look for a Blog Book Tour Lesson's Learned posting in the near future.

Tom Haskins of the Growing, Changing, Learning, Creating blog wrote a great entry Assessing blog book tours where he explains why blog book tours are so effective.

One unintended but really positive result of the tour is that it actually boosted traffic to the stops on the tour and then continued the flow of traffic.Performance Punctuated the blog of the development company Performance Development Group got a boost from the tour and when the followers of the tour saw all the great content they visits remained at a high level and have grown ever since.

Several times the book was ranked #1 in different Amazon categories.

We were also able to generate buzz through a Twitter hashtag #lrn3d and encouraging tweets about the book.

We created a Facebook page that has now over 500 fans.


And a group has created an awesome virtual book club to discuss the book. Click here to learn the details of that book club.

Stats for Learning in 3D Blog Book Tour during January 11 to February 22nd, 2010

• 410 unique page views on Kapp Notes first day of blog book tour.
  
• 660 books sold during tour.
  
• 13 hardcover copies of the book sold directly from my cite via Amazon and 4 Kindle versions of the book sold directly from Kapp Notes blog.
• 13,639 best overall Amazon rank
• 147,281 life time rank in Amazon
• 1100 books sold to date.
  
• Ranked number 25 in Technorati,s list of blogs about "elearning"
  
• Blogs actively participating in the tour
  
• Over 500, number of fans on book's Facebook page
  
• 12,625 number of unique visitors to Kapp Notes during Learning in 3D blog book tour.
  
• 9,723 unique visitors to Kapp Notes during the tour.
  
• 743 visits from India and 6,428 from the United States.
  
• 1 visit from Swaziland.
  
• 305 views of the entry Learning in 3D Blog Book Store Starts Today

Don't be left out, pick up your copy of the book today:




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3D Virtual Scavenger Hunts

Creating a 3D virtual scavenger hunt helps students better learn to navigate through a virtual world. It requires some set up because you need to create an item that you can hide in a virtual world setting that contains a definition of a term the students need to learn for the class. This is a good activity for when the learners are a little unsure of navigation. If you set up a scavenger hunt and ask student to locate objects that contain definitions of terms used in virtual worlds, it will help them to gain understanding of how to navigate and move within the virtual world. You can teach them how to move from place to place, how to find objects, how to communicate with fellow classmates and other activities that commonly occur within the virtual world.

Abbott Bundy (Karl Kapp) on a virtual scavenger 

hunt to learn about LEED points.

(Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design)

1. Inform students that there are 10 items hidden within the environment that contain definitions of key terms. (We use brief cases).
2. Give students 10-15 minutes to search the environment for the items containing the definitions.(Can give more time if a large area or more than 10 items are hidden).
3. Students need to write down the definitions they find.
4. When completed, have students compare terms to see if they were all located.
5. Debrief the students to see if they have any questions or concerns when they are done with the Scavenger Hunt.
6. Probe to see if they had any navigation or movement issues that you can help explain and clarify.

Examples
Scavenger hunts can be a good method of introducing new employees to an organization. You can conduct virtual scavenger hunts with new employees from all over the world providing an engaging mechanism to learn facts and information about the company while simultaneously encouraging them to learn more about their fellow employees.

Establish a scavenger hunt in a virtual factory to provide the learners with an opportunity to learn the location of certain machines or safety stations. Another use is to help orient employees to new city, town or building layout prior to their actual physical arrival at that location.

Advantages
An advantage of scavenger hunts is that an instructor or facilitator does not have to be present. The scavenger hunt can be established ahead of time with the required items placed appropriately in the VIE for the learners to find. The learner simply obtains instructions on what he or she should be looking for as the scavenger hunt begins.

Disadvantage
A disadvantage is that a scavenger hunt usually takes a while to plan and set up and, sometimes, learners do not find all the items they are required to find. Learners become frustrated with scavenger hunts if they feel they are too difficult.

Real-Life Use
Visit Using Virtual Worlds in the Conspiracy to Create an ah-ha Moment to see how Uncle D's Storyquest uses a scavenger hunt to create interest and education concerning HIV.
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Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education: Learning in 3D Presentation Now Available

Tony and Karl discuss their ground breaking book, "Learning in 3D"

The recording of Tony and Karl's presentation from the Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education Conference is now available on Treet.tv Best Practices in Education Channel. While you are there, check out the other awesome presentations.

And even though they mis-spelled my last name, they still did an awesome job of capturing the presentation. In the presentation we talk about the middle chapter of the book, Chapters 3, 4, and 5 and even a quick discussion of the last chapter

Check it out at Learning in 3D A New Educational Dimension.

Here are our slides from the presentation.

Learning in 3D for VWBPE Conference

View more presentations from kkapp.

