More Day 3

Day 3 continued

What’s your avatar? I just sat through a FANTASTIC session called Learning in the Virtual World of Second Life. For those of you who don’t know, Second Life is an online 3D simulated world in which you create an avatar, a digital representation of yourself. The session leader, Anders Gonstedt, President of Gronstedt Group, demonstrated the virtual environment. He took us to the NOAA (National Oceanographic and Atmosphere Association) site his group created and showed us a virtual tsunami they use for training. It was really cool. Think about the things you can show and do. The things your trainees can experience and learn. And it’s so much cheaper and safer than creating a real tsunami. For my work, I’m thinking of virtual manufacturing facilities where employees learn how to CIP (clean in place) a tank, or track down the source of a virtual contamination. Brilliant! Sign me up!

Need coffee. I think I’m going to medicate myself tonight to sleep. I traveled to the Middle East and had an easier time adjusting. Speaking of the Middle East, I’m off to a session about why e-learning is failing there. Stay tuned…

E-Learning in the Middle East as presented by Mr. Ahmad Al-Failakawi from the Institute for Scientific Research, caused a mass exodus not seen since the Jews left Egypt. I actually felt bad for the guy. He was very difficult to understand, his English was clipped and fast. Garbled. I caught maybe 10-20% of what he was saying. His lack-luster presentation consisted of a lot of arrow with words attached pointing at clip art. He didn’t give any new reasons for the challenges of an e-learning program: politics, environment, education level, gender, etc. Everything we experience here. Oh, well. Maybe I would have like it better if it were presented by his avatar.