I attended an online session today about how company's (and colleges) are using Second Life for training. Interesting. Overall, I was impressed. But in some cases, it seemed like they were force fitting training to the technology instead of fitting the technology to the training needs and objectives. In a few cases, the technology seemed to make the training much more difficult than it needed to be.
Ten-fifteen years ago, synchronous online learning came on the scene. Many companies jumped on board and it was going to replace all classrooom training. As we now know, it did not. Like any delivery method, it has its strengths and its weaknesses, and good trainers select it because it fits the needs of that particular training. And we don't attempt to use it for things that it will not support well.
My prediction is that Second Life will follow the same life cycle. Companies and trainers are jumping on board and talking like it is appropriate for everything right now. But it probably isn't. We'll realize that in the next three-five years and it will become yet another tool in our toolbox.
A good tool. But still one of many.
If you are interested in learning more about why and how IBM is using Second Life for training, read IBM's Other Reality: A Real-Life Tour in Human Resource Executive Magazine (Dec 2007).
The session hosts mentioned another article from ASTD's Training and Development Journal (August 2007), but you have to be a member to access those archives so I can't provide a link here.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment