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by Rich Mesch



In the first post in this series, I provided an overview for integrating storytelling into learning; now, in the spirit of translating all complex ideas into a few bullet points, I wanted to provide some tips.  These tips come from my simulation design experience, but really, they apply to most learning opportunities. While storytelling is more art than science, here are a few points to keep in mind:

1. Engage the heart as well as the mind. The workplace is emotional, so don’t be afraid to get under people’s skin. People should feel elated when they succeed, uncomfortable when they fail.
2. Focus on what makes the job challenging. Is it the complexity of the product line? The demands of your boss? The intimidation factor of talking to a well-educated physician? Don’t shy away from the tough stuff.
3. Show, don’t tell. This is one of the oldest writer’s rules. Instead of writing “he was nervous,” show your character’s behavior, and let your user/reader conclude that he’s nervous.
4. Storytelling needn’t involve narrative. While a novelist employs narrative as her primary tool, the simulation designer has many more tools available. Computer users can only tolerate reading in small doses. Tell your story with video, audio, graphics and animation.
5. Don’t feel you have to tell the entire story of a job in a simulation. Simulation stories work best when they are focused just on those parts of the job that are complex or difficult. In designing a sales simulation for a large pharmaceutical customer, we determined that reps did well at product detailing, but had opportunities for improvement in opening and closing calls. We designed a simulation that incorporated the entire call, but focused decisions specifically on openings and closings.
6. Good stories demonstrate actions and consequences. Your user will be more engaged if you create a sense of anticipation, a driving desire to know what happens next.  Watch the way an audience leans forward in their seats during an exciting movie, and determine what will get your simulation user leaning forward at his computer.
7. Don’t lose sight of the basics. Good stories have a beginning, a middle, and an end. They chart a logical progression of conflict, resolution, and conclusion. That’s part of what makes the process of reading a book or watching a movie so satisfying—the feeling that you’ve shared a journey with the characters. Make sure your story develops throughout your course or simulation and reaches a satisfying conclusion (or potentially several satisfying conclusions!) at the end.

 

 

by Rich Mesch

Storytelling is one of the most effective yet underused methods for enhancing adult learning.  Ever heard someone yell at characters on a movie screen or talk back to the television? Ever stay up way too late one night because you had to read just one more chapter of a best seller? Ever rearrange your schedule to make sure you’re home for the conclusion of the cliffhanger episode of your favorite TV series?

Odds are good that you answered “yes” to at least one of the questions above, and very possibly to all of them. It’s not surprising. For many cultures, storytelling is one of the most pervasive methods of sharing information. A good story speaks to our minds, our hearts, our deepest emotions. When we’re truly wrapped up in a great story, we sometimes do things that are irrational; we speak to characters we know are fictional, we give up sleep that we desperately need, we laugh or cry or rejoice or despair over the lives of people we know are completely made up, completely fabricated. We’re human beings; we are able to connect on many levels.

We hate to admit it, but the workplace is irrationally emotional as well. On a good workday, we can feel fear, anger, joy, despair and elation. But for some reason, when we train people to be effective in this environment, our approach too often becomes dry and bloodless. We engage the mind (if we’re lucky), but not the heart. As a result, we reduce the likelihood that we will gain learner attention, that our message will be heard, let alone retained and applied.

I’ve been fortunate to spend most of my career working on performance simulations. The word “simulation” means many different things to different people. But at its core, simulations provide a realistic environment for learners to try new behaviors and experience the likely outcomes. And this is where storytelling becomes critical. If I’m going to truly apply new behaviors, I need to feel the same pressures, trade-offs, and barriers to change that I will feel in the real world. If those aspects are not present, I’m likely to dismiss the whole enterprise as “just another training exercise.” There are good simulations and bad simulations (and really bad simulations that don’t simulate anything). Some interpret simulation as a complex multiple choice test, which isn’t even close. Ultimately, what raises a mediocre simulation to a great simulation is the ability of the designers to engage the learner with a compelling story.

Novels, movies, and TV may be more appropriate metaphors for adult learning than classrooms are. The key factor is immersion; an experience that takes you out of the here-and-now and fully involves you in another environment. When people care about how the story turns out, they will start making decisions based on their internal assumptions; they will start getting distracted from the textbook “right” way and start making decisions emotionally, like they do in real life. This creates an opportunity for not just learning, but real behavior change—by allowing you to examine what drives your behavior in the first place.

