Last month I was privileged to be a part of a VBusiness Expo panel on corporate training and, along the way, came across several interesting ideas that I wanted to share with you.

One of the presenters was Scott Randall attacking issues of trying to get specific messages through to your employees (especially those under the age of 35 - Gen Y) in an age of information overload. His solution - to put it briefly - is to use "semiotic domains", that is "any set of practices that recruits one or more modalities (oral or written language, images, symbols, equations, sounds, gestures, etc.) to communicate distinctive types of meanings." As one of those domains Scott emphasizes virtual worlds that acknowledge the audience’s learning orientation, engages them on an emotional level and speaks their language.

There is much to say about virtual worlds in general and, as you know, I am not impartial in this regard. The reason I became so interested in this presentation is that among other things it dealt with new hires and Gen Y peculiarities. This is the subject of
http://second-life-elearning.ahg.com/training_simulations/second_life_robotic_instructors_simulation.htmsimulation
we just competed.

Robotic Instructors are avatars that are operated by a computer program. They log in Second Life on demand, provide a guided tour or lesson(s) for trainees and log out after the session is completed. Robotic Instructors can ask trainee to repeat specific steps and provide a feedback. Importantly, the simulation is completely controlled through a graphic web interface. Non-programmers, such as instructional designers or training specialists, can modify an existing simulation or even create a new one without a single line of code. Simulation is located outside Second Life network and thus provides high security for the enterprise applications.

Gartner predicted that 80 percent of internet users will have a "Second Life" in the Virtual World by the end of 2011, but cautioned enterprise to take "baby steps" -- experiment with virtual worlds, but not start massive projects. Robotic Instructors simulation ideally answers this recommendation. With a minimal starting investment and strong opportunity for growth, incredible flexibility and enterprise-level security it might be a good way to test virtual world simulations.