Whenever I tackle anything new, especially if it's big and new, I like to examine what I know and what I don't know. What the givens, are and what remain variables. In a way, it's like sorting the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, where the edge pieces are the givens, and everything else is a variable.

Here are some of the ideas that we consider givens in simulation design:

• We use simulations to provide safe practice in making critical decisions (with our clients, mostly soft skills, but sims are excellent for mechanical or other processes, too)
  
  
• We use avatars to make soft skill simulations more social and engaging (this social sensibility also gains us trust and credibility with learners)
  
  
• Avatars can demonstrate, coach or role play with the learner (all are valid roles, depending on the learning objectives and social setting)
  
  
• The more real-world we can make the simulation, the better results we will get (something to remember here is that the real world may not be simple or predictable, so neither should sims be)
  
  
• In a simulation, if learners don't have a good opportunity to fail, they also don't have a good opportunity to learn (the real advantage to building in failure is that you can help learners discriminate between small, but important, concepts and options)
  
  
• The simpler, more streamline we can construct the simulation, the more learning time will be available (when there's value in it, people will go through a sim more than once...so don't use up more time than necessary; this gives them more time to practice)
  
  
• The construction of the simulation should give the learner the same sort of options, process, flow as the real situations (even while designing in failures and demanding critical thought, you don't want to trick the learner) 

Prospects are always impressed by our full-body avatars, and for that reason we're quick to demonstrate them.

But as I joined in the selling process with a new client recently I was reminded that, while we're always thinking sims, that doesn't mean that we should always be thinking avatars. Here's why:

• A sim is used to, literally, simulate real life decisions to provide a learner with practice. Here, by the way, we design in options for failure. If learners don't have a good chance to fail, they don't really have a good chance to learn, either.
• But sometimes the failing and learning have to do with software or with repairing machines. When there is no interaction with people, there is no call for an avatar...no matter how powerful they are.

So, while we're always thinking in terms of sims these days, we're also quick to determine what soft skills are in play. No soft skills, no avatars.

And depending on the audience, we may choose to use avatars in only one section of the course. That would be true with boomers, more than any other age group. They appreciate working with an avatar in a role-play, but tire of having them around when it's not necessary.

A lot of e-learning comes down to e-telling, regardless of how engaging it might be. That's because we don't often give learners a chance to practice what they are learning. By practice, I mean: Try...fail. Try again...fail better.

The center point of simulations is practice, and so when you begin to do instructional design for simulations, you will likely have to break out of your normal box, in order to be successful. You will also find, at least at first, that you end up doing a lot more work than than you normally might.

Practice in simulations will always be more work than less immersive simulations...so you need to become efficient at it.

Practice means providing the learner options that force them to make decisions. Not easy black and white decisions...if learners don't have much chance to fail, they don't have much chance to learn, either. The matrix of options and varying paths that different decisions create, plus accompanying remediation or coaching...well, all of that takes time.

If you are clear, structured and organized in your design approach you will save yourself a lot of time and confusion. You will also deliver these same benefits to your clients and SMEs.

The diagram below presents the kind of organization that you may find useful. In this case, it relates to a retail selling scenario, but the same kind of logic should apply to pretty much any soft skills process, such as leadership or coaching.

The key concept here is to identify common elements that consistently come into play and learn what you have to know from an SME before you can complete your design. 

A selling scenario deals with human interaction, and matching a product with the customer's needs. So naturally you have to know the different options for customer types and preferences and how that relates to the products and selling approaches.

You are basically creating characters and a play, where you write the dialog that both the sales person, and the customer (and maybe a coach) will act out.

It's easy to get your SMEs roped into the instructional design process (confusing them and wasting their time) unless you are clear about these kind of parameters. So, your goal is to use your understanding of these common elements and how they shape the process...in order to simply get the right information from the SME. Then you can begin the work of writing your play.

I'm saying this last, but the place you want to start is: what decisions and behaviors will it be valuable for the learner to practice? 

Corporate purchasing agents have to be good at investigating, and evaluating...and sometimes...good at beating people up, in order to get the best product or service at the lowest price. It's a tough job that I certainly wouldn't want.