So how do you apply some of the rules of storytelling to our training initiatives? The key is to focus on how the world works in real life. There’s tons of good leadership content out there, and most of it is not hard to understand. So why is there such a shortage of good leaders? Because when someone actually tries to apply this stuff, they meet challenges, encounter resistance, and need to change the way processes and systems work. Although they may agree that this is the “right stuff,” they don’t do it, because the risk and effort of doing it “right” outweighs the potential consequences of doing it “wrong.” Your story needs to address that. The same constraints and pressures that make your content difficult to implement in the real world need to exist in your training solution. Otherwise, your users will recognize it as a work of fiction, separate and divorced from the real world. Nobody can consider how to overcome the barriers to success until they comprehend what the barriers to success actually look like.

In the next post in this series, we'll review 7 key tips to using storytelling in your learning. See you there!

by Rich Mesch

Does your business value learning?

A lot of smart people have asked that question. A Gallup Management Journal article from a couple of years ago addressed it well. However, if you read the article, you’ll discover that the value of learning to the business in question was in how it affected performance.

So, ask yourself that question again: does your business value learning? Or do they value performance, and just see learning as one of many ways to achieve it?

Have you ever walked away from a learning discussion with an issue owner in your business, feeling frustrated? Because he or she just didn’t get it? And you wished you could do a better job of explaining the value of learning?

Maybe it’s time we stopped trying to speak learning to business. Maybe it’s time we started talking business to business.

The senior leadership of organizations focuses on business objectives and business metrics. Ultimately, they are focused on profitability, revenue growth, sustainability, market position, and reputation. This posting on the Chief Learning Officer site makes the point well, and backs it up with some research. If you want to know what a business really values, look at what they measure. If they’re willing to take the time to measure something, it’s probably pretty important.

Why is this relevant now? Because I keep hearing people in the learning community talk about things like social media, and how businesses need to change their mindsets and get on board now. And it frustrates me like crazy. Because I agree with them. But we can’t demand that businesses change in order to meet the needs of the learning organization. The learning organization needs to establish the value.

How do you do that?

• Know what your business values
• Know how your business measures that value
• Determine how your learning initiative impacts value metrics
• Talk to your stakeholders in business terms, not learning terms
• Recognize that real change involves the whole business, not just the learning organization

Last night, I attended an ASTD Corporate SIG meeting where a panel of speakers shared their talent management and development best practices. As one of the speakers described his company’s first-level manager program, he said something that struck me as curious. He stated that participants in this program rolled their eyes when they were asked to spend time reflecting on the course content. Self-reflection, he said, was not initially embraced by these new leaders in training.

Why, I wondered? Why would a call for introspection prompt this reaction? Maybe participants didn’t understand the value of self reflection. Maybe they didn’t know that reflection—namely, critical reflection—has the potential to lead to transformative learning.

Taking a step back, I realized that the value proposition for self-reflection isn’t something we talk about a lot. Given that, I thought I’d identify at least two value drivers for reflection and encourage you to add to this list.

Value Driver 1: Reflection challenges limiting assumptions

All of us hold beliefs and assumptions based upon our previous life experiences and our socially-constructed norms. Critical self-reflection empowers us to challenge those assumptions. By asking the following questions…What is it that I assume? What’s the origin of that assumption? Why do I hold that assumption as truth?...we have the potential to identify our constraining beliefs, entertain alternatives, and shift our perspective. This shift in perspective followed by a resulting change in behavior is indicative of transformation. (See writings on critical reflection by Dr. Stephen D. Brookfield.) Think of the potential value in asking leaders to reflect critically on their current leadership practices. By doing so, we can prime them to grow and change.

Value Driver 2: Reflection aids in the integration of multiple perceptions

Many leadership development and coaching initiatives incorporate stakeholder feedback for the leader on his or her performance. Reflection on stakeholder assessment data is vitally important to leaders’ personal and professional development. When leaders take the time to understand the perceptions others have of their actions, why they have them, and how they empower or constrain them, they can develop significantly from the experience. Reflection is essential to integrating these multiple perspectives with one’s own. Without reflection, any leader would be hard pressed to develop an effective action plan to close gaps and capitalize on successes.

What other benefits are there to reflection? Share your thoughts. Hopefully, we’ll turn those critics of reflection into converts and eliminate their eye rolls.

