Recently, a number of individuals have inquired about resources for virtual world research. Journal of Virtual World Research --Great resource. This journal has freely available PDF articles describing the vast amount of work being done in virtual worlds. Recently, the journal featured Here are some valuable links. Please add your own resources in the comments.

Just as there are considerable differences in blended learning and virtual classroom training, what are some of the major differences (surprises) in training within virtual worlds? Many other 3D learning worlds exist and many of them are doing some extraordinary things...worth So I will look at both Second Life activity but also activity in other 3D worlds. Here is this Month's ASTD Big Question: Second Life Training? More specifically: In what situations, do you believe it makes sense to develop a learning experience that will be delivered within Second Life?

In prepping for tomorrow nights #lrnchat, Marcia Conner was asking about the value proposition of virtual worlds. At core, I believe the essential affordances of the virtual world are 3D/spatial, and social.  There So, for formal learning in particular domains, virtual environments really make a lot of sense.  Now I ripped out a screed and lobbed it, but thought I’d share it here as well:

Chuck Hamilton presented on his (IBM’s) take on affordances on virtual worlds. I start with what I think are the core affordances of virtual worlds, that there’s a 3D world, that you can visit, and that’s digital.  From there, I see that you can enable others to be there (social), you can enable action (agency), the world can be kept around (persistent), and it can be made accessible broadly (e.g. I recently attended the 3DTLC conference, as I reported before .  Given that I’ve opined before , I asked for more detail on their take, and

Image from a virtual world created by Forterra. Considering the implementation of a virtual world? Below are a few tips from a interesting whitepaper by Forterra Systems , a company that provides private, virtual world technology for the corporate, healthcare, government, education, and the entertainment industry. The main product of Forterra is OLIVE™ (On-Line Interactive Virtual Environment). OLIVE is an open, distributed client-server platform for building private, realistic virtual worlds. The architecture scales from single user

I’ve previously posted my thoughts on virtual worlds, but I had a wee bit of a revelation that I want to get clear in my head, and it ties into several things that went on at the conference. Tony talked about his new book with Karl Kapp, Chuck Hamilton spoke on lessons learned through IBM’s invovlement in Virtual Worlds, Koreen Olbrish chaired a panel with a number of great case studies, to name just a few of the great opportunities. Two days ago I attended the 3D Teaching, Learning, & Collaboration conference, organized by Tony O’Driscoll . 

As an aside, I personally love talks that start with a story because I really value the learning that can come from storytelling.) She told a story of an experience she had a few years prior where her husband had been pretty involved in playing the world’s most popular Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game(MMORPG)called World of Warcraft (WoW). All the while, you receive immediate feedback from the game in the form of virtual currency, precious items and even the enhancement of your “in-game” reputation among other players – all highly motivating features that encourage

Conducting a virtual brainstorming session. Jumping into a virtual world can provide a competitive advantage, facilitate collaboration and provide virtual role-plays across the enterprise but, if a careful analysis is not done before taking the leap into virtual worlds, disaster could loom. Here is some advice (and a sneak peak at content from Learning in 3D ) that you should follow in terms of analysis. Without analysis problems such as developing instruction that doesn’t match the needs of the learners, designing instruction that is not really

To avoid the perception that virtual immersive environments are a fad or inappropriate for corporate learning, make sure you design the virtual immersive experience around these eight principles: Instructionally Grounded. Virtual immersive environments are about doing, not about observing. Learners must work together to achieve the benefits Your competitors are leveraging the power of 3D learning environments to encourage collaboration, exploration and genuine competitive advantage. Are you?

That’s one of things I like best about conferences; trying to get a pulse on what people are doing in the real world. I talked to a lot of people about Virtual Immersive Environments, and I heard a lot of great ideas. few weeks ago, I wrote about the Gartner Hype Cycle, and Virtual Worlds’ place in the Trough of Disillusionment. By Rich Mesch I recently had the pleasure of presenting at the ASTD TechKnowledge conference at Las Vegas. I