ILS – Immersive Learning Simulations Genesis (eLearning Guild online forum)

Just sat through the opening session for this month’s eLearning Guild Online Forum for Strategies and Techniques for Building Immersive Learning Simulations . Jeff Johannigman was the opening speaker and did a fabulous job defining ILS, testing participants if certain items were ILS, and explained many of the elements needed to create ILS. (The more I say ILS the more I will remember what it means – sorry.) Jeff also incorporated some interesting results from Guild’s 360 Study Survey.

Some of the descriptive words that “Learning” conjured up from the participants:

• grueling
• curiosity
• focus
• fun
• drudgery
• boring
• formal
• valuable
• serious
• important
• empowering

Some of the words “Games” inspired from the participants:

• social
• engaging
• distractions
• childish
• frivolous
• addictive
• fun
• exciting

Results from the survey suggested that most that answered thought ILS were better then other forms of skill practice, but that determining if there was good ROI from them was too hard to tell so early on. It was also clear that there are two large barriers to instructors/designers using ILS in there courses and they were the fact that the word “game” was seen as a problem corporately and that management is the biggest hindrance to utilization. Overwhelming the survey pointed out that changing the terminology from “game” to “immersive learning” was very poignant. Jeff then pointed out that several companies are already starting to adopt the newer phrasing of ILS.

Some great points for the use of ILS over traditional elearning were that it is:

• cyclical
• good for problem-solving and decision making skills
• mostly interactive
• principles are discovered
• challenges user before hand
• failure is not necessarily bad with proper feedback

Points to consider when designing simulations are:

• role of the user
• tasks you are to do
• resources and tools at user’s disposal
• values that may impact choices
• factors (internal/external) to consider before making choices
• measure the resources
• consider tradeoffs between various resources
• effect on resources and environmental variables by actions

Overall the forum was really well done and I believe well received if the chat in the room was an indication. If you are a member of the guild I would recommend taking a look at the archive of this session.

I loved this quote that Jeff used as well.

“Anyone who makes a distinction between games and elarning clearly does not
know the first thing about either one.” – Marshal McLuhan