My guest post on the Ayogo blog: community management, bullies and taking action

A few times a month, I'll be writing games and learning-related ruminations for the Ayogo blog. Kicking off this year, today's post on learning community management, and specifically on how to handle online bullying, encapsulates some of my thinking around how a few bad apples can ruin the online community bunch and how that can impact opportunities for learning.


Community management shouldn't be passive. Ignoring bullying behaviors leads to the demise of learning communities because learning requires taking risks and people don't take risks if they don't feel safe. Check out my post to read more.

Then, if you're in the US, call your Congressional Representatives and Senators and find out their position on SOPA and PIPA. Send them emails and tweet to their accounts. Blackouts may work if you're a large organization with lots of publicity, but for the rest of us, its our voices that will raise awareness and get results. Don't be silent; take responsibility for our Internet community.

If you need the contact info for your Representatives and Senators, find them here:
http://whoismyrepresentative.com/

Virtual worlds 2.0: don't call it a comeback

It's not just my gut that's been telling me that virtual worlds are emerging from the Trough of Disillusionment and moving into the Slope of Enlightenment on Gartner's Hype Cycle.

On the corporate front, I've just finished up Phase 1 of a consulting engagement focused on developing an organizational adoption plan for a large, global company that is utilizing a virtual world platform as an emerging tool for delivering immersive learning and fostering collaboration and idea sharing among employees spread around the world. It is extremely encouraging to see companies moving out of the "technology implementation" stage and into the "organizational implementation" stage; this signifies a movement of virtual worlds out of the IT departments and into human resources, training, and other departments focused on internal communication. Organizations who have been thinking about or starting to implement virtual worlds have spent a lot of time focused on getting the technology to work and integrate with their existing corporate systems for the past two years; we're moving out of that focus now and into questions of how virtual worlds can best be leveraged. That's an exciting trend for those of us who've been focused on immersive design and how virtual worlds can support different communication and collaboration dynamics.

Another sign that virtual worlds are headed for mainstream adoption are emerging best practice examples of their use for training and learning. Just today, Proton Media announced a partnership with PPD to develop a Virtual Clinical Trial training solution. I've been working with clients recently on virtual preceptorships, virtual apprenticeships, and developing virtual sales territories. There are more and more conversations emerging of using these "mirror worlds" for realistic practice and this trend will continue.

Aaron Silvers blogged this week about his experience at GameTech 2011 where there was more talk about virtual worlds than games. In February, Aaron and I had talked about the current state of virtual worlds  at TechKnowledge 2011 (where I had presented two sessions on virtual worlds for learning). I had been arguing that they were re-emerging from a lag in interest and I think his observations on GameTech confirm that in the government, virtual worlds are certainly garnering renewed attention as a learning tool.


Earlier this week I did a quick search for "virtual worlds" on my blog and found that in the last three years, I've written 32 blog posts related to virtual world topics. I was pretty surprised. Although I've spent a lot of time thinking and speaking about immersive learning design since starting this blog, I don't think I realized how much I'd actually written down. In December 2009, I wrote a post titled "Virtual World 2.0...a few humble predictions" where I made some assumptions about the emerging characteristics of virtual worlds that would lead them to mainstream adoption. I did pretty good on my prediction scorecard:

• Browser-based: almost all virtual worlds are moving in this direction, with minimal plug-ins and more consistent web navigational standards
• Less user-generated content: the most successful serious virtual worlds have provided packaged experiences (eg. Protosphere, VenueGen, web.alive, VastPark)
• Open source: OpenSim continues to strengthen and expand its reach
• Integration with other tools (mobile, augmented reality, existing workplace systems like Sharepoint): this has happened on many levels and in different ways across platforms, but the system integration features may be the key to pushing virtual worlds to mainstream adoption
• More seamless user-experience and navigation: point-and-click navigation is practically standard in the most popular serious virtual worlds. Oh, and have you seen Kinect?

Virtual worlds have been moving through a natural evolution and are beginning to emerge as a valuable tool in corporate and government learning, communication, and collaboration. Our thinking now needs to evolve as well; its no longer a question of if, but when. For organizations who understand this, the real question is, "how can you prepare to successfully adopt and integrate immersive and experiential learning?" 

What IBM Watson means for learning, education, and instructional design

During the NFL Playoffs, I started to see IBM's commercial for Watson. I was interested for two reasons...first, it didn't seem like appropriate placement for the commercial (my sister used to be a media buyer so I peripherally know too much about commercial placement) and secondly, I was having a hard time caring if a computer could answer trivia questions faster than a human.

