Designing a VirtualU Learning Event

For much of the day I was a virtual participant using VirtualU's 3D software and attending the Virtual Edge 2010 Summit.  My purpose in attending was to pull together my ideas for designing a VirtualU learning event.  VirtualU is sponsored by VirtualBeginnings and Digitell.

Many of my learning design ideas I have already published in this blog.  (See post 1, post 2, and post 3.)  In preparing for a Virtual University Learning Event, I want to incorporate the lessons learned from designing and delivering ELACOMM98--a 2.5-day learning event for 200 communications executives that was held in Cannes, France, in May, 1998.  That event was designed over 12 weeks with a team of subject matter experts and a few learning designers.  Strategy was developed to included learning goals, an integrated, hands-on-learning design, and a series of learning events in teams and in large groups created around workplace simulations that allowed participant to build and practice relevant skills in a very supportive context including practice and learning coaches.  Watch the video for a brief summary.

What I am learning from my virtual attendance at the Virtual Edge 2010 Summit and at three other VirtualU 3D conferences, is the importance of using what I learned from ELACOMM98 and integrating that with understanding of the 3D virtual world and its offerings.  I am an active social networker on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter.  One concept from today will be to work with my contacts and groups on LinkedIn to ask what people want and to be sure to design that into the event I will be designing.  Based on the feedback from the panelists at the Virtual Edge 2010 Summit, I will be creating a community (group) on LinkedIn about the learning event and will be hosting some "Velvet Rope" communities (people who are willing to engage in helping develop some of the events before hand and who will have a closer interaction with key people connected with the event).  I have hosted Yahoo Groups for years and expect to do some of the work of developing this new learning event using Skype, Yahoo Groups, and possibly Google Groups, as well as the group and event resources on LinkedIn.

There's another day (tomorrow) to the Virtual Edge 2010 Summit and I expect to be adding more ideas to my plans for the development of the VirtualU Learning Event.  If you want to participate, leave a comment or send me an e-mail.

Designing Virtual Learning Events

I participated in  a 3D Virtual University Webinar today on "Running a Hybrid Event" with live participants and virtual participants participating in the same conference.  Due to the snow storm in Washington, DC, this week, the live session was cancelled and all participants were virtual--including one person aboard a plane bound for New York.

While the technology exists and is being refined, the actual learning design is largely missing.  People are still used to "talking heads" and think it's great to have a PowerPoint presentation showing simultaneously with a speaker.

Between 1993 and 1998 I was involved in creating a variety of learning events around the world for different groups of adults.  The overall focus was learning to change performance.  Some of the events were goal-based learning, others were performance-focused learning.  In the Spring of 1998 I designed and delivered a 2.5-day "hands-on-learning" event held in Cannes, France.  The event was for 200 communication executives affiliated with Europe and Latin America and working for Accenture (Andersen Consulting).  The event was called ELACOMM98 (go to the ELA-Comm Workshop to read about this event).  You can watch an extract of the video made for this event.

This event was designed by a virtual team in approximately 12 weeks and was intended to accomplish a set of strategic goals for the Communications Market Unit of the global consulting firm.  The actual event was designed to simulate actual consulting engagements with participants working together in teams to accomplish a series of tasks, then going into large groups to hear from subject matter experts about topics which they would immediately use when they went back to their small teams.  The interaction was very real and dynamic in the 2.5 days in Cannes.  It was, in part, a hybrid event including participation by a guest speaker using a webcam and laptop computer from his home office in Los Angeles to address a group of 200 participants in Cannes.

What was learned in the design and delivery of ELACOMM98 can certainly be used to guide the creation of virtual learning events.  One of the first keys is to have the set of strategic performance goals for the organizers of the event.  Once the goals are set, a particular design process is followed to create the learning design, taking full advantage of the 3D-capabilities afforded by Digitell's VirtualU.

Learning Conferences--Learning from the Real World for the Virtual World

One of the more recent developments on the Internet is a "Virtual World--3-D" Conference capability.  One of my friends has his own "Virtual World" for use for large group and small group conferences.

In May, 1998, while working as a learning architect with Accenture (then called Andersen Consulting), I was the designer for a multinational hands-on learning event (see ELACOMM98 and the video for that event) for 200 communications executives held in Cannes, France.

What I learned today is that much of what I designed for the "real world" conference in France can be adapted in a hybrid format for the virtual world conference.  Some of the presentations at the three-day conference were "whole group presentations," one of which was via video conferencing with a partner in Los Angeles, CA.  The Virtual World can accomodate hybrid conferencing where some people experience live conferences with streaming video and simultaneous presentation of what people in the virtual conference are experiencing.  This effectively integrates the participants and speakers and facilitators from the entire conference (both live and virtual).

The report from some successful hybrid virtual world conferences is that the holistic experience encouraged more participation and interest from both real world and virtual world participants, many of whom actually experienced both forms of the conference.

This means that I can apply the skills I developed in designing, developing, and delivering conferences for hundreds of participants and apply them to the virtual world.