Methodology In Planning and Designing Second Life Program

From Virtual Worlds

General

• Streamline registration and initial experiences.
• Do not spend resources building an expensive corporate campus. There is zero value in a virtual copy of your office building.
• Second Life is not the Web. Avoid using it as you would use the Web. Do not use it just with an intent to "create presence." Do not provide hard-to-read text, or billboards with so much written information that one could hardly read it. Instead, use interactive tools and events to convey your message.

Methodology

• Allow trainees experience first hand rather than conceptualize, be part of a story that is happening right here and now, rather than be a passive reader of slides.
• Break your training into parts and use different ways to deliver the message depending on what is most appropriate for each part.
• The learning curve for using Second Life appears to be less of an issue, especially with younger employees, then it is often made out to be. Limit training to essential virtual world features needed in the simulation: moving, focusing, and interacting with objects. Avoid less relevant items, such as creating and customizing an avatar. Whenever possible, pre-create avatars for learners so that they do not spend instruction time opening accounts or customizing avatars. This approach eliminates the necessity to learn advanced Second Life skills, allowing learners to concentrate on the subject at hand and, for the most part, to ignore the underlying technology. Do use human instructors, robotic avatars, and tools to make learners comfortable and assure availability of help.
• Working in a virtual world means making the training path as visual and obvious as possible: use arrows, floor arrows, and sky tracers to indicate the correct direction of movement and the path that needs to be followed from one exercise to another.
• Keeping presentations flowing from one exhibit (simulation, slide, movie, workshop) to another keeps participants fully engaged, encouraging them to stay on topic.
• Create opportunities for trainees to interact with one another in the virtual world. Encourage situations where trainees have to team up to do an exercise or take part in a multi-user simulation. Include a forum for scheduled lectures and discussions.
• A mix of self-training (with an instructor close by--just in case), group sessions, and debriefing/question sessions is a good way to leverage the virtual environment in as many ways as possible and to maximize an impact.
• Bridge the virtual world and the physical world. Use browser windows to display physical world applications whenever relevant. Include gateways to link with online resources, places where users can submit questions or comments via email, or browse relevant intranet/Internet sites.
• Provide trainees tools for self-assessment and monitoring their progress.
• Measure new knowledge with objective metrics and analyze training efficiency with quizzes and tests.
• In spite of the absence of the physical "how-to" aspects and physical feedback, the immersive setting provides ample opportunities to learn the sequence of the steps and the branching of decision making. Separating these parameters reduces the cognitive load for the students and improves the overall result by breaking a complex procedure into manageable units.
• A three-dimensional physical environment can be modeled accurately and realistically in Second Life. As a result, trainees can subconsciously learn important parameters of a procedure, such as the location of equipment and materials in a real environment.
• Create badges and other fun stuff, and award trainees when they complete an exercise or win a contest. Create a "Hall of Fame" for the trainees, measure the trainees' satisfaction, and receive their feedback on possible improvements. Create a fun space where people can have a break from training--an exhibition of fun facts from the company's history, or a racing track, for instance.
• Create a short movie inside the virtual world, and use it to advertise the course and prepare "newer generations of users" to what they will encounter in Second Life.
• Link virtual world training to the company's HR training records. Keep it simple. Count virtual world training the same as all other types of training for HR purposes.
• Include a training passport which records the modules that trainees have completed and the results that they have achieved.
• Use both synchronous events and asynchronous e-learning tools and materials that new employees can use for self-study at any time.
• Test, test, and test again; bugs can discourage trainees quickly.

Philippe Barreaud and Heiphetz