OF COURSE we've gotten to the point that a computer can beat Ken Jennings at Jeopardy. Isn't that what we've been working towards, since the beginning of computers? Haven't we been trying to get computers to handle sifting through large amounts of data and finding the correct answers at a much faster speed that we humans could do? Haven't we been trying to alleviate our burden of determining complex logic algorithms that lead to a "correct" answer? For questions that have a correct, single solution or, even for questions that clearly have a best answer, we have finally developed a computer that can more quickly and accurately come to that answer than most, if not all, of our brains can handle.

Yay us!

Now what?

The irony in IBM Watson being such a revelation is the juxtaposition with educational trends, specifically an increased emphasis on standardized assessment and testing. Just today in my Twitter stream, I'm seeing tweet after tweet about the US government's multi-billion dollar funding of "Race to the Top" and the emphasis on making our educational system more competitive with other countries on standardized tests. Guess what, everyone? We have actually built computers to do the work that standardized tests test for, better than we are able to do it.

So, what do we value? Do we want to continue to beat our heads against our own technological innovations and try in vain to measure ourselves against systems that will always be more efficient at performing the tasks that they are designed specifically to do? Or should we be thinking about what we, human beings, can do that no computer can? What makes us human? What makes us different from a machine?

We are emotional, creative, intuitive...we can solve complex problems with no clear right answer. We are social and thoughtful and we strive to create meaning where it doesn't currently exist. We are complex and complicated and messy and funny. Yes, we can be logical and systematic and we can memorize and recall our address where we lived in when we were 6 years old (6521 Ralston Rd, btw), but we can't always remember where we put our car keys.

I hope we never create technology that is so perfect in its humanity that we lose our own. For now, we've developed a technology that does something important: answers certain types of questions, faster and more reliably than we can. So let's stop focusing on trying to train our brains to work like IBM's Watson and instead focus on training our brains to handle the types of thinking and work that Watson can't. Let's stop focusing on standardized testing as the measure of educational success and let's focus on how we can get students to solve complex problems. Let's make sure they understand history...not so they can recall dates and names on demand, but so they can understand how the decisions of the past have led us to where we are and we can learn from the lessons of our collective history.

Let's reward risk-taking and innovation and bravery and determination. Let's instill lessons of compassion and responsibility and community and resilience. Let's facilitate communication and empathy and love. Yes, I said it: love. Let's start educating people, young and old, as people...not training them like computers or like cogs in the system. Let's think about education as a way of making us more human, not more like computers.

That, in the end, is what will save us in the Robot Revolution. In the meantime, I call Watson for my team in Trivial Pursuit.

America's Army and gender bias in game design

Coming out of the #ifest Twitter stream, I once again heard how America's Army was a shining example of how games had been used to improve recruitment efforts. I posed the question...has it improved recruitment of women at the same rate it has improved the recruitment of men? So far, all I've heard back is *crickets*.

For two weeks, I have been looking for data or research on America's Army that mentions gender as a research parameter, but so far, I've found nothing. If you know of any research, I'd love to see it. My hypothesis? Recruitment of women was not as greatly improved after they played America's Army. If that's the case, what does that say about the relative value of recruiting women vs men into our military?

What makes a game successful? Is it ok for public institutions (government, schools, etc.) to measure the success of a serious game without looking at differences in outcomes along the most basic parameters (gender, class, race)? Is it ok to say a game is successful in achieving its goals if we don't consider those issues as part of the discussion?

I'm tired of hearing the marketing spin and the hype around how games can change the world if we're not even asking the most basic questions about WHO games are changing and HOW they are changing them. You won't find a bigger advocate of games for learning and as a vehicle to raise awareness and support behavior change. But not all games are created equal. We have to be vigilant and constantly questioning our design to ensure we're achieving the outcomes we seek. Ignoring questions of gender, class, and racial bias in serious game design makes me question the motives of the design itself and the motives of those promoting a game's "success."

As always, I welcome anyone's comments who can prove me wrong...

The opportunity for government in the training industry

I've been following the ADL Implementation Fest #ifest stream on Twitter today and some of the conversation with my PLN has sparked some thoughts, maybe perspective, on how, or where, I see the government being able to lead the way in training. And, what prompted me to write this post, the ways in which its misdirecting its energies.

First, let me say, there are some great examples of people in government doing things the right way. Just from my immediate experience, Dr. Alicia Sanchez, who works for DAU, is the games czar who is helping integrate gaming into their curriculum. Mark Oehlert, also at DAU, is integrating social media technologies to support learning and knowledge management. Judy Brown at ADL is an industry recognized expert in mobile technologies and how they can be leveraged for learning. (Just realized, ironically, that these three will also be showcasing their knowledge at DevLearn 2010. You should go.) These three people, who happen to be people I know and respect, understand the unique positions they hold, and their opportunity to leverage technology for innovative applications. In short, they recognize that they have the chance to DESIGN really cool applications of existing technologies within the government and talk about how these projects are helping to improve learning, collaboration, and communication.