“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more, you are a leader.”    --John Quincy Adams

People who know me, know I’m addicted to quotes. When I read this quote, it struck me as being so parallel to a recent article I read on leadership titled “Recession as a Litmus Test”. Take a look!

The article discusses that during times of recession (or difficult times in general), there are four distinguishing aspects of leadership. Those four aspects are as follows:

1 - Disciplined Thinking (Dream more)

Help others to see through the noisy clutter of confusion during times of uncertainty. Focus on the known, such as the core business requirements, and keep an eye on the big picture.

2 - A Bias for Action (Do more)

Don’t just wait around for someone to tell you the new vision or the next steps to take.  Start creating it….one step at a time. You may need to take a step back once in awhile, but three steps forward and one step back is better than no steps forward at all.

3 - Timely and Transparent Communication (Inspire others)

Be open, be honest, be realistic. Find the right balance between realism and optimism, but always communicate.

4 - The Ability to Inspire Followership (Become more)

After someone speaks to you, do they feel as if they can move forward or do they feel “stuck”? Use the three items above to help inspire others. Lead by example.

Now, picture yourself in this situation. Due to a recent reorganization, you now are leading a blended team of individuals from two very different organizational cultures (maybe it was a merger, maybe it was a global reorganization effort, whatever the case may be). You need to begin laying out your strategy, supporting projects, plans and processes for your newly-defined team. But where do you begin?

Timeline and Transparent Communication – Acknowledge and recognize the differences in cultures. Discuss as a new team how you begin to for the new culture and expectations within your team.

Disciplined Thinking – Think about what you know and how to “anchor” your team on the known vs. worry and complain over the unknown.  Sure, as a new organization, not everything will be clearly defined. However, some things must be known. For example, the organization must have a business strategy and long-term goals. You can always use this information and collect data on the competitive marketplace or industry environment

A Bias for Action – Act! Based on the facts that you know now, start creating your strategy, begin planning projects that support those known goals. Start your research!

Inspire Followership – Examine your team and others that you have an influence on. After each interaction, think about the impact you had on them. If the impact was not as positive as it could have been, consider what you can do differently the next time you interact with your team.

Distinguish yourself from all other leaders by implementing these tactics on a regular basis. Take these steps and you’ll pass the leadership litmus test.

by Rich Mesch

[This article explores the impact that IBM has had on the use of VIEs in business. Today’s entry is the first of at least two that are based on an interview I did with Chuck Hamilton, one of the key visionaries responsible for IBM’s commitment to VIEs.]

When you talk about the use of Virtual Immersive Environments (VIEs) in the corporate world, you can’t help but talk about IBM. IBM has been one of the earliest and most fervent adopters of VIEs for various business uses. While other corporations are dipping their collective toe in the water, what made IBM dive into the deep end? To answer that question, I was fortunate enough to get some time with Chuck Hamilton, the head of Virtual Learning Strategy at IBM’s Center for Advanced Learning in Vancouver, BC.

Chuck works with a diverse and talented group at IBM. He shares, “We’re sort of the go-to people for learning delivery across IBM. We are very seasoned people with expertise in 100 different angles around the intersection of learning and technology. So we help the people with design, we help the people with delivery, we help the people come up with a new way of getting it done—whatever it takes. My particular expertise has always been where new media learning and technology starts to cross.”

With that sort of background, you might expect that Chuck would become interested in VIEs; what you might not expect is that it’s his architecture background that first got him interested: “If my first degree hadn’t been around design and architecture, I probably wouldn’t have been so fascinated about putting spaces together that I could put people in.”

But that interest quickly turned to the application of VIEs for learning: “IBM spends millions of dollars on learning globally, so it is something that is important to us, and Learning has became very important to me.  I always find myself saying, ‘How can I take XYZ technology and make it work for people in a learning context?’”

Chuck was becoming increasingly aware of 3D worlds like World of Warcraft. “We started to say, ‘It’s quite interesting that there’s this parallel universe that’s being built almost next door to IBM, replete with economies and so on. Then we started talking to some of the people who were thinking about these economies and realized that some of these economies were bigger than whole countries—but were happening virtually. That’s what really tipped it for me.”

IBM’s participation in VIEs began with a Jam, a collaborative innovation process designed to bring together diverse mind to create innovations. “One of the focus areas was around virtual collaboration in a global setting. And the reason why that’s important to IBM is that there are 400,000 IBMers worldwide, another 100,000 contractors, and about 70% of those people live outside the Americas. 42% of people don’t have a traditional office. So we were a virtual company by nature, and increasingly having to come together on a virtual global basis.”

