Affordances in Virtual Immersive Environments (or, When is a Chair not a Chair?)

by Rich Mesch

A few months back, I interviewed Chuck Hamilton about the way Virtual Immersive Environments (VIEs) are used at IBM. One of the concepts that Chuck introduced me to was the idea of “affordances,” and how they change in VIEs. According to our old friend Wikipedia, an affordance is “a quality of an object, or an environment, that allows an individual to perform an action.” The term doesn’t really have anything to do with VIEs on its own, although the concept of affordances is frequently used in describing the way people interact with computers.

Affordances become interesting in VIEs because VIEs “warp” the common way we use affordances. For example, what are the affordances of a chair? Well, it can be used for sitting, for decoration, for standing on to change a lightbulb… you get the idea, I could go on and on. But in a VIE, what is a chair? For sitting on, sure… but your avatar never gets tired, so you never really need to sit. Nor do you have to change light bulbs (and if you did, odds are you could fly up and do it).

Or a roof. What are the affordances of a roof? It keeps out cold, rain, snow, burglars, etc. But what if you lived in a world where there was no weather (unless you wanted it)? Would you need a roof at all?

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Engaging Learners Real Time with Social Media

by Reni Gorman

A Great Non-Learning Example

A colleague of mine sent me this video depicting a pianist incorporating social media into his songs on the fly—yes on the fly! You have got to see this video—it is incredible, and it really made me think about social media and teaching/learning (Warning: video contains some mature content). http://www.good.is/post/intermission-ben-folds-s-live-chat-roulette-piano-ode-to-merton My first reaction was: Wouldn’t it be great if you could do this for an online course, and I had to catch myself; because this, in fact, is how synchronous online courses should be taught and why couldn’t they be? And, more importantly why am I, a learning professional, thinking of this approach as so utopic?

Do We All Think of Synchronous Online Learning as Dull?

My mental model of synchronous learning is not nearly this engaging, and now that I am realizing this, it really saddens me because it should not be that hard. Great instructors have been engaging learners for centuries. I am sure we can all think back on our experiences and remember teachers who stood out. But, let’s be honest: most of them just sort of blend together. This problem was made even worse with online learning; I have seen good instructors become bad instructors online. I personally remember giving a presentation on the authoring and use of learning objects that was well received in the classroom, with lots of brainstorming and dialog; but online, it went totally flat. So what can we do?

A Great Learning Example

I recently saw an eLearning Guild online learning presentation on virtual worlds with Dr Karl Kapp. The format of the presentation had a bar on the left where participants can chat during the presentation—not uncommon. During the presentation, Dr Kapp used all the techniques great designers/instructors do: he asked questions, ran polls, had the audience give him their current understanding/frame of mind in the topic so he could build upon it, threw out ideas/concepts to think about and paused to make sure people had time to respond. All was going well enough, but then, he did something that made the whole group come to life: he started reading the chat stream and joining the conversation. He would say things like: “Yes, I agree, Susan just said XYZ, and I think…” The more he did that, the more the group came to life. Suddenly, instead of the chat being a side conversation, it became part of the course.

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Mobile Augmented Reality Training

by Dave Darrow

No, it’s not an attempt to throw as many buzzwords into a title as possible, mobile augmented reality training is a new concept that a confluence of technologies has made possible. The idea of augmented reality applications is not new. The basic concept is that some type of display technology allows a computer-generated image to overlay a current view of the world. Here are some examples of how this can be implemented:

1. A head-mounted display that is either semi-transparent or covers only 1 eye shows computer-generated images or text over a persons vision.
2. A head-mounted display that completely obstructs a viewers vision displays a composite of computer-generated information with a live video feed of the viewers surroundings from a head-mounted camera.
3. A combination of a camera and display in one unit (like a smartphone) that combines computer-generated information with the live feed coming from the units camera.

Additionally, these systems may have GPS, compass, and/or accelerometer technologies inside in order to track orientation and position. The exciting part is that more and more consumers are buying compatible systems of the third type without even realizing it: smartphones.

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What Mobile Shopping Taught Me About Mobile Learning

by Jean Marie Tenlen

Fifty-five percent of the time iPhone users are on their phones, they are not talking to someone. So, what are they doing? One of those activities is shopping – but as you’ll see, shopping with these apps (which are also available for some other phones) is not just shopping. It also means that you can compare prices, local/on-line availability, nutrition, and how the manufacturer rates for eco-friendliness. In addition to all this info, you’ll be able to share your findings through email that you link to within the app, thereby impressing and wowing your friends and neighbors (or at least your teenage sons).