What I'm hearing out of iFest (so far...its the first day...;) is that the focus is still really on what technology can do for you and what technology initiatives ADL has been focusing on. To which I say...REALLY?!?! Sigh.

I don't need or want government agencies to fancy themselves technology companies. They aren't a start up, nor are they Microsoft. In short, there are companies who actually do that. And those companies need to make money doing it, which means that they need to build things that the market needs (even if the market doesn't want it...that's a totally different thing...).

What I'd love to see is that agencies within the government start looking at what REALLY helps support learning...good design. I'd love if they saw themselves as master implementers, not builders. Our government has tons of people that need training, its got tons of money and resources...why not leverage it for those things? Try innovative solutions. Experiment with design. Conduct research to establish best practices. That's what the learning technology industry needs. The government could provide this...it could LEAD this. But for the most part, its not.

If a technology is needed, the market will push it because that's what the market looks for: meeting unmet needs to make money. I'm tired of hearing about how a technology the government is developing is going to solve some problem.  Let's face it, even Google has struggled with implementing innovative technologies (see: Wave, Lively) and that's their business...its what they do to make money...and they are arguably the best at it.

I'm hoping that as I hear more at iFest that its focused on design. Fingers crossed. If not, its an opportunity lost...

Where are all the new ideas? I/ITSEC 2009 re-cap

Last week I attended I/ITSEC, which (if you haven't been) is an awesome display of immersive learning environments for government and military. The conference is a veritable who's who of technology and service companies who work in the training and simulation market for government and the sheer scale of the expo floor makes most other conferences I attend throughout the year seem like intimate meetings.

This was my second year attending I/ITSEC. Last year was my first, and it was a massive learning experience--a crash course in how the government approaches simulation and learning in 3D. This year, I knew a little something going in. This year, I was ready to conquer that immense expo floor and soak in all of the new and exciting technologies. This year, I was ready to be wowed instead of just trying to remember all of the acronyms.

This year, I was completely underwhelmed and frankly, kinda disappointed.

I should frame my feedback by admitting that I only had an expo pass, so I wasn't able to attend any of the sessions. That said, most of the real action at the conference happens on the expo floor (at least the action that isn't private meetings...). Maybe some of my disappointment is because the expo itself was only 3/5 of what it was last year. Surely, its because half of the booths I visited were showing the same technologies and demos that they showed last year.

There were some exceptions. I was geeked out by the DaVinci virtual surgery equipment. There were some interesting games in the Serious Games Pavillion. I had a great talk with a kindred spirit from Lockheed Martin, I saw an amazing example of virtual worlds for learning (more on this coming soon!), and our dopplegangers at Hybrid Learning continue to awe me with their mobile learning examples.

But by and large, there was nothing earth shattering. Not too much that warranted a second look. Anything really cool, you had to really look to find it. So in an industry with so much money, and so much obvious interest in simulations, games, and virtual worlds...why was I so disappointed?

• The government procurement process and the phenomena of SIs (systems integrators) squash innovation. Small companies with great ideas get chewed up and spit out in a system that is more about who you know than what you know, and relationships are rewarded over innovation. More than anything else, the process dictates the climate/environment for innovation and the environment is a tough one for small, innovative companies to navigate.
  
• In many ways, its still a good ol' boys club. There were booth babes that looked like (I'll give them the benefit of the doubt) strippers and/or prostitutes. One party included "snow bunnies." If I want to go to a strip club, I'll go. I'm not of the belief that great learning design happens while I watch girls dancing on poles, though, and I'm pretty sure that's not the best way to learn about the most effect and innovative learning solutions for our government and military workers.
• Everybody is still so focused on the technology, they don't focus too much on the design. DESIGN IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE TECHNOLOGY. Sigh. The ongoing beating of that drum continues...
  
• Everybody thinks they can design effective training. Everyone says they have instructional designers, like checking the box is all that matters. And so I will say again, instructional design is not simulation design is not game design is not virtual world learning design.
• As big a market as it is, government and military would do well to look beyond government and military.
  

I will say, in my second year at the "big show," that I finally got all of the acronyms down. But getting past all of the industry lingo and fanfare, what I saw this year was a lot of money being spent on concepts, but not necessarily effective solutions. I saw a lot of intention resulting in poor execution but masked by glitzy technology.

I'd like to see more research. I'd like to see more data. I'd like to see more innovation in design. I'd like to see new players in the game. And I'd like to see that next year...