So Chuck decided to take the Jam team into the 3D world. “And all of a sudden, all kinds of people showed up and wanted to participate. We had these young, brand-new IBMers flying around next to executives, talking about how a World could be used. People were seeing that this had some real possibilities.”

The idea of using Virtual Worlds for collaboration proved to be the most popular idea to come out of the Jam that year, and the team earned substantial funding to build the idea out further.

[In the next post, we’ll look at how the concept of Affordances affect how we interact with 3D worlds.]

 by Rich Mesch

One of the more controversial aspects of Virtual Immersive Environments (VIEs) is the use of avatars to represent ourselves. That’s understandable—when we’re just icons on a WebEx menu, we don’t worry about what those icons say about us. And when we appear on a videoconference, we feel pretty good that we’re represented accurately. But avatars are unique; depending on the VIE platform you’re using, you have a chance to customize the way you look—from very accurate, to complete fantastical. So should our avatars look just like us? Should they look like what we’d like to look like? Or should they be creative interpretations of us, which may or may not resemble us at all?

A popular concept, originally applied to robotics, is The Uncanny Valley. In a nutshell, the theory says that the closer a facsimile of a human gets to reality, the more repulsed we are by it. Think about the animatronic presidents at DisneyWorld. Creepy, no? But perhaps the easiest to understand definition of The Uncanny Valley came in an episode of 30 Rock from last season. Since this is a family blog, I can’t give you the exact context (but feel free to Google for yourself), but this snippet of dialogue between the characters of Frank and Tracy says it well:

Frank: As artificial representations of humans become more and more realistic, they reach a point where they stop being endearing, and become creepy.

Tracy: Tell it to me in Star Wars!

Frank: All right. We like R2D2 and C3PO.

Tracy: They’re nice.

Frank: And up here we have a real person, like Han Solo.

Tracy: He acts like he doesn’t care, but he does.

Frank: But down here, we have a CGI Storm Trooper, or Tom Hanks in “The Polar Express.”

Tracy: I’m scared! Get me out of there!

Frank: And that’s the problem. You’re in the Valley now. And it’s impossible to get out.

Most VIEs use a simplified version of a human being, ranging from extremely cartoonish to moderately cartoonish. If you’ve spent much time in Second Life, you’ll see extremes in every direction, from tools to make your avatar look and move as realistically as possible, to completely non-human avatars such as animals, mythological creatures, and aliens. But even the most realistic avatars don’t look very real. Right now, that’s a technological limitation. But do we really want our avatars to look just like us?

Why do we need avatars at all? Well, part of it is to help us enjoy the 3D aspect of VIEs, But another part is to tell the rest of the citizens of the VIE who we are. Just like we carefully consider in real life how we dress, how we wear our hair, what jewelry we do (or don’t) wear, we use our appearance to communicate. So, too, can we do that in VIE. The only difference of course, is that in real life, we have some limitations—it’s hard to change our height, weight, gender, or age. But in VIE we can change anything, if we want—even our species! So in VIEs, we can tell the world who we want to be. In fact, one of the early wins with VIEs was with people who have physical limitations; a woman who I met early on in Second Life has extremely limited mobility due to illness; she was thrilled with her ability to walk and dance in Second Life, something she cannot do in real life anymore.

So should our avatars look just like us? The Uncanny Valley would seem to suggest otherwise, but that doesn’t mean people aren’t trying. My Second Life avatar looks nothing like me (try buying curly gray hair in SL), but my ProtoSphere avatar is pretty close. And VenueGen, a 3D virtual conference platform, allows you to upload photos of yourself in order to create a photorealistic avatar. I’ve never been able to get it to work properly, but feel free to try it for yourself.

Time will tell if we’re able to travel out of the Uncanny Valley in VIEs. But for the time being, I’ll enjoy the fact that my avatar seems to work out just a little more often than I do.

Performance improvement begins with business goals. What are the strategic priorities of the organization? How do the tasks I perform in my job role help to satisfy those strategic priorities? Perhaps, we don’t ask ourselves these questions every day. So, it’s easy to lose sight of the bigger picture. When we do, the business value of our performance becomes less of a focus. I was reminded of that when I met with a former student of mine earlier this week.