At w/, we make it easier to buy from us by being an immersive botique.

We're immersive not just because we do immersive elearning, but because we truly immerse ourselves in our clients business and objectives.  And we're a botique because we're big enough to take on anything that our much larger competitors can, but small enough to care personally, about every project we do.

When we're scrutinized as being too small, I point out our global and Fortune 100 clients. But more importantly, I point out that, while a large company may have more employees, for the money a project costs, you won't get any more people working on it than you do at w/. And with a bigger company, it's likely that these people have never even met you...so how can they truly understand your needs, your business?

There are times when bigger is better, sure. But when it comes to high-quality, high-value elearning, an immersive botique, like w/, just might be the way to go. Just ask our clients!

In the most current issue of the Harvard Business Review, I learned that neuroscientists have discovered that social interactions literally effect our brain chemistry. Not such a surprise, really since our interactions create emotional responses and, in the brain and body, different emotions are associated with different chemicals.

The article features Daniel Goldman, who launched the concept of emotional intelligence in leadership a decade ago, and contends:

“Leading effectively is, in other words, less about mastering situations — or even mastering social skill sets — than about developing a genuine interest in and talent for fostering positive feelings in the people whose cooperation and support you need.”

1. We need to stay attuned to the personal needs of our learners (delivering solutions that meet these needs).
2. We need to understand how elearning fits within the social system of our learners (the entire picture of their work and time needs and demands).
3. We need to be part of the mentoring and coaching that every employee benefits from (making it obvious that there is more value to our programs than just shoving new information at our learners).

Will that change the brain chemistry of our learners? Apparently. But whether you believe that or not, you can be certain it will help build better relationships with their learners. And relationships with employees, sales channels and customers that gain more trust and commitment are always incredibly valuable when it comes to building brand and achieving business objectives.

It's nice to have the scientific foundation for these ideas, but these have always been the principles embedded in our work here at w/. That's why, when we say "w/" what we mean is: "We're w/ you."

We recently rolled out the first ILS (immersive learning simulation) that a large audience of retail sales people have ever seen...with fantastic results.

This is a group we've worked with for years, in a very successful program for a global manufacturer. And while you sometimes worry about tinkering with something that has been so successful, but both our team and our clients agreed that simulations could add great value and should be the next step in our program's evolution.

We chose to use computer generated characters, or avatars, from Codebaby because they are full-body figures and we can easily make them walk, sit, gesture and lip synch to the voice track. The combination of voice inflections (from our narration) and body language provide a very social, very human experience for learners. In all, this course utilized two characters for customers, one acting as a retail salesperson, and one as selling coach.

In the first two weeks, over 600 individuals in our learner population completed this course where they were introduced to different customer types (represented by different avatars). Putting this customer information together with new product information, learners were turned loose in two different simulated selling scenarios.

Learner decisions about what type of customer they were dealing with, and what feature or benefit would appeal most to their specific needs, put them onto one of six different solution paths. For each path, learners received feedback on their performance. And they were encouraged to go through each scenario more than once, to improve their selling skills.

When invited to participate in a survey on the new course format, over 90% of learners chose to do so.  Learners were overwhelmingly positive and told us that the agreed or strongly agreed:

• 84%...Actually meeting the customer characters made them more real for me.
• 88%...It was helpful to observe the retail sales character's approach to selling.
• 92%...The coach provided useful insights and advice on customers and selling.
• 89%...It was useful to actually practice selling the tire to customers.
• 88%...It was helpful to go through the selling scenarios more than once.

If you're reading this, you probably got here from our immersive elearning demo at www.wslash.net (and if not, go to our home page and click on the Demo link in the right column).

The purpose of this blog post is to generate ongoing feedback from people like you, and get your take on immersive elearning. We used the w/ virtual office to demonstrate immersive possibliities, rather than just talk about them. But talk is good, too. So, let us know...

• What did you think of the Hall Of Immersions?
• What questions do you have about implementing immersive elearning?
• How can we share what we know, in order to help you?

