Immersive learning environments – a great example

As you'll know if you frequently author content for a blog or for distribution via any medium, planning is the key to maintaining consistency and quality. It's a rare day indeed that I wake up at 6.00am, the proverbial light-bulb goes on and I say to myself "Eureka! Adaptive learning! That's what I need to tell the people about today!"

Well, today isn't one of those days, but this post is good, so I still urge you to read on...

There are many myths and misapprehensions non-Irish people have about Ireland; leprechauns, drinking alcohol to excess, rustic types saying "Sure and begorrah." I can't even spell shillayley shylleleagh shillelagh, and you can't get Lucky Charms here.

“Say you like me hat!” Tom Cruise in Far and Away

In fairness, we do play it up a bit to get the tourists in, but post-Celtic Tiger, we're all broke and we need your cash.

Some of the characterizations of Ireland are based in fact though, among them our rich literary heritage. Remarkably, for a country with a population of about 4.5 million people (about the same number of people as Greater Manchester in the UK, or the Boston Metro area in the US) we have produced four Nobel Prize winners for literature: William Butler Yeats, George Bernard Shaw, Samuel Beckett, and Seamus Heaney.

I have always been intrigued by the later works of W.B. Yeats, and particularly how this master of traditional poetic forms adapted to Modernism.

Yeats' 1920 poem "The Second Coming" has an fascinating couplet:

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world

and the first phrase in particular has always resonated with me - and not just with me: "Things fall apart" has appeared in creative works as diverse as Chinua Achebe's eponymous 1958 novel through to an episode of Ugly Betty.

As it's the first anniversary of the Lehman Brothers' collapse, I've been considering writing a post on the economic "anarchy ...loosed upon the world" and it's impact on the Learning & Development industry as a follow-up to my 2008 post Recession and the challenge to e-learning. This post is not that post, but while I was researching the subject, and considering some approaches to fusing the unlikely bedfellows of high finance and poetry in a blog article, I happened upon an excellent interactive Yeats exhibition hosted by the National Library of Ireland.

In it, you (the viewer) can explore the environment Second Life-like, interact with the exhibits, "pick up" original MSS, and get a sense of the times and places Yeats inhabited, including a set from the Abbey Theatre, and the poet's library.

If you're a Constructivist (like me) you'll appreciate how well this exhibition aligns with Bruner's Principles (see Table 1).

Table 1 Principles of constructivism

Principle		Definition
Readiness		Instruction must be concerned with the experiences and contexts that make the student willing and able to learn
Spiral organization	Structure.	The content must be structured so that it can be grasped by the learner.
	Sequence.	Material must be presented in the most effective sequences.
Generation		“Going beyond the information given” - Instruction should be designed to facilitate extrapolation and or fill in the gaps

I have created a short video to demonstrate some of the features and functionality of this exhibition, and I encourage you to "drop in" and take a look yourself; you never know - it might just be a template for the type of immersive learning environment you need to engage and support your learners.

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References:

Bruner, J. S. (1966) Toward a Theory of Instruction. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

National Library of Ireland. (2009) The Life and Works of William Butler Yeats. Internet: Available from: http://www.nli.ie/yeats/main.html (Broadband and Adobe Flash Player Required). Accessed 14 September 2009

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Informal Workplace Learning: KMs and virtual environments

Concluding our overview of influences which are contributing to the emergence of informal and non-formal learning in the workplace. Yesterday, I discussed three of the five change factors influencing how learning activities are being implemented in the workplace:

1. Blended learning
2. Talent management
3. Web / Learning 2.0
4. Knowledge centers
5. Immersive learning simulations (serious gaming).

Today, I'm going to look at the remaining change factors.

Knowledge Centers
A knowledge center provide a central, just-in-time location for information. It is a single-focused interface with information about a specific topic, like IT applications, sales, or project management. A knowledge center is often a portal or part of the company intranet (like Moodle or SharePoint), or it is the knowledge management component of an LMS like BlackBoard. Knowledge Centers are where information workers go for FAQs, the latest tips, tricks and how-to's, links to external resources, relevant information, and other resources about a specific topic that may not be directly related to a formal course (see Figure 1).

Figure 1 Employees Find Help In A Knowledge Center

Sites must be useful, up-to-date, and responsive to employee needs. An organization must decide on the most important knowledge center topics, create a user-friendly site, and populate it with information. A designated person must be responsible for maintaining the knowledge center portal and identifying new information and material for the site. Survey employees about their needs and provide a feedback box on the site.

Immersive Learning Simulations: Serious Games
Simulations are models of the real world. Add pedagogically sound content, learner interaction and involvement, and a gaming element — all focused on achieving a learning goal — and the result is an immersive learning simulation (ILS).

The challenge is getting the right mix of learning and gaming. Today’s most immersive learning simulations are custom creations from a specialized vendors, and they are more obviously expensive than traditional e-learning content development. Achieving the right balance between the gaming and learning components takes expertise from three professionals: a subject matter expert, an instructional designer, and a game developer, all working closely together.

As more immersive 3D social networking environments like Second Life (2L) become available, serious gaming will become a more common modality for non- and informal learning. There are some problems associated with the environment, however. According to Bill Brandon (2007, p.7)

for typical non-students (employees) sitting through a slide-presentation-and-lecture in Second Life is no more effective (and likely less so) than sitting through the same dog and pony show in a physical space.

With this in mind 2L does have potential; e-learning practitioners can use it to create effective constructivist learning environments. For example, if you have a requirement similar to this for sales training, negotiation skills, diversity training, or any other communication- based skill, Second Life might be all you need. Interactive learning activities (like simulations, immersive learning, and gaming) put employees in virtual yet authentic situations, where they can learn the skills and materials while also making decisions and getting immediate feedback on their choices.

The transformation of workplace learning means that organizations must develop informal learning as a resource for employees. As the younger workforce becomes a more significant part of organizations and moves into management positions, these people will demand different kinds of learning opportunities and tools to get to learning resources quickly.

Figure 2 VLE on 2L

They expect to control much of their own learning, so learning professionals must offer an range of useful up-to-date resources inside and outside the organization for information, knowledge, and training. If employees don’t see these learning resources as part of their organization's talent management and development programs, the chances are that they will move to more progressive companies that will acknowledge their learning and career development needs.

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References:

Brandon, B. (2007) ‘Give Your e-Learning Some (Second) Life: Simulation Made Easy.’ eLearning Guild. [Internet] Available from: http://www.elearningguild.com/articles/abstracts/index.cfm?action=viewonly2&id=246 (subscription required). Accessed 19 March 2009

Schooley, C. (2008) Informal Methods Challenge Corporate Learning [Internet] Available from: http://www.forrester.com Accessed 12 March 2009

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