I met with this student so that we could review her resume and discuss her career aspirations. She is now in her junior year in college. As we discussed the tasks she had listed under various job titles, I noticed that she began to look more and more chagrined.

“At this job, I only filed patients’ claims,” she said. “It really doesn’t seem like much. I doubt a future employer would be impressed by this work.”

Now, think about it. What would you say to this student? Would you say, “No, no, don’t think that way. It’s very important work.” Well, I did. And you know what? It’s the truth. The tasks she performed helped her employer satisfy a business goal. While the work might have seemed mundane, it was vital to the success of the business. I told her so.

“I never thought of it that way,” she said.

Widening her perspective helped her to see the relevance and importance of her contributions. It also gave her the confidence to position her work for this employer as being significant and noteworthy. Suddenly, “Filed patients’ claims in accordance with legal statutes” took on greater meaning and purpose.

The lessons I took away from this conversation are two fold. First, we tend to regard our everyday work rather myopically. Who’s to blame us? Deadlines have a way of keeping us focused on the task at hand, rather than the larger business benefits of our hard work. And second, we need to remember that in order to position ourselves effectively – say, in a conversation with our superiors at work – it’s important to lead with those business benefits of our hard work.

I can hear the conversation now… “I saved the company over a million dollars by effectively filing patients’ claims in accordance with legal statutes.” Now, that type of performance will get any manager’s attention.

by Rich Mesch 


I’m hoping you’ll join me on March 24, 2010 at the eLearning Guild’s Learning Solutions Conference in Orlando, FL. Besides the obvious draws of warm weather and Disney frolics, you can stop by and hear my presentation, Virtually There: The Top Ten Best Practices for Implementing Virtual Worlds. With Virtual Worlds still being a comparatively new approach, we’re still defining how to get the most impact with them. I’m hoping my session will help people who are just getting up to speed on Virtual Immersive Environments (VIEs), as well as those who may have tried a few things.

I wanted to use some blogspace to share the best practices. Today’s focus is on number 5, “Redefine the word ‘content.’” Simply put, “content” means something different in VIEs then it does in more

traditional learning approaches. Without redefining what we mean by content, we run the risk of creating virtual experiences that are not engaging, or do not take advantage of the robust environment. As Kapp & O’Driscoll observe, “In the past, content was king; today context is the kingdom.” Content is still critical; however, in VIEs we have a fantastic opportunity to redefine what we call content.

The first step is to get out of the trap of “Content = Course.” Yes, you can bring courses into VIEs; however, recreating the classroom in a Virtual World is one of the least compelling ways to use a 3D collaborative environment. How about these other options:

 

• A talk show (to see how well the talk show format can work, watch some of the videos at http://www.metanomics.net/)
• A live speaker
• A scavenger hunt (try building teams to increase the collaboration); not only is this approach engaging, it really takes advantage of the ability to explore in three dimensions
• A simulation; while most VIEs allow you to program avatars to create simulation experiences, it’s even easier if you have real people play the simulation characters; your start-up investment is minimal
• A collaborative activity, such as building something, exploring together, or reviewing data in 3D
• Product demos; create a 3D version of your product and let people walk around it, on top of it, or inside it

Most importantly, don’t forget the social aspect of VIEs. In simplest terms, providing a social space such as a café or a lounge near your learning space will encourage your learners to chat and engage in informal learning. If that’s not social enough for you, consider having a purely social event that precedes or follows your learning event. VIEs support social interaction really well; why not take advantage of it?

by Rich Mesch

[This is part 2 of series that started here. I met Dr. Glynn Cavin at this year’s ASTD TechKnowledge conference. He shared with me some of the work he is doing using Virtual Immersive Environments, and was good enough to allow me to interview him for this article.—RM]

Is your training a matter of life and death?

For Dr. Glynn Cavin, it is. Glynn is the Director of the Transportation Training and Education Center at Louisiana State University and a PhD in Human Resource Education and Workforce Development. One of his responsibilities is training road maintenance crews in Louisiana. Road crew errors have resulted in thousands of injuries and deaths over the years. How could he turn those numbers around?

A former Air Force Colonel, Glynn spent 24 years in the military. His military experience taught him that he needed to be out there, working side-by-side with the people he was responsible for, and to get to know them.  "It felt like training had two different camps," says Glynn. "There was more sophisticated training for professionals like engineers, but only classroom training for the highway maintenance crews. There's nothing wrong with classrooms, but a lot of the crew members were intimidated by the classroom.  It isn't their natural setting, for many of them it's an environment where they haven't historically been successful, and it isn't really relevant to their job. And then we wonder why they aren't getting it."

