We recently had a client come to us looking for some ideas on a new distance education program. Their two main objectives were to reduce the costs associated with bringing groups in for live instructor-led training events, and to have a fun learning program that would be engaging to the younger demographic that they were trying to recruit. Their first thought was that Second Life would provide an optimal environment for rolling out this program. After some discussion though, we decided to take a step back and think about some other solutions that might meet their needs.
Second Life is an Internet-based 3D virtual world created and operated by Linden Labs. Each user has their own 3D avatar that they use to interact in the shared virtual space. Organizations can purchase and customize their own virtual environment, restricting it for private access or opening it up to the public community. Second Life has been increasingly used by the educational community – both academic and corporate. In some cases, a “virtual campus” is created to mimic a standard meeting or classroom environment. In others, a realistic model of a real-life location is created for the purposes of simulation and practice. In one example, the Children’s Memorial Hospital in Chicago created a detailed Second Life model of their entire hospital, and then used it for immersive group simulations of emergency response planning.
A Second Life virtual meeting area created by Cisco Systems
This example shows the real sweet-spot of Second Life – immersive and synchronous distance learning events. As mentioned in the previous article, “Our training focus in Second Life is on situations where spatial context, and real time group communication matters.” But not all distance learning falls into these categories. And to get back to our client’s needs, a learning event doesn’t necessarily have to be immersive or synchronous to be engaging, fun and educational.
This chart shows some excellent examples of technologies that have been applied to meet a variety of learning needs. As I mentioned, Second Life is an excellent tool for cases where the fidelity of a simulated environment and group interaction is key – immersive and synchronous.
XL-CITR (Accelerated Learning for Cyber Insider Threat Reduction) was a research project that Tier1 proposed for the United States Air Force. In this program learners would engage in pre-scripted simulations in an immersive Air Operations Center environment to practice detecting behaviors associated with insider threats. Each learner would experience their simulations independently, allowing them to retake scenarios for additional practice or skip over scenarios they have already mastered. This is a case where it’s important for the event to be immersive and asynchronous.
An interactive conversation in the XL-CITR prototype
“Immersion” typically implies that an environment is realistically modeled, and a user feels that they become an active part of that environment. However, there are cases where this is not the most appropriate technique. For non-spatial activities that require more abstract, conceptual thought an immersive environment may be distracting. As an asynchronous example, consider the game Budget Hero. This game gives the learner the opportunity to try to balance the US federal budget, balancing income from taxes with various spending programs, while trying to achieve various user-chosen goals such as “energy independence” or “national security.” A “realistic” environment might have put you in the role of the President sitting at your desk in the Oval Office, reading various bills and deciding which to sign. But obviously, this adds nothing to the engagement or learning of the activity. The interface shown below, while not fitting the above definition of “immersive”, is still entertaining and highly interactive.
Budget Hero, produced by American Public Media
Finally, in some distance learning events, synchronous group interaction is still very valuable but being in an immersive 3D environment provides no real “bang for the buck.” In these cases, a more traditional virtual classroom environment can allow a group to communicate and interact with each other, while simultaneously viewing the same learning content. Adobe Connect is one such application that provides ways for groups to interact such as voice and chat discussions, interactive polls, breakout discussion groups, and even independent interactions such as application simulations.
The breadth of tools and techniques that are available in the e-learning industry today give us many options when it comes to synchronicity and immersion.
What other tools have you used that fit into these categories?
Other than immersion and synchronicity, what decision points do you choose when thinking about highly engaging and interactive learning events?
