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by Sherry Engel

As most of my colleagues know, evaluation and metrics is a topic I love to discuss and debate. So when chatting with author Karl Kapp about Learning in 3D, our conversation immediately went to how evaluation may differ with Learning in 3D. Let’s take a look at a few of the things we discussed.

Level 1 – “Smiley sheets” provide input on many of the reactions of the learners. I’d like to examine just one aspect….learner’s confidence in applying the skills after participating in the learning event. My initial reaction is that learners should have a higher level of confidence after participating in a 3D learning experience than if they participated in a 2D learning experience.  Interesting enough, Karl and I had a great discussion about a study that was done on learners in a 2D environment vs. 3D environment and their confidence level related to applying the skills after completing the learning.  Which audience do you think was more confident? Well, to my surprise, it was the learners in the 2D environment. I sat back and began analyzing why this may be the case. As Robin’s previous blog indicated (and quoted from Karl and Tony’s book), when learning in a 3D environment, “The person becomes emotionally involved and behaves and acts as he or she would in the actual situation.”  Think back to your past learning experiences. Are you more confident in the classroom or once on the job? Since learning in 3D provides that emotional connection, as it would on the job, learners are more apt to experience the feelings of self-doubt during learning. Is that a bad thing though? Wouldn’t you rather those feelings occur during learning rather than once on the job?

Level 2 - Learning can be measured in so many ways, however, too often we approach Level 2’s with simple “true/false, multiple choice” tests. Is that type of evaluation conducive to a 3D environment? Karl and I had a great discussion on this one as well. He shared a story with me about an individual that compared test scores from students that participated in a 2D learning environment and those that participated in a 3D learning environment. Which do you think were higher? Don’t let this one shock you…but it was the scores from the 2D environment. We began to discuss why that might occur. Well, as typical with most organizations, this organization did their level 2 testing with a simple “true/false, multiple choice” test. What type of learning does that test? In most cases its factual/knowledge-based learning. I’d like to challenge this organization to change up their evaluation to test application of behaviors in the learning environment. I’ll bet you see the students from the 3D environment testing better on that one!

Level 3 – As you know Level 3 is all about measuring application of behaviors on the job. I’m not going to go into great detail about this one, but naturally, the more we can replicate in the learning the actual environment in which the learner will be applying the skills, the higher chance of success for transfer of this behavior on the job.

Level 4 – Well, with level 4, it’s all about alignment to the business goals and objectives. Karl and Tony’s book nicely captures how learning in 3D isn’t just about the technology but how we can meet specific business needs with this type of learning environment. As with any type of learning--classroom, e-learning, simulation, 3D--upfront analysis of the performance that will be impacted and how that aligns to company business goals and objectives is crucial for true business impact to occur.

by Rich Mesch

I’ll start by saying I’m hardly the first blogger to write about the state of Virtual Worlds in learning. Many have gone before me—in fact, Karl Kapp has summarized it nicely in his own year-in-review post. It’s a great place to start reading about what the blogosphere has to say about the topic. But, of course, the fact that other people have their opinions will not prevent me from sharing mine! So here are the trends and changes I’ve seen in the space this year:

Virtual Worlds have become more mainstream—primarily with kids and gamers. And that’s a good thing. One of the biggest barriers to changing the way we think about online collaborative media is having a relevant point of reference. I’m surprised when I talk to people about Virtual Worlds that their main point of reference is not Second Life, but kid-oriented sites like Club Penguin or Tootsville. Children are wonderful innovators, because they have no idea they’re innovating. The other thing they’re doing is teaching mom and dad about the power of immersive environments in a way that bloggers can’t ever hope to do!

Corporate America is still behind the curve: While there is an uptick in corporate users of virtual worlds, we still haven’t seen broad acceptance of the platform in corporate America. Part of this is the natural Hype Cycle. But another part of it is that virtual environments are still perceived as the purview of gamers, not “serious adults” (who are these serious adults, anyway?) And those who have adopted virtual worlds still are using perhaps 1/10 of 1% of the potential, still perpetuating the “WebEx on Steroids” model of chairs and whiteboards, instead of taking advantage of three dimensions, a collaborative environment, and persistent space. Perhaps we can get them to read more blogs?