As a curious learning professional, Glynn had spent some time in Second Life, and found himself wondering if Virtual Immersive Environments (VIEs) might be an option for him. After all, road crews didn't work in classrooms; they worked out on roads and highways. Although the classroom training provided opportunities for practice, it wasn’t very realistic; there’s a big difference between trying a skill in the classroom versus doing it in the midst of busy traffic, noisy construction, and unpredictable weather. What if learners could practice in a safe environment that replicated many of the auditory, visual, and emotional cues they’d experience in real life?

“There’s no way to experiment or practice in the classroom,” says Glynn. “You learn the basics of work zone safety, and next thing, you’re out in the real work zone with cars whizzing by at 50 miles per hour. At least if you get clipped by a car in the virtual world, the only thing that gets hurt is your feelings.”

“We don't know a lot yet about how people learn virtually,” Glynn adds. “When the virtual world has the same cues as the real world, then those cues should help in the recall process when it's time to subconsciously recall that learning. We are looking to get the ‘Sense of Self’ and the ‘Power of Presence’ that Kapp & O’Driscoll talk about.”

Glynn set out to create a training experiment, where he would compare the effectiveness of blended training using both classroom and a Virtual Immersive Environment with training that used classroom lecture methods exclusively. In order to make his experiment work, Glynn put together a collaborative team, including Marty Altman of the Louisiana Immersive Technology Enterprises (LITE), an incubator for innovative technologies; Dr. Krisanna Machtmes, from the  LSU School of Human Resource Education, and expert of distance learning and statistics; and Mary Leah Coco, a doctoral student at LSU.

The team chose the Unity 3D engine as their platform. “We chose Unity because we could track everything-- where they put their avatar, how long it takes them to do certain tasks,” Glynn notes. “We may use something like Second Life in the future, if it could support our data tracking needs.” To avoid any intimidation involved with using a PC, learners will use a Logitech game controller, similar to an Xbox controller. To further simplify the learning curve, the controller has only a few buttons enabled. While this is technology-based learning, the goal is for the technology to be invisible to the learner.

“In a traditional classroom, when you ask for volunteers, everyone looks at the floor,” Glynn observes. “You may get an extrovert, or the instructor may select someone. Nobody wants to be the one making a mistake; in a VIE, everyone gets a chance to do it, and there's no 'public humiliation'-- nobody knows but you and the instructor. And you get to keep doing it again and again until you get it right.”

The experiment will be held in mid-March. The initial audience will be 200 learners from various parts of the organization. The control group will receive the traditional classroom training, while the treatment group will experience the blended approach. “We’ll have a Beta model for testing by March 1, and then the experimental group by March 15. We will have up to 15 classes with 20 students per class; it’s about a four-hour class. When the students report for training, they will not know which group they are in, or that there even are two different groups. Control and treatment classes will be on different days.”

Effectiveness of the blended learning will be measured in multiple ways:

1. Pre- and post-tests on content

2. Empirical data from use of the virtual environment software (decisions made, reaction time, etc.)

3. A qualitative interview with learners after each class

4. An evaluation of learning retention after 6 months

Actual improvements in road safety will also be tracked; however, with so many variables impacting road safety, the team isn’t convinced that they can make a directly correlation of the results to the training

While the experiment hasn’t been completed yet, the team is already excited about it.  Glynn says, “We think this is a big step forward. In our literature review [on Virtual Immersive Environments], we did not find a lot of empirical data to back up the claims. We hope this will add to that body of knowledge, especially for a diverse workforce. We couldn't find any literature where researchers were using blue collar workers who hadn't been in a school a long time.”

In the end, Glynn thinks this effort will be successful because he knows these learners very well. “There are a lot of naysayers out there who say this won't work because this group doesn't use technology. But if you watch them day-to-day, a lot of them have Smart phones or Wiis or Xboxes. So they may not be comfortable with a PC, they are comfortable with technology.

"This has the potential to be transformational for the adult education community as virtual learning reaches out to those who learn best visually or who may be functionally illiterate.  Virtual learning environments could offer a whole new frontier for educators and developers hoping to reach out to marginalized populations.”