Training Tech Solutions Blog

It’s only 53 seconds  long, but here’s a glimpse of Claudia L’Amereaux’s keynote presentation within a presentation. In this clip, Linden Lab CFO John Zdanowski speaks to the Training Tech Solutions audience through a live video feed inside a presentation his avatar gave us inside Second Life:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoBVBOLm9Nk

Enjoy!

- Kris Stokes

At Claudia L’Amereaux’s cool keynote today, we watched a presentation, projected onto a screen in the lecture hall, that showed a 3D virtual world, inside of which we watched an avatar give a presentation projected onto a virtual screen, which, for a while, contained a live video feed of the presenter, back in San Francisco.

If you can unravel what that means for training, let me know, but I felt that it was a notable moment nonetheless . . . But can layers, somewhat counter-intuitively, add transparency?

As Claudia memorably mentioned, in a conference call you might just stare at the phone—but certainly your eyes could be doing something more. Can adding a layer to a mundane meeting, an extra step of a computer screen and an active avatar, help understanding, engagement, and maybe retention?

Maybe. But other possibilities are more obvious (and exciting). Claudia spoke of Ceasefire Island, the Second Life replication of real low-income Chicago neighborhoods to help train ex-gang members to diffuse violence. And I was talking to presenter John Walber, who described an insurance company putting Second Life to good use by building a virtual, damaged house to train their insurance adjustors with (real) virtual practice.

- Kris Stokes

Here a few interesting links Claudia mentioned:

Second Life Education Wiki: http://www.simteach.com/wiki/index.php?title=Second_Life_Education_Wiki

Second Life Educators mailing list: https://lists.secondlife.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/educators

Professional Educators and Trainers of Second Life group: http://groups.google.com/group/petsl

IBM Keynote at Best Practices in Education Second Life Conference: http://slcn.tv/bpe-chuck-hamilton-and-holly-stewart

Is this a familiar frustration? You plan and pilot. You make it engaging and meaningful and relevant. And yet…it still seems that learners don’t get it? This morning we looked at what we believe about adult learners (like: they have ‘learning styles’, they are self-directed) and then asked, “Do THEY know that?”  This research-based session asked us to rethink our systems (do we make it impossible for them to GET to training?); consider ways in which we inadvertently block learning or development of better learning habits; our beliefs about the learner, and our practices as trainers, and invited us to develop ideas for “growing better learners”.

- Jane Bozarth

Salt Lake City is nowhere near Seattle, but it’s part of what can loosely be termed the Northwest, so I figured it would be a technology forward kind of place. And it may be. But what’s not tech forward are the bins of red flags affixed to electrical poles near some intersections. This is in lieu of a crossing signal. Ongoing traffic is no worry. See, all you do is wave your little red flag and all oncoming cars and cargo-carrying trucks will be happy to stop. Other cross-walks are much more technologically sophisticated, as they are aided by chirping “birds.” Birds are fairly intelligent and forward-thinking, so when the electronic bird starts chirping, you know it’s safe to cross. What with red flags and computerized birds smart enough to save me from speeding cars, I feel pretty safe.

Not ideal, but then it’s probably a little like your training program. The red flags as a parallel to the Band-Aid fixes you turn to when the budget, means, time, or all three, aren’t available for a more technologically-savvy solution. The chirping “bird” as a parallel to the great tech ideas that seemed very cute in conception, but not so charming to the learners who had to figure out how to use them. Much like the blind man to whom a twittering electronic “bird” would mean little, your learners will most appreciate the technology that’s more user-friendly than “catchy.” I’m sure the creators of everyone’s favorite bird-brain crossing guard thought it was adorable–wonderful to avoid the noise pollution that would occur if they had instead installed a mechanical voice that said, “It is now safe to cross.” But not as cute.

When it’s impossible–for whatever reason, and there are often many–to provide your learners with the technology they deserve, what’s the solution? If your LMS doesn’t provide the kind of registration capacity or course completion tracking you’d like, what do you do? What’s your company’s version of Salt Lake City’s red crosswalk flags?

On the robo-bird front, what recent ideas you thought would make the user-interface more fun, did nothing but baffle or frustrate learners? Were those graphics you upgraded on your latest simulation so stylish they looked fit for the runway, but meaningless to the concepts you sought to teach? Flash is a common e-learning “bird.” It’s a feature trainers get convinced to use to keep their coursework “up-to-date,” but often contributes little to the learning. There are exceptions, but to be honest, you may know what I’m talking about.

As you endure the multi-hour drive or flight home this week, consider more than the annoying person snoring next to you; consider your e-learning red flags. They’re signs you either don’t have the innovation or executive support to do something better, or maybe, in some cases, the low-tech solution is the one that makes the most sense. Which is it?

Figure it out. If you don’t, your very tech-forward simulation won’t train your learners–it’ll run them over.

- Margery Weinstein

Senior Associate Editor, Training

Yesterday, I presented on the topic of transferring knowledge from the boomers to the gamers. The basic idea is that learning and development professionals need to adopt some of the tools of the Net-Generation or Gamer Generation and deliver some of our training that way.

Consider incorporating blogs and wikis into your training offerings. Not to replace courses but to augment the courses to provide additional information and ideas about the courses…to allow open and honest attendee feedback.

Also, allow game playing within e-learning courses. This encourages repetition and provides motivation to the learner. Everyone enjoys playing games so leverage games to provide basic declarative knowledge to your learners.

Another tip is to use gadgets, like Cell Phones and iPods to provide information via podcasts or via text messages. The Net Generation is already used to these devices, leverage them.

I am not saying that we need to abandon stand up or traditional e-learning, instead we need to augment it to make it relevent to the learners we are instructing.

Also a number of people afterward wanted to know where to get more information. If you go to the Web site Gadgets, Games and Gizmos you can download the slides, get whitepapers and learn more about the knowledge transfer process.

And if you are around at 3:30 today, I will be signing my book (which was the basis for the lecture) Gadgets, Games and Gizmos for Learning: Tools for Transferring Knowledge from the Boomers to the Gamers at the books store, even if you aren’t interested in having the book signed, stop by and say hello.

Karl Kapp

I really enjoyed Steven Johnson’s keynote presentation this morning, and a few (of many) interesting tidbits stood out. Johnson talked about Google’s policy of requiring employees to spend 20% of their time on their own pet projects, on what they think is important (or what they think is just plain cool).

When I related this to a colleague of mine, he pointed out that the 20% rule lets employees re-assess their roles outside what’s been given to them. Well, this is your role, this is your job, but what are you really good at? And what actually needs to be done?

According to Johnson, some darn good things have come out of Google’s 20% rule (like Google’s popular social networking site, Orkut).

By giving employees the leeway to judge what needs responding to, to decide what they should really be doing, you are spreading the decision-making around (in Johnson’s words). And maybe end up with an organization that can successfully respond to change. What do you think? And what are you doing to train your people to deal with the unexpected?

- Kris Stokes

You can’t be in two places at once. Sad, but true.

There are over 130 sessions at Training Tech Solutions 2007, and you’re not going to be able to make them all.

We hope this blog will help. If you attended a session that really inspired you, if you met someone who gave you some insight, if you found a new tool you’re excited about–in short, if you’ve learned something–tell us about it!

Here is the place to share what you’ve learned to help make the most of everyone’s conference experience.

It’s also the place to ask questions, find out about your peers’ interests, and talk about anything else you want (where are you going to dinner in Salt Lake City?).

What are you most excited about? What’s one session you are definitely not going to miss? What’s been good so far?

- Kris Stokes