The content for the slides and our presentation at the VWBPE conference was excerpted from;


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Blog Book Tour Recap Week Seven:Continuation

Week Seven was not an official week in the blog book tour but we still had a good amount of buzz concerning the book. Here are some of the links to tour-related activities.

• Gordon Snyder who writes Gordon's Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) Blog posted a video from keynote event I did in January in San Francisco about virtual worlds and technology-based learning. Check out his entry called Leveraging Virtual Worlds with Karl Kapp. It is the entire 45 minute keynote which, by the way, was a lot of fun with a great group!
  
  
• Karl Kapp on Learning in 3D was interviewed by Cammy Bean and posted at Kineo. 

• "Learning in3D" Karl Kapp and Tony O'Driscoll a stop posted by Mark Oehlert at e-Clippings (Learning As Art)

• Ron Burns posted an entry at ProtonMedia's blog Jay Cross "heartily recommends" Karl Kapp and Tony O'Driscoll's "Learning in 3D"
  
  
• Karl Kapp had a visit with Jena and Marty of "The Life and Times of Uncle D" immersive story project. Using Virtual Worlds in the Conspiracy to Create an ah-ha Moment
  
• A list of random virtual world statistics was posted.
  
  
• And another virtual world shut down.
  

• Lessons Learned from Conducting 3D Virtual World Learning Experiences By Karl Kapp and Tony O’Driscoll was posted on ASTD's Learning Circuits eZine.

Upcoming Events

• On March 9, 2010, Tony and Karl will be presenting The Challenges Ahead: How HRD professionals can prepare themselves for the learning, research and workplace challenges brought about by technological changes. The event is sponsored by the Academy of Human Resource Development.
  To register online, click here. Webcasts are free for AHRD members. Nonmembers may attend for $25.
  
  
• On March 13, 2010, Tony and Karl will be presenting at the 2010 Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education Conference. Over 5,000 avatars are expected to attend. Don't miss this in-world event.
  
  
• On April 6, 2010, Tony and Karl will be presenting at the TrainingMagNetwork event called Learning in 3D: Adding a New Dimension to Enterprise Learning and Collaboration. You can register for this free event here.

If you haven't gotten the book yet, go to Learning in 3D web site and check it out and click on the link to join the book's Facebook Fan page.
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Big Virtual World Event on the Horizon

Here is a press release about one big virtual world event where Tony and I will be speaking about

  Learning in 3D.

GLOBAL CONFERENCE IN SECOND LIFE® TO SHOWCASE THE

POWER OF VIRTUAL WORLDS TO TRANSFORM EDUCATION 

2010 Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education Conference

(March 12-13):

Featured Address by Mark Kingdon, CEO of Linden Lab®

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48-Hour Event Expected to Attract 5,000+ Attendees and over

150 Presentations from Around the World 

March 4, 2010 -- Pioneers in the creation of innovative uses of virtual worlds in education, training, business, military and cultural spheres will come together in Second Life® to celebrate “Imagination Around The World” (March 12-13).  The Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education Conference (VWBPE) will feature more than 150 presentations and a keynote address by Mark Kingdon, the CEO of Linden Lab® creators of Second Life® (SL).  


“From a small grass roots community, we have grown dramatically as a global organization and are becoming a force in transforming education in a very short time,” said Marlene Brooks, Program Chair (SL: Zana Kohime). “We expect more than 5,000 attendees at VWBPE10 (www.vwbpe.org) with participants from every continent,” she continued. 

Presenters at VWBPE10 are at the forefront of capitalizing on advances in new technologies and a broad range of disciplines related to virtual worlds. In addition to Linden Lab® CEO Mark Kingdon, notable keynote presentations and presenters at VWBPE10 will include: 

“Learning in 3D: A New Educational Dimension”

Karl Kapp (SL: Abbott Bundy) and Tony O’Driscoll (SL: Wada Tripp) authors of the hot-selling book Learning in 3D: Adding a New dimension to Enterprise Learning and Collaboration  

“Virtual Worlds, Culture and Change - A Conversation”
Tom Boellstorff (SL: Tom Bukowski) academic, author and editor-in-chief of American Anthropologist and Doug Thompson the (SL: Dusan Writer) CEO of Remedy Communications and owner of Metanomics. 

“The Rise of Avatars in Social Networks for Military Learning Innovations”

Andy Sticker and Marlene Brooks (moderator).   Presentations will showcase what is being done in virtual worlds at universities, colleges, businesses, government agencies, not-for-profit entities and K-12 classrooms. More than one hundred volunteers will assist presenters and attendees at the 48-Hour conference taking place in over twenty SL Sims. The Presentations will be available in five languages: English, German, French, Spanish and Portuguese.  

