As a general comment on the chapter and the development of the text, I am disappointed that, having descibed the new opportunities afforded by learning in the immernet, a framework to enable innovation through increased incidents of knowledge

If we agree with the statement above then, I think the viability and value of attempting to accurately measure business value of Immernet-based learning are very limited.

I think too often we try to convince ourselves (and our paymasters), even in the web 1.0/2.0 worlds, that we can accurately measure the direct business value of learning activities. I don’t think that this is often the most effective use of the effort of the learning function.

I attended a talk by Russell Davis at 2gether08 and was impressed by an anechdote in which he described spending millions on a highly Interesting, innovative car advert.

When questioned about the ROI for the advert, he remarked that it was not possible to determine to what extent his advert influenced car sales although some organisations could charge a lot of money by claiming they could analyse the effect of the ad. His view was that this is a waste of money as, the truth is, nobody really knows exactly why people have made a choice of purchase as there are too many variables & unknowns and that the best that can be done is to create an ad that is truly ‘interesting’ and then see what happens.

In the case of the ad, the car company seemed to be selling more cars than they were before the ad but Davis made the point that the extent to which the increase was due to his ad as opposed to other factors could not be determined and also, that it was not important. The main point was that the car company was doing better.

Similarly, I think this is an appropriate stance for measuring the value of Immersive interaction & learning in the organisation. An organisation that has an architectural framework that enables, fosters and encourages ‘Innovation..Insights ….generated from serendipitous knowledge accidents- magic moments wherein expertise collides with opportunity’ will experience profitable growth.

Effort is better spent on the enabling architecture & framework than on attempting to capture incidents of collision and calculate their value.

This chapter has a high information density. I still have to get to grips with the numbers presented. Somehow they seem to be a bit one dimensional.

About your remarks: it isn’t called a routinization trap for nothing. It’s a trap.. We tend to reiterate the things we do the way we know how to do them best. The authors point out that in terms of gain that strategy is failing.

Unfortunately I am not a prophet, but I am also very interested to see how this broken paradigm wil be fixed. I agree with Lawrence O’Connor that context is a key in defining effective ‘immersion’ along with narrative,meaning & story.

I don’t know / understand the place of 3D in this context yet. For me it’s merely another space you can enter. Meaningful context comes when in this space things happen that help learning function.

I prefer to think in opportunities rather than problems (as the cliche goes)…

Experiential learning
In some cases, doing is a far more effective way of learning than reading or listening. What will teach you more: the fire drill where a fireman sets off a smoke bomb in the hallway and pulls the alarm, or a Powerpoint presentation on evacuation procedure? The drill, most likely. Of course, learning by doing is not always practical because of cost, safety or impact on day-to-day operations. Imagine pilots training for engine-out situations or water landings in real aircraft instead of simulators!

VR is a great enabler for experiential learning in the health and safety (HSE) arena. The benefit: reduced cost, reduced travel and opportunity for remote learning, and a hazard-free training environment means that drills are safer, cheaper, and can be conducted far more often, by individuals or in groups. The first simulators of this nature focused on skills and reflexes (flight simulators), but recent ones commissioned by the military, fire brigades, and emergency response units shifted focus to behaviour and decision making skills. As a bonus, the same tool used to train students can be used to assess them as well.

Question: are there other areas that would benefit from experiential learning in a VR environment? The obvious answer is to replace current real life exercises such as negotiation games and business simulations with VR versions, which would mostly be about cost savings. The real question is: are there courses currently being conducted in classrooms or via a VLE that would benefit from being done in VR? The objective would be to transorm those courses into an experience, in hopes that people actually do learn better from experience than from Powerpoints. On that last assumption, More Research is Needed ™.

Collaboration, meeting, brainstorming
I believe that VR has a niche to fill in virtual teamworking or virtual meetings.

If we want to meet remotely with others, we currently have a few options like chat (instant messenger), teleconferencing, or videoconferencing. For fairly straightforward discussions, teleconferencing is a good option. If you want to get to know someone or bring a team closer together, videoconferencing does a decent job of putting two remote groups in the same room, more or less. So where does VR sit? I believe that VR in the collaboration space sits close to videoconferencing, offering two important opportunities:

- Participate anywhere. Videoconferencing requires special equipment (though that is changing as I write this), and has a limited number of hookups (4 is the practical limit). In contrast, VR can run from any computer at any location, allowing participants to join from their workplace or even from home, instead of having to sit in a special conference room.

- Co-creation. VR allows participants to create or manipulate 3d objects together. This has already been used on a small scale by a large consumer goods company: instead of looking at a proposed new product packaging on slides or a videoconference screen, marketing people and designers can look at, touch and modify the actual packaging together in a VR setting.

Can meetings in a VR environment feel as “real” as a videoconference or even a face-to-face meeting? Note: here I am drawing from my (rather extensive) experience in meetings in immersive multiplayer games (*), so the following are my own observations rather than solid scientific conclusions:
- An advantage of VR is that it puts everyone on an even footing. There is no divide between people in your own meeting room and the ones in the other room. This may contribute to the next point.
- In VR meetings a larger part of the group contributed. Real meetings or videoconferences tend to be dominated by one or a few persons, VR meetings seemingly less so.
- In VR meetings I felt “closer” to the other participants than in teleconferencing or even videoconferencing, even though VR lacks the facial epxressions you get over video. Perhaps this has to do with physically sitting in a comfortable environment (my own workplace or home) and virtually being in a pleasant setting, as opposed to sitting in a videoconference room that feels decidedly artificial and awkward.

It is important to note that this feeling of “closeness” to the other participants came only when I myself was proficient at controlling my in-game avatar and comfortable with the notion of looking through my avatar’s eyes, in other words when I was used to immerse myself in the VR environment. This takes time! Today’s kids or the next generation will grow up with virtual worlds and most will probably be comfortable with them by the time they enter the work force, but the older generation lacks that advantage.

I see this last point, together with the current technical immaturity of VR, as the main blockers for VR to enter mainstream usage in the workplace, especially when used for meeting and collaborating (i,e, the “Immerweb”). Our own experiments however do show that for special training courses, VR is usually readily adopted, even by people who have no affinity with learning or IT.

As I started to read chapter 3, I am still skeptical of the logical leap the authors later make in suggesting 3D immersive learning is the answer to the 7 scary problems. There are quite a number of other solutions such as mentoring, rapid-elearning, other web 2.0 learning tools, etc. I guess we’ll have to wait for chapter 3 to further discuss this criticism…
Amir