Integrating Virtual Worlds into Your Training

Over the past two years, there has been much interest expressed in the integration of virtual world applications like Second Life into training activities.  A couple of interesting articles crossed my desk this week that explore two innovative (yet distinctly different) approaches to this question.

The first case study comes from Harvard Law School, where a father/daughter teaching team has been using Second Life to conduct moot course sessions.  The video on this site extends 60 minutes and the content is thoughtful and informative from beginning to end.  The first half of the session focuses on the perspective of the father – a more theoretical and pedagogical reflection on the use of Second Life for training. The second half of the video focuses on the daughter’s perspective (scroll forward to minute 29 of the presentation), who provides an enormously interesting overview of the practical elements of developing learning environments in Second Life.  (Note:  I had some difficulties opening the Harvard link in Internet Explorer – try Mozilla Firefox if you have difficulties.)

The second case study comes from Tom Kuhlman, author of the Rapid e-Learning Development blog.  Tom introduces a very interesting idea whereby he uses the avatars developed in virtual worlds to serve as the “characters” in his e-learning courses developed with Articulate Presenter.  His blog post is an excellent read – and as a special bonus –  Tom includes the source code for the example course he provides as a proof of concept.

Why We Love Jing

At LINGOs, we love JING!  When we are working on a virtual team and need to work through a complicated troubleshooting issue… … make a JING!  Need to train a group of LMS Administrators on how to complete a task on the Learning Management System… … make a JING!  About to launch a major new initiative and need to communicate with hundreds of people… … make a JING!

Why do we love JING?  First, it’s free!  Second, it is intuitive and easy to use.  Third, you can forget about struggling with the complicated effort involved with managing source files, publishing in multiple formats, and uploading to FTP sites.  Finally, did I mention it is free?

As the JING Project turns one year old, the development team has made the product even more easy to love.  JING subscribers now receive  a complimentary server account with 2 GB of storage and 2 GB of transfer bandwidth per month. 10 times the size available previously.  Furthermore, you can increase your server space at a reasonable additional price.

If you want to learn more, visit some of the links above, or go to www.jingproject.com

Increase Training Impact Through Mind Mapping

Does this photograph look familiar?   When international NGOs host training workshops, we rely extensively on brainstorming, flip charts and affinity diagramming (think sticky sheets) approaches as a/the primary facilitation tool.  And yet, I would imagine that many of you have wondered (as have I) what happens to all those sticky sheets and flip chart pages once the event is over?

In theory, the sticky sheet diagrams are photographed, and the flip charts are transcribed so that the data can be converted into knowledge, documented and then shared.  Too often, however, this is not the case!  Whether due to resource limitations, competing priorities, and/or the unwieldy nature of flip chart paper and sticky sheets, often the knowledge from these events is never documented, or is documented and shared weeks later – frequently with significant transcription errors.

Introducing Mind Mapping applications – software that allows trainers to easily collect brainstorming ideas,   organize them into visual diagrams, and at the push of a button save the image into a .pdf file.  These .pdf files are ready seconds after your session is complete and can be shared via e-mail, uploaded to your intranet, or distributed any way you would exchange a computer file.  Furthermore, many of these Mind Mapping applications have features that allow you to convert your map into a Word document that is organized in outline format.  Envision your visual brainstorming results converted into a Word format that is immediately ready to embed in the minutes of your meeting or workshop!

There are many mind map software vendors , and a quick Google search will identify at least a dozen options to choose from.  One that I find particularly strong is MindManager (sold by Mindjet  for about $349.00 (windows) and $129 (Mac).)  In the words of Frank Ryan, Head of Library and Information Services at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, “MindManager has saved me countless hours in planning reports and presentations and I have used it very successfully to simplify complex issues. It is very easy to use and Mind Maps can be converted into low-memory PDFs.”

A free, open-source alternative is FreeMind.  While I have no personal experience using the Free Mind product, it comes highly recommended by the people on the Knowledge Management for Development List Serve.  If any of you have experimented with FreeMind, let us know about your experience by adding a comment to this blog post.