“What makes this year exciting is that we are becoming more interactive and mainstream, and we are having a growing impact on all forms of education and training based on the values of connection, collaboration and co-creation integral to virtual world learning environments,” said, Kevin Feenan (SL: Phelan Corrimal). 

The Virtual World Best Practices in Education Conference originated from the 2007 Second Life® Best Practices in Education Conference. Educators are one of the largest and most vibrant groups in SL with an outreach to more than 6,000 residents. 
Registration for the conference is Free. To register please visit: www.vwbpe.org  


About Second Life 
Developed and launched by Linden Lab in 2003, Second Life is the world’s leading 3D virtual world environment. It enables its Residents to create content, interact with others, launch businesses, collaborate, educate, and more. Since its inception, Second Life Residents have logged more than one billion user hours and generated more than $1 billion in user-to-user transactions. With a broad user base that includes everyone from consumers and educators to medical researchers and large enterprises, Second Life has become one of the largest repositories of user-generated content and the largest user-generated virtual goods economy in the world.

For additional information, please contact:
E-mail: Marty Keltz: marty.keltz@gmail.com
Phone: 416-587-3381
For information on Second Life, visit: www.secondlife.com
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Interview with Cammy Bean at Kineo

As part of the extended Blog Book Tour, Cammy Bean of Learning Visions and I had a discussion about learning in 3D, its impact on instructional designers and how organizations can get started. Check out the interview called Karl Kapp on Learning in 3D. Cammy has great audio in the interview but mine is a little scratch (sorry about that).

Anyway, it was a lot of fun so check it out.

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Blog Book Tour Recap Week Six::Impressive

This week, the final week of the blog book tour, we had some impressive comments and thoughts about the book and the meaning of 3D in terms of learning and development. Here is a recap of the great posts for this week.

Recap of Blog Stops

Day Twenty-Six Chris Brannigan at Thinking Worlds blog wrote a post titled Learning in 3D - walking the walk #lrn3d. In the post Chris states that the book is in shifting the discourse forward from the ‘what is 3D’ to the ‘why, ‘when’ and ‘how’ to use it. This is what we want to accomplish and we are excited to that the theme is resonating.

Day Twenty-Seven Brian Miller at his blog Cognitive Technologies reviewed the book in this post Book Review: “Learning in 3D”, Kapp & O’Driscoll, 2010 and he commented on some content that he thought could enhance the book especially in the area of where we discuss an equation that states that when interactivity and immersion are multiplied they result in engagement in motivation. Brian is advocating for the addition of Relevance and Challenge which I have to agree enhance the equation. Brian has since written another interesting post related to 3D worlds titled Systems Thinking and Simulations: Part II

Day Twenty-Eight Roland Legrand at Mixed Realities penned a post Learning in 3D: a book as a tool to change enterprise learning – and the corporation itself discusses the changes that are occurring in business and how that change must be reflected in our learning systems.

Day Twenty-Nine 02/18/10 Robyn DeFelice of DishingDesign wrote a post Hosted Event: Learning in 3D Blog Book Tour. In her post she discusses elements of instructional design that relate to 3D worlds and potential areas of research.

Day Thirty Special guest Jay Cross added an entry Learning on the Holodeck. Jay adds that Learning is social, and I think this has something to do with the power of watching your avatar experience something as opposed to simply imagining it in your mind.

Facebook

During this week, the Learning in 3D Facebook page passed 300.

Look for a more extensive wrap up in the near future, a few more Learning in 3D surprise posts and some stats from the tour itself. Also, thanks to everyone who participated, joined Facebook page, lurked, wrote and purchased the book!!!
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Learning in 3D Week 6 Stops for "Learning in 3D" Blog Book Tour

Here we are for week six, the final week of the blog book tour. The tour has been such a wonderful experience with many great comments and enlightening discussions about the book. So here are the final "official" stops.

We have a couple more surprises in store this week so stay tuned.

Week Six

Day Twenty-Six 02/15/10 Chris Brannigan at Thinking Worlds blog.

Day Twenty-Seven 02/16/10 Brian Miller at his blog Cognitive Technologies.

Day Twenty-Eight 02/17/10 Roland Legrand at Mixed Realities.

Day Twenty-Nine 02/18/10 Robyn DeFelice of DishingDesign.

Day Thirty 02/19/10 Randy Hinrichs Reflections on Virtual Worlds.

***With special guest blog this week by Jay Cross.

And don't forget to become a fan, we only need a few more to reach 200. Thanks in advance for your support!!!

Learning in 3D: Adding a New Dimension to Enterprise Learning and Collabora

Become a Fan Today!

