I get surprised when I hear people buying virtual stuff. I always wonder why they do it and what kind of satisfaction they must be getting in buying things that they cannot touch and feel. Well, I realize I am not quite different from those people. I get so involved in playing Farmville and get so immersed in the activity that everytime I harvest and make money I feel so happy. When I bought my cottage, I felt as if I had bought it in real life. This is the kind of impact the immersive internet can create.
I have always found virtual worlds fascinating and I have always wanted to explore more into immersive learning. I was completely excited when Professor Karl Kapp invited me to be a part of his blog book tour. I was thrilled to read his book: Learning in 3D: Adding a New Dimension to Enterprise Learning and Collaboration. The book talks about the relevance of immersive learning today and gives ample guidelines to create a 3DLE (3D Learning Experience).
In this post I would love to pick up some interesting points from the book authored by Prof Karl Kapp and Tony O’Driscoll.
To begin with here is a good definition of 3DLE from the book:
A 3DLE is a highly immersive virtual environment in which the learners act and interact in real – time with each other and with the instructor to accomplish a challenge or task.
The authors nicely distinguish between 2D and 3D learning environments. In a 2D learning environment, web conferencing tools , chat facilities, whiteboard, application sharing etc. are used to drive interactivity. Whereas in a 3D learning environment is a highly immersive virtual environment where learners interact real time with one another and with the instructor and are emotionally involved to complete a challenge or task.
I like the way it is said in the book that in a 3DLE, content is king, but context is kingdom.
This book has lots of tips for Instructional Designers to design a 3DLE and has a lot of case studies too. I particularly liked the 7th chapter that talks about designing and developing a 3DLE. I loved the use of stories to illustrate what it takes to design a 2D learning environment and a 3D learning experience.
Some interesting points in this chapter are:
- An Instructional Designer should be a Context Designer while designing 3DLE and consider things like building architecture, peer – to – peer interactions, informal learning spaces, and learner – to – object interactions.
- When you design virtual learning experience, you need to focus on context, objectives and give lot of scope for collaboration. You must provide opportunity for demonstrating learning.
This chapter discusses how you can use ADDIE process to design a 3DLE.
To learn more, please read the book. Its worth it. Check out the Learning in 3D webiste and the buy the book here.
You can get a discount of 20% by using the code L3D1 at the Pfieffer/Wiley web site
Enjoy the book 
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Rupa,
Thanks for being a stop on the tour and congratulations on your cottage:) It is incredible the amount of money and time people invest in virtual worlds. In fact according to the BBC, Virtual World goods will be worth billions in the New Year
The same investment in virtual goods for recreation can be leveraged for learning and collaboration. This is good because an instructional designer will not have to build everything they need in a virtual world, instead, they will be able to purchase “assets” such as cars, factories, machines, office equipment and other items they need to create the context for learning.
Instructional designers will start to focus on the entire immersive learning experience and find ways to immerse the learner in the work context in which he or she will be applying the learned skills.
The real-time interaction of learners in an “authentic” environment is what makes a virtual immersive environment for learning so compelling and interesting and, ultimately, effective in creating knowledge and skills in learners.
Rupa,
Thanks for being part of the Blog tour! I am glad you picked up on the Content is King/Context is the Kingdom tension that I think 3D brings into stark relief.
As we move from being Content Designers to becoming Contextual Engineers creating teachable moments within fully immersive experiences how we go about the ADDIE process will undergo significant change.
It is our hope that the chapters you call out will be of assistance to those Instructional Designers facing this transition.
What a great blog post. It’s great to interact with all of you, read the book, and do it on a daily basis. I’m disappointed that I’m behind in reading the book. I need to catch up.
I found that while I designed a 3D environment that was contextual, it led to the need for more of my subject matter expert’s time. I needed to manage the expert’s experience and talent in the 3D space and I’m concerned about the total amount of time required by the expert who has a full time “regular job.”
I can design the best of the best, but I’m not an expert in the subject matter. It’s industry focused and uber technical.
I had some lessons learned about the iterative design/development process after this first 3D learning program.
Hi Barry,
Great points for discussion. Even I was thinking that the Instructional Designer has to collaborate with the SME and work on a 3DLE. I would love to hear from you on how you went about designing a 3DLE, if you have.