More on Strategies and Techniques for Implementing Social, Collaborative, and 3D Learning

"Potius sero quam numquam"
— Livy

Okay, I'm cheating and using a quote the second time (the first time was the English translation, "Better late than never" using Livy's Latin name, Titus Livius. But I couldn't find a more appropriate quote because I was going back over some notes from the eLearningGuild online forum Strategies and Techniques for Implementing Social, Collaborative, and 3D Learning, on December 13 & 14, 2007 and found more that I hadn't posted.

Intelpedia: Intel’s Use of Wikis to Support Collaboration and Enhance Learning
Josh Bancroft, Intel (his blog: http://www.tinyscreenfuls.com/)

Some of the best practices Josh used to get the internal Intel community to use the Intelpedia wiki (which probably work as well for other collaboration tools):

• Take advantage of naturally occurring opportunities to be a cheerleader for your wiki. When people complain about other collaboration tools in use, tell them why the wiki doesn't have that problem. When people email or mention a document, ask whether they'll put it on the wiki. And encourage others to advocate for the wiki so it's not just your voice.
• Any time you make a subjective rule about what can go in the wiki, i.e., what's "good enough" you dampen the wiki spirit that people own it and can make it what they want. Encourage people to submit useful stuff, organize it, garden to improve it and make it better.
• All information on the wiki has to be useful to at least one person, but because they want it to be encyclopedic, even vanity pages belong.
• All company security and IP policies apply to Intelpedia content as well, but they encourage employees to post everything that won't violate security concerns on the wiki so it will be encyclopedic. So as long as it's not breaking a rule they welcome people to add.

He talked a bit about why they chose Mediawiki ("it was good enough for Wikipedia") and recommended http://www.wikimatrix.org/ for comparing both open source and product wikis.

What the Heck is Facebook? Using Popular Tools to Train New Learners
Kristin Kahlich and Shon Bayer, Enspire Learning

Many companies have embraced elearning and sometimes simulations but not that many have embraced games, wikis, virtual worlds. Their main point was that employers and those responsible for developing training need to overcome those barriers, because the composition of the workforce will dramatically change as baby boomers leave the workforce and Generation Y enters.

Exploring Enterprise Virtual Worlds and the Metaverse
Ron Edwards, Ambient Performance, Ltd

A few highlights from Ron's talk ...

Corporate collaboration tool context: widely distributed teams, travel as both an expense and an environmental issue, recruit and retain 'digital natives'. Some of the solutions:

• Sun's mixed reality virtual conference room with both people on video and avatars online.
• Cisco partner network is now 3d; see http://blogs.cisco.com/virtualworlds/

Benefits of virtual seminars & conferences in SecondLife:

• You can see who's in the room in a richer way than a phone conference.
• Supports virtual breakout rooms.
• For security in enterprise collaboration you need a dedicated non-public platform or your own server inside a firewall.
• For identity,wrap 2D photos around avatar faces and wear avatar name tags.

For training, any one tool should be part of a mix:

• Virtual worlds are good for practice, role playing, sharing
• A blended approach might also include a SCORM trackable mobile procedural reference, hand-held tools with data analysis, decision support (e.g. Decisionability)
• Role playing is a sweet spot in virtual world collaborative learning.

There was some discussion of accessibility and the areas in which virtual worlds aren't there yet -- especially for those with visual impairment. One group had success with those who have hearing impairment. Training in a virtual collaboration environment can be more accessible than, for example, a ropes course. He showed an example of a real course that required learners to wade waist-deep across a stream.

In his opinion, the ramp up time to learn to use a virtual world application is about 20 minutes, less if you're a gamer. My own experience in SL has been that it takes longer to become either comfortable or proficient.

One of the attendees says there are some good YouTube videos by Torley Linden on building and getting around in SL. A bunch of us shared SL avatar names and got some momentum for an eLearning Guild presence in SL. There are lots of education activities in SL including AECT in SL (Association for Educational Communication and Technology).

Check out Wolf Quest, a learning-based game released by the Minnesota Zoo in December, as an of applying these tools for learning. And one more link of interest: Serious Games Institute, UK.

Ron feels virtual worlds will dramatically change the way we work and interact, but today's virtual worlds are like the horseless carriages that were the first automobiles. Gartner says 80% of us will be using virtual worlds by 2011.