Here is a tiny URL for this post http://tinyurl.com/3dweeksix
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Blog Book Tour Recap Week Five: Immersive

Week five was a busy week with a webinar about Learning in 3D sponsored by Booz Allen Hamilton and guest appearance on the popular and innovative Metanomics in-world TV show. The tour had great stops this week as well as a couple more "misses" but it is still a lot of fun and seems to be picking up steam as the tour moves forward. Here is a quick recap of this week's activities--starting with the live events.

The first live stop this week was with Dan Bliton and Charles Gluck of Booz Allen Hamilton who had Tony and Karl to present a webinar entitled "Enterprise Learning and Collaboration in 3D Virtual Worlds." The presentation was attended by over 100 people (not too bad in the middle of Snowmageddon).

You can see some screen captures of the presentation at Images from Resources for "Enterprise Learning and Collaboration in 3D Virtual Worlds" Webinar and you can get the slides and a list of resources related to the presentation at Images from "Enterprise Learning and Collaboration in 3D Virtual Worlds" Webinar. The recording of the entire webinar will be made available shortly and I'll post it so you can check out the webinar.

Tony and Karl talk about "Learning in 3D"

The second live stop this week was at Metanomics where Tony and I appeared to discuss the book.

An image of our discussion is below and you can see some photographs I took at Metanomics Presentation Photographs. To see a recording of the show go to archive for Learning in 3D--Immersive Environments in Training and Education.

Recap of Blog Stops

Day Twenty-One John Rice at the Educational Games Research blog wrote a post titled New 3D Learning Book by Karl Kapp. Make sure you check out the post and the comments, he generated a great discussion about technology in schools.

Day Twenty-Two This was the stop at Booz Allen Hamilton discussed above.

Day Twenty-Three Connie Malamed at the The eLearning Coach and the stop at Metanomics. At The eLearning Coach, Connie wrote a post titled Your Brain on 3D. The post described how thinking about 3D has rewired her brain and then gave some pointed examples of affordances of 3D. Check it out, it is a great read and check out the rest of her site, some great stuff.

Day Twenty-Four This stop was missed.

Day Twenty-Five This stop was a book review of Learning in 3D and will be available in the near future.

Recap of all the tour stops so far:
Blog Book Tour Recap Week One: Awesome!
Blog Book Tour Recap Week Two: Fabulous!!
Blog Book Tour Recap Week Three: hectic
Blog Book Tour Recap Week Four: Interesting

The Book Behind the Tour


Become a fan on Facebook of the book!!

And follow the tour on Twitter at #lrn3d

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Metanomics Presentation Photographs

Today, Tony and Karl gave an interview as part of the Learning in 3D Blog book tour at Metanomics

Tony has spoken with the group several times. It was a lively presentation with great audience participation and interaction. Many good points and research mentioned by attendees and lively chat discussion. Here are some images from the presenter's perspective.

Had to find just the right shirt

 to wear (settled on the famous blue one)

and I was told I needed shoes (insurance reasons).

Now, all dressed and waiting for the event to start.

Audience slowly begins to arrive.

Lots of avatars in attendance for discussion.

A bird's eye view of the show.

Robert (aka Beyers Sellers) asks 

Tony and Karl about learning archetypes.

Beyers giving a thoughtful wrap up of the discussion.

All in all a great stop on the tour with engaging discussion and thoughtful questions.
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Learning in 3D Week 5 Stops for Blog Book Tour and Webinars

Here are the great stops for week 5 of the blog book tour.

Also, follow the tour on Twitter with hashtag #lrn3d. And, join us on Facebook at the Learning in 3D page. We are trying to hit 200 fans by the end of the week. Can you help? Invite your colleagues, friends and relatives to become a fan.

Also, if you like, stop by our Amazon web page and leave a review.

Tour Stops

Day Twenty-One 02/08/10 John Rice at the Educational Games Research blog.

Day Twenty-Two 02/09/10 (actually, this stop with Dan Bliton is with Booz Allen and Hamilton (see below). It is a sold out event, however, it will be made available as a link in the next recap and portions of the audio will be converted into a podcast and that link will be available in the future as well.

Day Twenty-Three 02/10/10 Connie Malamed at the The eLearning Coach

Day Twenty-Four 02/11/10 Mark Oehlert at e-Clippings (Learning as Art).

Day Twenty-Five 02/12/10 eLearn Magazine will have a review of the book.

Live Web Stops

Tuesday
SOLD OUT
Tony and Karl are presenting free webinar called Enterprise Learning and Collaboration in 3D Virtual Worlds courtesy of Booz Allen Hamilton. Unfortunately all 290 slots are taken.

