Seeking Out New Worlds and Civilizations: A Workshop for Strategic Design of Virtual Worlds Learning Programs

About Virtual Worlds1 and Learning 

The new breed of web-savvy, socially-networked learners entering the work place have little patience for the traditional doldrums of the 2-D Web. They want to be engaged, in control and part of the storyline. Forward-looking companies and government agencies like IBM, Boeing, Siemens, NOAA, and the U.S. Army, are turbo-charging workplace performance with learning programs that focus on doing, simulating, socializing, playing, sharing, and collaborating through the use of immersive and traversable 3-D virtual worlds.

Join us for a unique workshop designed to learn about the benefits and potential pitfalls of virtual worlds and develop the design of your own immersive learning program. Naturally, the session will be held in a virtual world. Working in front of your laptop from the comfort of your office or home, you will be interacting with other people through your avatar and talking via headset. You’ll go “in-world,” to a leading virtual-world facility and learn how to develop programs to recruit, onboard, network, inspire, teach, coach, mentor, and engage your talent. If this is your first experience in a virtual world, we invite you to participate in an on-boarding session before the workshop starts.

Virtual worlds provide a compelling environment for a new approach to training and education. Immersing course participants in a shared 3D environment designed in accordance with the learning content and the affordances of VOIP, chat, and other interactive features boosts the level of engagement and transfer of skills, knowledge, and group commitment. Participants learn how to redefine and energize internal communications with the sprawling, vibrant 3D worlds of online interactive environments turning the learning experience into an exciting goal driven adventure with character-rich, game-based simulations.

Take a Look at the Workshop and What Participants are Saying 


“The workshop provided me the opportunity to work in a group to formulate the strategies, learning objectives, and potential challenges of rolling out a program leveraging a virtual environment.  The other professionals in the class added a tremendous amount of value to the workshop.  The way the workshop was run in the virtual platform was a testament in itself of how effective a learning program can be using this technology.”

Thomas Deinzer, Learning Technologist, GE Healthcare

“The ability to do peer-to-peer best practice sharing and collaborate in a virtual environment with individuals with various levels of experience was invaluable.”

Aisha Taylor, Senior Instructional Designer, BP

"I recently attended a training event held by VW Workshops. The event walked us through the workings of AVAYA Web.Alive. It was time well spent.  It covered many important areas  necessary to deliver a successful virtual event. I was able to leverage that information this week when I hosted an event with 4 clients, and it went very smoothly.  Much of the credit goes to Andrew and Anders at VW Workshops for helping me to think through the preparation and thought process."

Rick Garza, Strategic Account Manager, Arrow S3
Note: you can check out Rick's virtual office at: http://wa6098.avayalive.com/6098/html

“As someone who has been involved with educational technology for over 15 years I am always skeptical about the use of a technology for technology’s sake.  I had always thought of virtual worlds as a nice to have but not a practical use of resources to develop for.  Andrew’s professionally delivered, hands-on, engaging program has forced me to rethink that position.  I now see there are clear, pragmatic reasons to leverage virtual world technology in a corporate environment.  And it can be done at a much lower cost, and without as extensive external resources as I had believed.  This program showed me this can be a very effective method of delivering training in a way no other technology can quite match.”

Gordon Lam, Corporate Educational Technology Consultant
www.onthelam.com

“As a consultant one of the biggest challenges I see organizations face is capturing employees' attention in an over messaged environment."Seeking Out New Worlds...." shows a simple yet dramatic way to gain mind share in a busy workplace while building community and support for your initiative.”  

Deirdre Waters, President, dWatersConsulting


Read what one participant wrote after Workshop Day 1 and Workshop Day 2


Format

We will hold the workshop in a virtual world platform, what better way to learn about their uses by experiencing it first hand. 

The virtual world platform we will be using is Avaya web.alive . You will need a headset with microphone and headphones plugged into the computer and a Windows based PC, Mac based systems will not work. It works through most corporate firewalls. Click on this link to test if you can access (it will prompt you to download a browser plug-in): http://persephone.avayalive.com/2842/html/index.html

We will be holding an optional short orientation session for those who may be unfamiliar with virtual world technologies. This session will be scheduled a week prior at a time convenient for workshop participants.



1 A virtual world is a computer-based simulated environment (often on the world wide web), typically where a 2D screen represents three dimensions (3D), through which users can interact with one another, usually with the use of avatars and VOIP, chat, and other interactive features to communicate, collaborate, and interact.
 

Contact Information

  • Andrew Boyarsky
    Virtual World Workshops
    Phone: 646-391-4109, Email: andrew@vwworkshops.com
    _____________________________________________
    Workshop Dates & Times: 5:30-8:30 PM ET (Time Zone-New York City, USA) 

    •  Nov.5, 7
    •  Dec.3, 5



Payment Instructions

  • Workshop Fee: Two 3-hour sessions (total-6 hrs.) $5001

    Early Discount Register and pay up 2 months before and receive a discount of 10%2.

    Group Pricing  If you sign up 3 or more participants, we will give you a 20% discount off the price of all registrations2.

    1Cancellation Policy: You may transfer to a future session, send someone to take your place or cancel without penalty at any time up to three weeks prior to your seminar. If you provide us with less than three weeks' notice, or fail to attend, you will be charged for the workshop. Please contact us as soon as you know of any problems with attending. We guarantee your satisfaction with the workshop. If there is a reason that you are not satisfied with the workshop and we are unable to meet your needs, then we will refund your payment.

    2Discounts for early registration and groups cannot be taken together. Please contact us if you are registering a group.
Copyright © 2013 The Active Network, Inc.