Second Life continues to be a leader: It’s rare that the early entrants get to remain major players, but Linden Labs has demonstrated the ability grow and rethink. Second Life’s main grid grew up a little by requiring age verification to access the adult content that defined SL to a lot of people. But of course, the big news is Second Life Enterprise, Linden Labs’ corporate-oriented behind-the-firewall solution. The robustness of Second Life still impresses; let’s see if big business is buying.

Browser-based worlds make it easier: Corporate IT departments hate downloads, so it’s can be tough for corporate folks to even get a good look at the possibilities. Browser-based worlds make it easier. Virtual Conference Centers like Venuegen may be the gateway experience that helps corporate America “get it”; they can use it for single events with a minimal technology investment, and begin to understand the value. Venugen apparently also lets you create avatars that look just like you… which is a little scary. My Second Life avatar apparently spends a lot more time at the gym than I do..

Onward to 2010!

by Rich Mesch

Earlier this year, I had the pleasure of delivering a session on Virtual Worlds at the eLearning Guild’s Online Forums with Susan Hendrich of AstraZeneca. The title of the session was “10,000 Reasons Virtual Worlds Won’t Work for Your Organization…And 10 Good Reasons They Will.” I titled the presentation that way because the more I talked to organizations, the more I heard, “Yeah, we looked at Virtual Worlds, and we realized it wouldn’t work for us.” Now, that’s not too surprising—in a recent post, I talked about Gartner’s Hype Cycle, and how Virtual Worlds were in the Trough of Disillusionment. And the reality is, like any new approach and new technology, there are significant barriers to success. So my thought was, let’s be upfront and honest; let’s talk about all the good reasons why organizations feel they can’t implement Virtual Worlds, and then let’s talk about some things you can do to help drive success.

I wanted to talk a little bit more on the blog about what those 10 good reasons were. So let’s start in the middle, with #5.

Reason #5: Virtual Worlds encourage human interaction, instead of replacing it.

Once upon at time we primarily used classes to teach. Experts had information, and they gave it to others. The model looked like this:


 

That worked for about ten thousand years. About thirty years ago, we started using computers. Except, instead of creating something new, we just allowed the computers to replace the expert. The model looked like this:
 

Pretty familiar, right? Information was still one-way.

Just a few years ago, the concept of Web 2.0 came along. The biggest difference with Web 2.0 was that technology was now encouraging participation. The truth is, everybody in an organization has valuable information. And that information needs to flow between everybody, not just from experts outward. And the technology needs to support that and provide the conduit for the communication, not replace it. Whether it’s social networks, mobile applications, or immersive learning, technology needs to keep information flowing from people to people. The model looks more like this:
 

One of the great things about virtual worlds is they can create the same kind of one-to-one or group-to-group interaction that works so well in real life; the benefit, of course, is that virtual teams that can’t necessarily be in the same room can communicate more effectively. Sure, they could jump on a conference call or a WebEx, but that would eliminate the a lot of the visual and emotional cues that create effective communication… and we’ll talk about that more in my next post!

by Reni Gorman

Wikipedia describes Twitter as "a free social networking and micro-blogging service" that allows users to send "updates" (or "tweets"; text-based posts, up to 140 characters long) to the Twitter website, via short message service (e.g. on a cell phone), instant messaging, or a third-party application such as Twitterrific or Facebook." Twitter asks the following question: “What are you doing?” People can sign up and “follow” each other to submit and read these short updates in just a few seconds. In a work setting, such as that of a training consulting firm, I may find out that someone is “designing a new curriculum for advanced pharmaceutical representatives."  I may read such an update from a colleague I would not normally reach out to. However, upon reading such an update I may contact this person to learn more because I may be doing something similar. This could open up an opportunity to brainstorm, learn and share. Maybe my colleague has a great research paper or framework they are using as part of their engagement that I could learn and benefit from. Maybe the person who shares a research paper is an industry guru or expert in another organization. Maybe they share knowledge with me indirectly: meaning they update their status message with something interesting like: “5 key qualities of leaders.” Perhaps they run searches to see who is talking about a topic of interest such as “astd” (American Society for Training and Development) and reply to my update because I “tagged” it "ASTD." Maybe they respond directly to a question I post: “How do people find each other through Twitter?” There are many possibilities but these are some examples of how useful, helpful interactions can happen with Twitter. “Imagine a world where everyone was constantly learning, a world where what you wondered was more interesting than what you knew, and curiosity counted for more than certain knowledge.” (Locke, Levine et al. 2000)