Wednesday

Tony and Karl are appearing at Metanomics with Metanomics host Robert Bloomfield who will interview Tony O’Driscoll and Karl Kapp on Wednesday, February 10, 2010 at 12 p.m. PST. The interview will discuss learning, training and education in 3D environment

See you around the web!
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Blog Book Tour Recap Week Four: Interesting

Week four was a busy week with an interesting development in the virtual world space. The biggest news was that Forterra Systems assets and intellectual property was sold to SAIC and about a dozen Forterra employees will be joining SAIC.

In the book tour we had some interesting stops but a few stops were missed as well.

Day Sixteen Gordon Snyder's at Information & Communications Technology Blog brought in the interesting idea of Cyberbullies in a virtual world and the impact they can have and did have on a young girl and the tragic results. It was a moving post.

Day Seventeen Over at Koreen Olbrich's Learning in Tandem she discussed her interesting and, as she calls it, "fanatical rantings" about about the future of virtual worlds and how those view fit into the context of the book in her post Why You Should Be Learning in 3D.

Day Eighteen Bart Pursel at Virtual Learning Worlds wrote an indepth post describing three area of virtual worlds: User Interfaces, Informal Learning and Characters.

Day Nineteen Clive Shepherd at Clive on Learning wrote a post a little early since he was leaving for a little vacation in the Canary Islands. His post is called Learning in 3D: a stop on the world blog book tour.

Day Twenty We didn't have a post on Day 20. Unfortunately, Tom Werner who has a Brandon Hall Research blog wasn't able to post this week but hopefully we'll see a post from Tom in the near future. Also, Course Director Daniel M. Siegel of Full Sail University will be posting in the future at his blog Captivation in Education.

Recaps:
Blog Book Tour Recap Week One: Awesome!
Blog Book Tour Recap Week Two: Fabulous!!
Blog Book Tour Recap Week Three: hectic

Accolades
This week Kapp Notes was named as one of the Top 50 Global Education Blogs by Sir Learnalot, I am sure the blog book tour played some part in that recognition. Thanks Sir Learnalot!

The Book Behind the Tour

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Learning in 3D Week 4 Stops for Blog Book Tour

Here are the great stops for week 4 of the blog book tour.

Also, follow the tour on Twitter with hashtag #lrn3d. And, join us on Facebook at the Learning in 3D page.

Tour Stops

Day Sixteen 02/01/10 Gordon Snyder's blog Information & Communications Technology Blog

Day Seventeen 02/02/10 Koreen Olbrich's Learning in Tandem

Day Eighteen 02/03/10 Bart Pursel at Virtual Learning Worlds.

Day Nineteen 02/04/10 Clive Shepherd(already posted due to a vacation) Learning in 3D: a stop on the world blog book tour

Day Twenty 02/05/10 Tom Werner who has a Brandon Hall Research blog.

***With special guest blog this week by Course Director Daniel M. Siegel of Full Sail University at his blog Captivation in Education

Webinar
Also, on Feb 9th, a free webinar called Enterprise Learning and Collaboration in 3D Virtual Worlds will be presented by Tony and I courtesy of Booz Allen Hamilton. They invite book tour followers to attend the complimentary Webinar.

Join us on Tuesday, February 9th to learn:

• Value of Social Learning for your organization
  
• The impact of Virtual Immersive Environments
  
• 3D Learning Experience Design Principles and Sensibilities

Tony and I will cover key concepts from our new book and explain the impact that 3D environments, virtual worlds, and immersive learning spaces will have on society, business, and learning. Specifically, we will discuss practical, research-based recommendations and techniques for integrating existing training and business into productive 3D virtual work environments. The 45 minute session includes a presentation by the authors and conversation with the hosts, followed by 10 minutes of questions and answers with the audience. 

The event is Tuesday, February 9, 2010 12:30 to 1:30 pm ET
Register HERE!

Recap In case you missed the first three weeks, here is a recap.
Blog Book Tour Recap Week One: Awesome!
Blog Book Tour Recap Week Two: Fabulous!!
Blog Book Tour Recap Week Three: hectic


  Books
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Blog Book Tour Recap Week Three: hectic

Week three was a bit hectic for the tour. First, Tony and I both had live appearances and then we had an early post, a post-poned post and a Saturday post...hectic but exciting. Here is the re-cap.

Day Eleven: Randy Hinrichs at his 2b3D's blog. Had an entry titled Welcome to 2b3d 3D Learning Blog Time where he talked about the fact that "3D virtual learning is about the experience" and not about the technology. He gives some great analogies so you want to check that out.

Day Twelve: Mike Qaissaunee at Frequently Asked Q wasn't able to post this week due to some "firefighting" at his place of work (those crazy "real jobs") but look for a post from him in the near future. We did, however, have an innovative post Mark Copeman at Being Smarter who created a mash up of Skype and his video program for an interesting discussion about the book tour itself. Take a few moments to view the video at A Blog Book Tour, Thinking Outside the Box.

