VR in Learning Research – Our Summary & Lessons Learned

After our three month discovery Odyssey exploring Virtual (and Augmented) Reality, its potential impacts and possible applications, Rachel and I feel much more informed about VR and how it is currently being - and could in the future be used in Learning and Development.  In no way do we consider ourselves experts and, of course, the field continues to change and evolve at pace, but we find ourselves much better informed and alert to the possibilities and also to some of the risks

We’d like to share our current thinking with you here. Rachel is also publishing this same blog on her blog site.

1.    Virtual – and Augmented - Reality is the shiny new kid on the block in the consumer world, in education, in business and latterly, in Learning & Development. As has tended to be the case with the increasing consumerisation of technology (think smartphones, think Siri, think Pokemon GO, think Amazon Echo…), the people who will show up looking for learning and performance support in the workplace – and looking to L&D to demonstrate leadership, expertise and potential solutions – will have an expectation that VR may be part of the mix.

2.    VR, with its immersive experience, has tremendous potential as a tool for use in Learning & Development.  There are some very exciting ways in which it can be applied to create powerful, engaging and effective learning experiences.  And this can be done within all price ranges.

3.    VR is not a magical tool that will once and forever transform L&D.  It is potentially a great tool – but like all L&D tools, only when it is used in the right place, for the right need and in the right context.  Consider carefully if the VR experience is adding to the learning, beyond that which can be gained from another approach.

4.    Consider where on the scale of VR immersion (passive <> some interaction <> total immersion) would be the most effective approach to meet the need.  If the requirement is for less than total immersion, then go for the cheaper option, with less investment in kit and skills development and which uses technology already familiar to employees.

5.    As an L&D professional, it is important to build your own awareness and familiarity with new tools such as VR, so that you can spot where and when it can be used in your own organisation or to support your own clients effectively (and also where and when it would be inappropriate to use it). So make sure that within your network you have people who are working with VR and are sharing what they have learned about it.

6.    If you do decide that there is some potential for using VR in your own organisation, start small.  Consider a small pilot using equipment and VR software at the low/no cost end of the spectrum.  And then review, learn and experiment again.

7.    Where you need a bespoke, rather than an off-the-peg, solution make sure that you use an experienced and reputable provider.  Ask around first, compare and contrast.  Speak to other clients that they’ve worked with.

8.    Consider how accessible to the intended learner a VR option would be.  Think especially about those with disabilities, those who wear glasses and/or those with conditions such as vertigo.  How robust is your proposed solution for these individuals?  We had a mixed experience, in most cases with no problems at all, but some VR options did not meet our needs and, indeed, proved to be ineffective and unproductive.

9.    Keep an eye on developments in AR – Augmented Reality.  This is a related field, which is developing rapidly and could have even more applications to improving performance than VR. The principle of overlaying ‘real life’ (as seen through the smartphone or tablet camera and/or a headset or tech-enhanced glasses) with other imagery and or text, has huge potential in engineering training, medical training, safety training, asset management and location/geographically sensitive experiences. The recent news from Apple (conspicuous by its absence in the VR arena thus far) that it sees AR as the next big thing – as big as the smartphone, according to CEO Tim Cook - suggests that AR may be the ‘killer app’ here. Expect some interesting ideas and applications here from the tech giant.

10.  We have compiled a Resource Sheet to complement this blog and video series, with curated links to other research, blogs, webinars, podcasts, video, reports and other resources and is published separately here. Inevitably, in this fast changing and evolving landscape, this will shortly be (indeed, probably is already) out of date.

Finally, we would love to hear about your experiences in using VR. Tell us your stories. Have you used it? How and where have you used it? Are you now thinking about using it or have you decided not to use it - and why? Let’s keep the conversation and the learning going in the rapidly evolving and dynamic field in Learning and Development. Use the Twitter hashtag #VRinLearning.

Rachel Burnham and Niall Gavin

March 2017

It's Permissable

Last week, I attended the excellent two day 'LearningLive' conference in London, hosted by the Learning and Performance Institute - great sessions, great speakers (especially the two - yes TWO - keynotes, Elliot Masie and Richard Wiseman), great company, conversations, dinner and learning. 