How does Twitter as an informal learning tool apply to people in organizations? When knowledge workers are “stuck” in the task at hand, they seek advice and guidance from many places, one of them being colleagues and experts around them. In turn, their access to information and knowledge is only as good as their sources, generally only within their organization. What if knowledge workers could easily build networks of experts across organizations? What if they could access gurus in their field? What if they could create their own community of expert peers and gurus who they can reach out to for brainstorming or answering questions?

“Learning is that which enables you to participate successfully in life, at work, and in the groups that matter to you. Informal learning is the unofficial, unscheduled, impromptu way people learn to do their jobs.” (Cross 2007) Using a tool like Twitter, we may be able to foster knowledge sharing and ultimately learning. We can possibly use tools like Twitter to create connections with others and potentially form communities of practice. “Communities of practice are groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly.” (Wenger, McDermott et al. 2002) It always benefits people when they come across another person who has experience and knowledge in a given area—there in lays the value. If knowledge workers are getting support and learning through the use of tools like Twitter, perhaps organizations would embrace the use of such tools.

References:

Cross, J. (2007). Informal Learning: Rediscovering the Natural Pathways That Inspire Innovation and Performance.

Locke, C., R. Levine, et al. (2000). The Cluetrain Manifesto: The End of Business as Usual.

Wenger, E., R. McDermott, et al. (2002). Cultivating Communities of Practice.

by Rich Mesch

I remember years ago, sitting in a presentation by Nicholas Negroponte, where he insisted that in the not-too-distant future, we would all be wearing our computers. He was envisioning complex eyepieces and finger sensors with wires running up your sleeves. He had the right idea but the wrong form factor; he didn’t foresee that we’d be carrying our computers in our pockets and calling them “phones.” 

Mobile learning is on everybody’s to-do list, and why not? Who wouldn’t want learning that could follow an employee no matter where she went? But like so many emerging technologies, we need to look past the gloss of the possible to the reality of the useful. Today’s smart phones have nearly as many capabilities as our desktop computers, but that doesn’t mean we use them the same way. And when we try to deliver learning to a mobile device the same way we deliver it to a desktop computer, we miss the point of having a mobile device to begin with.

When it became clear mobile learning was a reality, the first thing many organizations did was look at “re-chunking” their current content. If something made sense as a 30-minute e-learning program, they reasoned, it could be broken down cleanly into, say, 5 bite-sized e-learning programs for a mobile device. There’s a bit of tortured logic going on there; if something is brief and bite-sized, people will be happy to use it on their phones. And while there’s some truth to that, it misses the point. Mobile applications aren’t just about brevity, they’re about applicability. People “learn” from their mobile devices all the time, they just don’t call it training. Whether they’re pulling sports scores, GPS-ing the next leg of their trip, or sending some quick texts, people use their mobile devices to gain knowledge. So as learning professionals, why would we think they should get little e-learning courses? Why not leverage the methods they’re already using?

The re-chunking people weren’t really wrong, they just sort of missed the point. Rather than creating mini-courses for mobile devices, we need to design learning for each venue in a method that fits it best. People tend to use mobile devices:

• In short intense bursts

• When they need information right away

• In down-time, such as between appointments

• To retrieve information that may not be at their fingertips, or

• To get information that may be so current or time-sensitive, there’s no other way to get it other than right now

So when we look at how our audience performs, we need to ask not what can we teach people on a mobile device, but rather how can we use mobile devices to provide information to help them perform better.