Day Thirteen: Tom Haskins at his blog Growing, Changing, Learning, Creating focused his blog entry on the structure of the book. He did a wonderful job of describing the necessary dimensions of writing an effective, meaningful and helpful professional book in his post Learning in 3D Hits a Home Run. It turns out that Tony and I covered all the core areas indicated by Tom. At the time is was unknowingly but if Tony and I ever write another book, we are definitely following Tom's structure and so should you for your next book.

Day Fourteen: Janet Clarey who has a Brandon Hall Research Blog added a great case study (complete with video teaser) to the many examples of successful use of virtual immersive environments for learning in her post A peak at “Learning in 3D”

Day Fifteen: Was at Cammy Bean's blog, Learning Visions. I had hoped to catch up with Cammy when I was in Las Vegas this week for the ASTD TechKnowledge conference but, alas, we did not meet. Still only blog buddies and have never met face-to-face. Her entry Blog Book Tour: Learning in 3D #lrn3d. Also, I put a cameo of Cammy in the book, see if you can find her avatar Bliss You in the book:)

A Special Stop was posted by Stan Yann at The Ignorant Immigrant called Learning in 3D at this stop I did a guest post and wrote about my view of the writing process. If you are thinking of writing a book, you might be interested in how I approach writing.

Surprise Appearance: Also, this week, Clive Shepherd at Clive on Learning, jumped the gun a little and posted early because on his stop date he will be walking in the Canary Islands enjoying a real immersive experience sounds nice. Check out his entry Learning in 3D: a stop on the world blog book tour

Accolades:
Also, e-Learning Tyro over at e-Learning Planet named Karl Kapp one of the best bloggers of the week from January 17-24 which I can only assume was because of the book tour blog post entries.

Sales!
In terms of sales, we had a great week, check out Tony's post Learning in 3D #1 Kindle Sales in Training and HR!


Live Tour Stops were:

Tony O'Driscoll presenting at Training Conference and Expo 2010. He did a keynote on January 31st called "Learning in 3D: How Web 2.0 is Changing the Game for Learning."

At the ASTD's TechKnowledge Conference in Las Vegas I gave a presentation on Friday morning, titled "Learning in 3D: Using Virtual Immersive Environments to add a New Dimension to Enterprise Learning."
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Blog Book Tour Offers 3D Software 15% Discount (sort of)

As part of the Learning in 3D book blog book tour, I've met some amazing folks and seen some amazing software. I am not a programmer myself so if something is easy to use and can make me look good, I like it.

One such software is called ThinkingWorlds--a program that lets you create 3D simulations with characters, scenes and branching interactions with great ease.(so easy I could do it.)

Top down view of 3D environment for simulation I've built.

ThinkingWorlds blog will be a stop on the tour in the upcoming weeks (stop 26) but for now, I wanted to let you know that in parallel with the tour, they are offering a 15% discount on their 3D software for two days only. As a designer or developer of instruction, you might want to take advantage of this great offer.

Here are the details.
On January 27th and 28th, Caspian Learning, the developers of Thinking Worlds, will be offering 15% off of Thinking Worlds licenses.

It's easy to claim your 15% off. All you need to do is log on to the Thinking Worlds website on January 27th or January 28th. Choose the license you want and add to your shopping cart and 15% will automatically be taken off the product price. To buy the license, simply follow the checkout process.

This promotion, as part of the book tour, is only valid for two days.

Object oriented programing for developing 

the logic behind the simulation.

Ok, confession time.

This discount is REAL but...sadly...it is not in conjunction with the tour. It is a separate deal but still valid for us.

Caspian is offering the 15% discount because they are exhibiting at the Learning Technologies Conference to be held at Olympia 2 in London. Learning Technologies is Europe's leading showcase of technology supported workplace learning.

So, because the timing is almost perfect, I've gotten on the bandwagon and have "piggybacked" on the 15% offer and am letting the followers of the Learning in 3D Blog Book Tour know about it. So we can benefit from the offer as well.

The software is not a metaverse or virtual world but it is a 3D immersive environment for quickly building simulations and games. Check out the demos.

I have been playing with it and very easily built some really cool (and instructional) stuff.

Cool explosion I made with pre-built particle system.

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Week 3 Blog Book Tour Stops

Here are the stops for week three of the Blog Book Tour.

Blog Tour Stops

Day Eleven: 01/25/10 Randy Hinrichs at his 2b3D's blog. (He has another stop later in the tour as well.)