If you were an attendee yourself or if follow me or any of my PLN (Personal Learning Network) on Twitter and other social media you may have noticed - or indeed, contributed to - a lot of the resulting online sharing and comment. I won't re-present that stuff to you here. If you wish to access a comprehensive curation of the event, then follow this link to David Kelly's excellent blog site The 2016 Learning Live Backchannel: Curated Resources #LearningLive

No, what I wanted to talk about was something that's been very much part of my live learning (see what I did there?) recently, and was a recurring theme in many of the discussions in and out of the conference sessions - that of 'permission'. Who thinks they need it, and from whom? For what? Why do so many of us think that we need permission to do stuff or to do stuff differently? Is it the way we've been brought up? Educated? Trained? Inducted? Managed? And what would happen if we didn't seek permission, but went ahead anyway and sought forgiveness afterwards? What's the worst the could happen? Could we even be using not having permission as an excuse not to try, but to play it safe?

Many conversations at the conference revolved around changing our approach to learning and development, by applying technology, by developing new skills and by changing the relationships between the traditional provider/methodologies and the emerging self-aware, self-managing learner. For me, a  recurring and resonant theme throughout was about what permissions we feel we need to have to be able to choose and follow the paths of change.

I've been giving these questions a lot of thought recently, as I have allowed myself to start considering the possibility of no longer pursuing full - albeit self - employment, and perhaps even semi-retiring. Regular readers and other friends will be aware of my turbulent year last year, with heart surgery, followed by redundancy and my subsequent setting up of an independent L&D/Learning Technologies consultancy.  To cut a long story short, I found that my heart wasn't in it, that I didn't feel able to put in the hard work that was required to make a viable and growing business of it, but that I had to press on, despite how I felt.  But I also felt that I needed permission to take the decision to slow down, to take my pensions, and to try other things - permission from my wife, my children, my friends, my peers, ex-colleagues, PLN, clients and other professional associations.

Well guess what? They all - to a person - gave me their blessing, their permission, to follow my heart. And in opening myself up to sharing my thinking about a future without the pressure to 'do stuff' and 'make money', it turns out the only individual who's permission was being withheld was myself. It was my own perceptions of self-worth, credibility, usefulness which was holding me back. I am so grateful to my family, but also to my friends and PLN for the conversations we have had recently online and face to face at last week's conference. I know it's going to be OK; different, but OK.

Always needing permission to do stuff, or to stop doing stuff, or to do stuff differently stifles enthusiasm and creativity. But working out loud, sharing ideas and exploring possibilities, looking up and asking 'what if...?' opens up a world of opportunities. Maybe Learning & Development should give itself permission to at least try to do that.

P.S: I'm not burning all my bridges tho'. I continue to be fascinated by L&D, LearnTech and social media, just not to the exclusion of everything else. I'll still turn up at the tweetchats, the conferences and the unconferences. I'll still be mouthing off in social media. I may be doing more writing. I'm continuing to work with my existing clients and am open to any other opportunities which emerge.

Curation Skills

This morning, I attended an excellent Learning & Skills Group Webinar, hosted by @donaldhtaylor and presented by @julianstodd,  writer, consultant, founder of Sea Salt Learning and holder of the prestigious Learning & Performance Institute Colin Corder Award for Services to Learning in 2016. The topic was "Scaffolded Social Learning in Action: creating spaces to learn".  As always on these webinars, the chat panel was alive with comment and questions throughout, and I had a short exchange with one of the participants about curation, which led me to drop him an email later. That email crystalised my thinking on the topic, and has inspired me to expand that thinking out into this blog. Your thoughts, comments, amplification and challenges are very welcome.

I started by 'Googling' for a definition of Curation. The first answer which popped up was from Wikipedia

A nice, neat definition. But not actually the answer to the question I posed. I did not ask about DIGITAL Curation. I asked for a definition of curation. Now, I have enough experience to know to dig deeper through Google results pages, but it got me reflecting on a couple of things:  How accurate is Wikipedia? And how many people would look beyond that first result to seek other definitions? Just because it's on the Internet, doesn't mean it's true or accurate!