Treat this as an open forum. We're looking forward to what you have to say...and you can be sure, one of us here at w/ will always answer your comments and questions.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts!

Jack Pierce
w/ CEO

Everyone pretty much agrees that immersive elearning is better than simpler, linear, click-ahead elearning. Or maybe not.

We've sometimes experienced unexpected client angst when developing more immersive courses. Discomfort that immersive production takes longer. Concern that an immersive approach makes for longer learner seat time. Confusion that not every option in a simulation is black and white.

So maybe we should address the shifting paradigms that must accompany successful immersive elearning. Five immediately come to mind:

1. The point of immersive elearning is to slow the learner down, so that the learning sticks. Evaluating, studying, practicing...all take more time than skimming content just to get to the assessment. But while immersed, longer times actually seem like shorter times.
2. Immersive development time is greater than the time it takes to create click-ahead content. More time for the client, the SME, the instructional designer, and the developer. Create structure and processes that keep you focused and working more efficiently.
3. Instructional design for immersive elearning is more than linear content dressed up with avatars and games. You will have to fight to reorganize the way you think, to do this right. It requires more insight, and more levels subtlety to create a successful learner experience.
4. We learn best by doing. When you get right down to it, we learn by failing. If you are not providing the learner with practice at making decisions, and failing, you are missing out on a powerful tool.
5. When using avatars (and you should use avatars) don't use them simply as eye candy. Use them to create a social interaction, which will be engaging as it builds trust in your training brand. Use them, as with a valuable mentor or coach, to build better relationships with your learners.

The Wall Between Gamers And Boomers

The Learning Circuits Big Question for this month asks us to consider if there are any: Learning design differences for Digital Natives?

Clearly there are differences between Gamers and Boomers (the terms we like to use, here at w/) just as there are differences between the residents of New York and Omaha. But to date, I've not seen a wall between these groups. And not to minimize the differences, but it's a mistake to minimize what these groups have in common. Each is exposed to the same media on a daily basis. They are not isolated. In fact, there are lots of ways that Boomers have adopted the culture of Gamers. iPods, for one. Internet use, for another.

I just recently read (and I'm not kidding, here) in the AARP Bulletin that 92% of Americans 18 to 29 use the Internet, compared with 85% of those 30 to 49, and 72% of those 50 to 64 (source: Pew Internet & American Life Project).

Perhaps a more interesting generational discussion could center on current and next generation elearning. Over the past decade or so we've proved that we can do "next/back" elearning with some proficiency. A lot of companies have spent way more on R&D than I care to think about, making this easier and easier. But instead of easier, it should be different. This approach is growing older than Boomers.

Next generation includes all of the Web 2.0 technologies and informal, bottom-up learning opportunities (which have their place) but I would hope that the defining characteristic of NextGen eLearning would be how immersive it is. My definition of success here, would simply be that the learning sticks and learners actually look forward to more.

To be both simple and clear, I would define immersive elearning as content delivery that concentrates more on discovery and less on presentation of information. For as long as I can remember, that has been a hallmark of premium learning of any kind, so it has nothing to do with differences between Gamers and Boomers or Natives and Immigrants.

Here's a case in point, having to do with a long-term client where we have over 10,000 learners in place at various retail locations:

After more than eight years of successful elearning results, we have recognized the need to give something more than our current level or interactivity to both Boomers and Gamers. Our content hasn't changed (market opportunity, product FABs, and how-to selling content) however, there is less handholding, as each of these buckets is accessed randomly. We increase both interest and credibility by using more third-party media than ever, including consumer interviews and demonstrations from YouTube. And we are using full-body avatars to interactively demonstrate sales techniques and customer reactions, complete with facial expressions and body language. Finally, we've introduced simple game-play elements that makes the learner more responsible for, and gives them more control over, their own learning.

This approach let's learners experience content much like they naturally go about learning on their own. It makes the experience much more social, too. And with every decision we make, we're thinking, "How can we make this more engaging and immersive? How can we make it more leading and less directive?" ...all without making it more difficult or breaking the bank.