In the next few weeks, we’ll take a look at different applications of mobile learning, both the good and the bad, so we can start thinking about mobile strategies for our organizations. Hope you’ll come along for the ride!

How do we expand our relationships with our clients from “order-takers” to trusted advisors? First, and foremost, we need to begin by changing our mindset that we always need to say “yes” to our clients. When our clients approach us about a specific training need, transition the conversation from solutions to open-ended probing questions, targeted to identify the true performance and business need. After all, what value are we providing to our clients if we provide learning solutions that do not impact their business results? 

Try something like this….

“I want to be sure that we provide you a solution that solves your business need. Do you mind if I ask you a few questions so I can fully understand the performance concerns that you have?”

To engage in a consultative interaction, we must think like our clients. Check out the book titled What the CEO Wants You to Know by Ram Charan. This book provides insight into the business acumen necessary for learning professionals to think like their clients and “talk their talk”. 

Becoming a trusted advisor doesn’t happen overnight. We must gain credibility and trust with our clients through proven results. Don’t let your relationship with your client to “chance”. Plan how to grow and nurture your relationship. Think of ways to demonstrate the value add you can provide to them. Check out David Nour’s book, Relationship Economics for techniques on how to grow and nurture your client relationships.

Peter Henschel, former director of the Institute for Research on Learning (IRL), said: “People are learning all the time, in varied settings and often most effectively in the context of work itself. ‘Training’—formal learning of all kinds—channels some important learning but doesn't carry the heaviest load. The workhorse of the knowledge economy has been, and continues to be, informal learning.”

The Institute for Research on Learning found that 80% of learning in organizations takes place informally and only 20% takes place formally. Yet, corporations spend 80% of their training budget on formal training and only 20% on informal. Deepak (Dick) Sethi, the CEO of Organic Leadership, said: “Informal learning is effective because it is personal, just-in-time, customized, and the learner is motivated and open to receiving it. It also has greater credibility and relevance.” However, in my experience of nearly 20 years in corporate learning and development, I have observed that implementing informal, just-in-time learning continues to be a challenge in many organizations.

Jay Cross, author of Informal Learning (2007) said: “If your organization is not addressing informal learning, it’s leaving a tremendous amount of learning to chance. Is that okay? Not any longer. This is a knowledge economy.” Social media tools like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter are some examples of great tools organizations can begin to use to foster informal learning for people who work inside corporations that also offer formal types of learning interventions.

So, how do you create informal learning opportunities? Stay tuned, that's what I'll be talking about in Part 2!

by Dave Darrow

For the longest time, we've had to avoid using the "g-word" when describing things like business simulation and virtual worlds. As proved by Clark Aldrich and Karl Kapp, the tide is turning and the value in game-like experiences for learning is becoming more evident. This mindset is somewhat obvious for people like me who have played video and computer games since grade school so it's nice to see it being validated. Because of this, I often try to look for common ground between game development and e-learning design.

Recently, I read an article on The Escapist, a gaming blog, titled The Incredible Disappearing Teacher that described the challenges that game designers face in training end-users on how to play their games. The problem they faced was that the end-users don't want to go through tutorials, yet would be unable to enjoy the game unless they obtained the information contained in the tutorial. With a catch-22 situation like this, they have devised clever ways to engage the end-user and keep them motivated to finish the tutorial. Sometimes the tutorials are woven into the storyline of the game, other times they are incentivized with in-game currency, additional in-game inventory, or rewards like badges of achievement. One particularly good example was Valve Software's excellent Portal, which spends nearly half the game teaching you all the skills you need to complete the second half. It does not play like an extended tutorial, since the levels are carefully designed to help lead the player into discovering skills and solutions without spoon-feeding them the answers. This gives the player a sense of accomplishment each time, which does not seem much like "training".