Day Twelve: 01/26/10 Mike Qaissaunee's Frequently Asked Q. Also on this day of the tour we will have a special guest blog post by Mark Copeman at Being Smarter discussing the book tour itself, how the idea came about and how it is progressing and advice for authors who want to do a similar tour.

Day Thirteen: 01/27/10 Tom Haskins at his blog Growing, Changing, Learning, Creating.

Day Fourteen: 01/28/10 Janet Clarey who has a Brandon Hall Research Blog.

Day Fifteen: 01/29/10 Cammy Bean's blog Learning Visions.

**Special Saturday (01/30/10) post by Stan Yann at The Ignorant Immigrant.

Live Tour Stops
In addition to the blog tour, we have two live stops this week.

Tony O'Driscoll will be at the Training Conference and Expo 2010 doing a keynote on Sunday January 31st called Learning in 3D: How Web 2.0 is Changing the Game for Learning from 4:15 PM - 5:30 PM.

Karl Kapp will be at ASTD's TechKnowledge Conference in Las Vegas giving a presentation on Friday morning, January 29th from 10:00-11:30 AM titled Learning in 3D: Using Virtual Immersive Environments to add a New Dimension to Enterprise Learning.

Karl will also be leading a Closing Session Discussion group at TechKnowledge on the topic of Virtual Delivery & Facilitation:Value Proposition: Virtual Worlds as a Delivery Platform and Virtual Classrooms: Web-conferencing and beyond.

Please if you are at either conference, stop by and see us. We'd love to say hello!

Recaps

Here is a recap of Week One of the tour.

Here is is a recap of Week Two of the tour.
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Blog Book Tour Recap Week Two: Fabulous!!

Week two of the blog book tour was hectic. We had five fabulous online stops, live stops and even webinars and in-worldinars (yes, I made that word up, feel free to dismiss it).

We also announced the first two winners of the Twitter #lrn3d hashtag award, finally got a badge for tour stops and a number of blogsophere folks commented on the tour on their blogs.

If you missed last week's blog book tour recap, here it is.

Here is the recap for week 2.

Day Six
Jane Bozarth at The Bozarth Zone in her blog entry Learning in 3D Blog Book Tour Stop pulled a particularly interesting post from the book and asked her readers to think about technology in general and not to blame technology when poor instructional design is at the foundation of a "technology" failure.

Day Seven
Mark Viquesney over at his tour stop Learning in 3D blog Tour - Here at TechSpectives! took a slightly different approach. As a writer, himself, Mark thought that rather than writing about the book, he asked us about the writing process. His questions provoked the two of us to reflect on the writing of Learning in 3D. One of the first questions he asked was "What parts of the book did you best like writing?"

Day Eight
Rupa Rajagopalan at The Writer's Gateway created a post Learning in 3D is Fascinating! that picked up some interesting quotes and tidbits from the book and added her thoughts and insights into some of the content. She also liked how the book had lots of tips for instructional designers who are going to create a 3D Learning Environment.

Day Nine
At Brent Schlenker's blog Corporate eLearning Strategies and Development, he wrote about his long wait for 3D learning environments to finally take off. He is a big fan of 3D virtual learning environments and he hopes that with the book Learning in 3D we will begin to see the acceptance of VIEs in corporate training. That's our hope as well, let's keep our fingers crossed. Although, interestingly, Koreen Olbrish, a contributor to the book and future tour stop, wonders aloud Do virtual world evangelists REALLY want them to go mainstream?

Day Ten
In the tour stop, Instructional Design for a Virtual World, Christy Tucker over at Experiencing E-Learning does a great job of dissecting the chapter on ADDIE. She lists six design principles we identified in the book and the provides her own ideas on those principles.

Winners Announced
We choose from random two folks who have tweated about the book using the hashtag #lrn3d. The winner for week one is Paul Simbeck-Hampson.

The winner for week two is Barry Shields who also took one of Tony's tweets from the book and expanded the idea in his blog entry What strategic value does the central learning function provide?

Live and Online Presentations
Tony and I were also busy with online and live presentations.

On Tuesday, Day Seven of the tour, Tony appeared live at the ProtonMedia Life Sciences 2010 event (see the video) held in Malvern, Pa., in partnership with Microsoft. Attending the event was Brian Miller of Cognitive Technologies who wrote about the event in Virtual Mind Folders.

Also on Tuesday, Day Seven of the tour, Karl presented a keynote address titled "Understanding Digital Diversity" at Bloomfield College's Faculty Technology Showcase. See the slides and resources here.

That same day, Tuesday, Day Seven of the tour, Karl presented at the eLearning Guild's Thought Leader Series. You can see the resources for the event here.