Last weekend, my husband and I, in our never-ending quest to be more handy, decided to buy a powerwasher. While in line at Home Depot, I used the Redlaser app on my iPhone to scan the powerwasher’s UPC code. The results showed me that the same product was available online – for $30 less. HomeDepot matched the online price, and I saved the thirty bucks.

Apps like Redlaser and Shopsavvy use a scanning technology that will give you information about pricing – both online and locally. They pull from the location services on your phone to list the stores near you that have that item in stock. If you want to get it online, just click – you’re redirected to the website. Or if you prefer a local retailer’s price, you can link to the store’s phone number, get directions, email the results to someone else (or yourself), or go to the store’s website. Redlaser will also give you allergen and nutrition information on food products – and you can set price alerts on Shopsavvy.

And, if that isn’t cool enough –– if the product you’re scanning is a book, you can also see if the book is available at one of your local libraries. (Full disclosure: I haven’t been able to get mine to show me this. Since my library fines usually end up higher than the actual cost of purchasing the book , I haven’t really investigated it.)

Another app is made by GoodGuide. It also uses a scanning technology. But instead of pricing and availability, GoodGuide provides you with a rating of the product and the company who produces it. GoodGuide gives you an overall health hazard, environmental impact, and social impact assessment. You can search their recommended product list, scan a product, key in a upc number, or search by name or ingredient. GoodGuide seems to have a very sound process for arriving at these ratings. GoodGuide will even give you alternatives, if your product’s ratings are low (Similar to my mother when I was dating, but that is another blog post).

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How to Talk Learning To Business

by Rich Mesch

Does your business value learning?

A lot of smart people have asked that question. A Gallup Management Journal article from a couple of years ago addressed it well. However, if you read the article, you’ll discover that the value of learning to the business in question was in how it affected performance.

So, ask yourself that question again: does your business value learning? Or do they value performance, and just see learning as one of many ways to achieve it?

Have you ever walked away from a learning discussion with an issue owner in your business, feeling frustrated? Because he or she just didn’t get it? And you wished you could do a better job of explaining the value of learning?

Maybe it’s time we stopped trying to speak learning to business. Maybe it’s time we started talking business to business.

The senior leadership of organizations focuses on business objectives and business metrics. Ultimately, they are focused on profitability, revenue growth, sustainability, market position, and reputation. This posting on the Chief Learning Officer site makes the point well, and backs it up with some research. If you want to know what a business really values, look at what they measure. If they’re willing to take the time to measure something, it’s probably pretty important.

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Virtual Immersive Environments: From Theory to Practice, Part 3: The View from IBM

by Rich Mesch

(Links to other articles in this series: 1 2 3 4 5 6)

[This is the first of several entries in a series-within-a series where we’ll explore the impact that IBM has had on the use of VIEs in business. Today’s entry is the first of at least two that are based on an interview I did with Chuck Hamilton, one of the key visionaries responsible for IBM’s commitment to VIE. Chuck gave me so much food for thought, it wouldn’t all fit in one post! I’ll also share an interview with Kerry McGuire, an IBM instructional designer involved in creating content for VIEs.]

When you talk about the use of Virtual Immersive Environments (VIEs) in the corporate world, you can’t help but talk about IBM. IBM has been one of the earliest and most fervent adopters of VIEs for various business uses. While other corporations are dipping their collective toe in the water, what made IBM dive into the deep end? To answer that question, I was fortunate enough to get some time with Chuck Hamilton, the head of Virtual Learning Strategy at IBM’s Center for Advanced Learning in Vancouver, BC.

Chuck works with a diverse and talented group at IBM. He shares, “We’re sort of the go-to people for learning delivery across IBM. We are very seasoned people with expertise in 100 different angles around the intersection of learning and technology. So we help the people with design, we help the people with delivery, we help the people come up with a new way of getting it done—whatever it takes. My particular expertise has always been where new media learning and technology starts to cross.”

With that sort of background, you might expect that Chuck would become interested in VIEs; what you might not expect is that it’s his architecture background that first got him interested: “If my first degree hadn’t been around design and architecture, I probably wouldn’t have been so fascinated about putting spaces together that I could put people in.”

But that interest quickly turned to the application of VIEs for learning: “IBM spends millions of dollars on learning globally, so it is something that is important to us, and Learning has became very important to me.  I always find myself saying, ‘How can I take XYZ technology and make it work for people in a learning context?’”

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