And that's why I see curation skills as critical to any kind of collective and social learning, from both a facilitator/curator and a learner perspective. The social media and tech is readily available, so the collection and re-presentation of collateral is relatively straightforward, after a short familiarisation with the tool/s selected (e.g. Pocket, Pinterest, Storify, etc).

However, the reflection on and critical analysis of that content is vital, and in my experience, is where things tend to fall down. "GIGO" applies here (Garbage in, garbage out). Is the material accurate, up-to-date, relevant, verified - and by whom? Where's the evidence, the truth test? Does the curator him/herself have the relevant qualifications, skills, experience and/or credibility to provide reassurance of its validity for the stakeholders and learners for whom the material is being collated?

Equally, contextualisation and narrative around that content is important. If a self-directed learner is curating material for themselves, then they probably have their own context already, but learning facilitators and/or subject matter experts who are curating content for others need to provide this - and the recipients need to be confident that it has been 'quality assured' for relevance and accuracy.

In a collective and social learning context, here's an opportunity for participants not only to source content, but for that content to be critically reviewed and evaluated by the collective before being made available as a resource. And in so doing, everyone gets the chance to experience and develop their own critical analysis skills for the future.

Happy to discuss further or to offer any assistance if this would be of interest.  You can find my details on LinkedIn.com or About.Me, and some of my curation examples on Pinterest.com/niallgavinuk and storify.com/niallgavinuk

MOOCs and Me

Photo by graur razvan ionut
via FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I mentioned MOOCs to one of my team last week and was met with a blank stare and inevitable follow-up question - "What's a MOOC?" Other than being able to tell her that a MOOC is a 'Massive Open Online Course', I didn't have a lot to say about them.
 

"Hang on", I hear you cry. "Aren't you supposed to be some kind of Learning & Development Techie Manager, or something like that? Aren't you supposed to know about all this stuff?"

 

Fair point. You'd think that with a job title of Head of Technology Assisted Learning, I'd know everything you'd need to know about Learning Technologies and MOOCs and the like, wouldn't you? Well, as I say in my Social Media profiles, "I know a little about a lot and a lot about very little". And MOOCs is one of the areas about which I know very little! That's why I accepted Isobel Nancarrow's invitation to join the LinkedIn Group "Explore Social: Massive Open Online Courses" (here) and write a blog.

 

I know what MOOCs are. I kind of understand the way they work. I know and respect several people who have organised and run MOOCs. I have actually been interested in some of the topics they cover...

 

So why then have I not joined in and done one yet? What's stopping me from getting involved? I figure that if I have barriers - and I am an L&D professional with an interest in technology and social media - then exploring what they might be and then getting over them, may help others both within the profession and potential MOOC learners, to understand and reflect on their engagement with MOOCs.

 

Let's start with information overload. There so many online websites and networking groups presenting and sharing great content from so many enlightened - and some not so - professionals, that I struggle to take it all in. I have a day job; I'm a husband and a Dad; we're still unpacking and settling into our new home, 6 months on. I do my best to keep up - twitter (tweeting and tweetchats), LinkedIn, Google+, facebook, Pinterest, blogs and blogging, conferences/unconferences; I've just downloaded onto my Kindle two free training books by Paul Matthews at People Alchemy...  aaarrrggghhhh! And now I've got to make time to do MOOCs as well?

 

"What about your commuting time?" I hear you ask. "Surely you got time and space to do some more development then?". Well, apart from the 'no wifi on the train' response, there's also 'my time for reflection' (or 'sleep', as I have come to know it over the years).

 

All that said, I have accepted the invitation to write this blog; I have checked into the associated LinkedIn Group site and, from there, I have also enrolled in the Curatr MOOC, "Exploring Social Learning" (sign up here), so that I can learn more about MOOCs. It looks like a four-week commitment of around two hours per week, apparently. I've now completed the Onboarding and the Curating My Contributions modules and can now start Week 1's content.

 

I have dipped my toes in the water. I'm starting to see some possibilities; for example, creating and facilitating a digital/social media skills course for my L&D colleagues and others across the business. It's early days. I shall report back as my learning experience in this MOOC progresses.