On Thursday, Day Nine of the tour, Tony and I met with the Train for Success group lead by Anders Gronstedt of The Gronstedt Group as part of our online book tour. You can read about the meeting at Train for Success Meeting was a Success!

On Friday, Day Ten of the tour, Karl presented at The Learning Tree International's Learning Leader's Forum. He met up with some alumni and had a great time you can read about it at Presentation Resources for Learning Tree Presentation.

Word Cloud
Tony created a cool word cloud for chapter one of the book.

Visit a Virtual World
The Learning Archetypes from Chapter 5 can be seen in ProtonMedia by logging into their demo build and going to Learning Archetypes under Location.

Facebook
Fans on the Facebook page for Learning in 3D grew to 90 this week.

Amazon
Learning in 3D got as high as 29,289 on Amazon and was finally released on Amazon! and the Kindle version is selling extremely well also.

If you are interested in the book, check out the web site,Learningin3d.info or consider purchasing a copy for yourself.


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Train for Success Meeting was a Success!

Today, Tony O'Driscoll and I had the pleasure of meeting with the Train for Success group lead by Anders Gronstedt of The Gronstedt Group as part of our online book tour.

We met at the United States Holocaust Museum where we ran into, by accident, David Klevan the Education Manager at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. It was great running into David because he is a contributor to the book!

Also in attendance were Ken Hudson, Managing Director of the Virtual Worlds Design Centre at Loyalist College, who contributed to the book and Light Sequent aka Lesley Scopes who wrote a wonderful master's thesis called Learning Archetypes as Tools of Cybergogy for 3D Educational Landscape: A Structure for eTeaching in Second Life some of which we adapted for Learning in 3D.

So it was great to virtually interact with everyone. It was a really good discussion and excellent questions were asked and answered by many members of the group. It was so exciting to speak with people who are doing fun things in virtual worlds and to see how the group illustrates a top-notch example of peer-to-peer learning with different people contributing different knowledge nuggets.

The talk also helped with the book, see Tony's entry Learning in 3D Update: #2 In Kindle Sales (Training). Hey this virtual stuff really works.

I took this picture of the gathering.

Lots of folks for the Train for Success meeting.

But while I was taking pictures, so were group members. Here are a couple of pics by Ken Hudson.

Tony and Karl aka Wadda and Abbott talk about Learning in 3D.

Great discussion at Train for Success

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Week 2 Blog Stops

This has been a busy week. I had a keynote at Bloomfield College, see the slides and resources here (great faculty and I met John who has been following me for a while and Nicole who is going to start a blog and other wonderful people.)

And I did a Thought Leader Webinar for the eLearning Guild, see the slides and recourses here.

Meanwhile, my co-author was at the ProtonMedia Life Sciences 2010 event, details here.

So, I didn't want the list of stops to get lost so there they are again.

Monday: 01/18/10 Jane Bozarth at The Bozarth Zone.

Tuesday: 01/19/10 Mark Viquesney at the TechSpectives Blog which is an online community dedicated to the latest topics in technology and education.

Wednesday: 01/20/10 Rupa Rajagopalan at The Writer's Gateway.

Thursday: 01/21/10 Brent Schlenker's blog Corporate eLearning Strategies and Development.

Friday: 01/22/10 Christy Tucker's Experiencing E-Learning


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eLearning Guild Learning in 3D Webinar Resources

Great presentation today, here are links to some of the resources and concepts discussed in today's  eLearning Guild webinar series called Thought Leader Webinars.

Here are the slides.

Learning in 3D Thought Leader Webinar

View more presentations from kkapp.

Resources:
Alternatives to Second Life

A Few More Alternatives to Second Life

Applying ADDIE to 3D Worlds

Questions about Second Life

Virtual Worlds Worth Billions in the New Year

Save Yourself Time and Money--Before Implementing a Virtual World, Do an Analysis

Recent Second Life Happenings: Going Corporate

Resources for Researching Virtual Worlds

Examples of Using Virtual 3D Spaces for Learning

Video comparing 2D and 3D environments for learning.


Web site for the book Learning in 3D.

If you would like to purchase the book, you can receive a 20% discount directly from the publisher. Go to the publisher's web site for Learning in 3D and then go to the Shopping Cart and type in the code L3D1.

You can read Chapter One of the book to get a sense of what the book is about.

Become a fan on Learning in 3D's Facebook Page.

If you'd like to check out the 3D learning archetypes for yourself, go to Download a Trial Version of ProtonSphere and, once inside, go to the menu item on the top bar on the window called Locations and then select Learning Archetypes and you will be transported to a space where you can check out the learning archetypes in the book. It is a great opportunity to you to check out a "corporate" virtual world and to try out some of the learning archetypes first hand. Take some time and go visit, it is well worth the trip.

Books




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