Do businesses face similar challenges? I think they do. Like game players, employees clearly benefit from the knowledge and skills they can learn in their employers courses yet are often reluctant to do so. If game designers have discovered ways to make training enjoyable, we should be examining them and finding new ways to do it for our own design challenges.

by Rich Mesch

In a world filled with acronyms, I apologize for creating another-- although, to be fair, I created this one a while ago.

I've been building simulations for a long time-- since 1985, actually. Now, while that's a long time to be doing anything, I really have found simulation (and simulation-type activities) to be perhaps the most effective way to deliver application-based learning. And here's the reason why: so much of learning is focused on knowledge transfer.  You have a bunch of stuff in your head, and you want it to be in my head, too, so you shovel it in there. Then you probably want me to take a test to prove that I learned it. Which I pass, and then we assume I know all this knowledge. Which I probably do, at that particular moment in time. But what happens when I actually need to use that knowledge? Will I be able to?

What’s the point of gaining super-powers if you can’t use them?

That’s the problem. A lot of content is easy to understand, but not nearly so easy to implement. So we end up with a lot of good knowledge that we aren’t able to use, and often we revert back to the old way. Bridging the Learn-Do gap is one of the oldest challenges of learning. That’s why I’m such a big fan of simulation—because it’s not about knowledge transfer, it’s about knowledge application. It’s about behavior, not about content.

Why does simulation do such a good job of bridging the Learn-Do gap? Because it provides:

• Context: How does this behavior impact my role and the roles I interact with?
• Application: When and where do I use this behavior on the job?
• Practice: Try the behavior in a low-risk environment to gain confidence and perspective
• Example: What does it look like when I do it right? What does it look like when I do it wrong?

Simulation allows you to leap over the Learn-Do gap in a single bound, by allowing you to use new behaviors in a low-risk environment and providing the Context, Application, Practice and Example you  need to succeed in the real world.

Put it all together, and you have a CAPE that will help you get your super-powers off the ground.

 

by Rich Mesch

I’m blessed to know some of the smartest people in this industry. My friend Clark Aldrich pinged me today to take a look at the new post on his fantastic blog, Clark Aldrich On Simulations and Serious Games. I’m glad he did, because it’s a good, provocative read. Take a look, here: http://clarkaldrich.blogspot.com/2009/10/does-inherent-impossibility-of.html.

Clark suggested that “I am sure my newest entry will offend just about everyone!!”
With Clark's permission, I wanted to share my response to him. I think some of what Clark is writing about is going to define the future of organizational learning. Here’s what I had to say:
Well, THAT made me go and read it!
If it offends people, I think that’s only the nature of speaking truth to power. I think I may benefit from not coming from a formal training background (but having worked with formal training people most of my life), but pretty much everything you said rings true to me. The inherent problems are that:

1. T&D Departments sometimes exist to perpetuate themselves, not to improve performance in organizations (there, that should offend someone)
2. Techniques are lagging indicators, not leading indicators. T&D, on average, does what worked ten years ago, not what works today.
3. Culturally, we have to break out of the notion that learning is something that is done to you, or something you do to achieve an external goal, as opposed to something that helps you live your life.
4. Most of all, training designers are NOT supposed to be meeting their personal goals, they’re supposed to be meeting the needs of their audience.

You’re just speaking truth. The great schism of learning is going to be the formalists versus the informalists. You and I have been in this game long enough to see that the stuff that people really retain, really apply, really use rarely comes in the form of formal curriculum. And while we were having this discussion, the five billionth person on earth logged onto the internet and learned something informally. He didn’t need the permission of the Formal Learning Cabal. He doesn’t even know it exists. So humans are going to behave this way whether we like it or not. The only question is, who’s going to be smart enough to recognize that?
Okay, we're back in real time here. I thought about editing some of that, but I decided to leave it as is. The one thing I didn't say was: what's really going to work is going to be a mix of the formal and the informal. The challenge of knowledge transfer and knowledge application won't go away. But right now, we do too much as transfer, and not nearly enough as application.

However, I encourage you to disagree with me-- that's what the comments section below is for!