One of the so-far unfulfilled promises of e-learning is the proliferation of easily-created inexpensive simulations that help bring the application of learned skills into a realistic context.
While there are plenty of low-end simulations in the field of software tools training, we are not seeing the same in soft skills training. Simulating the behaviour of a software application is relatively trivial – buy an inexpensive tool such as Camtasia or Captivate, and away you go. Simulating the behaviour of real people is another thing altogether. Trainers are put off creating such environments because they think they need to build complex computer models of reality. Not true.
Often the most effective (and cost-effective) simulation is reality. That's why people learn so much more "on the job" than they do "in training". It's why online massively-multiplayer role-play games have always been so popular and so compelling. It's (sadly) why reality TV is such a large part of our entertainment landscape.
You don't necessarily need to script a scenario or code an engine for a simulation if you allow reality to be its driver. Need to sharpen your abilities in marketing strategy? Work on a real project. Need to get beyond the theory in motivating staff? Work on a real issue. Need to become more fluent in your new foreign language? Spend some time in the real foreign country.
Where simulations make a whole lot of sense is where the downside of a failure in reality is so expensive that the cost of developing the simulation is acceptable (as in learning to fly a 747). Or where the cost of the simulation can be amortised over extensive use (as in computer games). Or where it costs very little to build something effective.
Simulations are not always hi-tech or expensive. For decades, sales trainers and other soft-skills trainers have worked with simulations, more often referred to as role-plays. Transferring those to an e-learning mode does not have to cost a lot of money if you accept that reality is a better driver than a computerised engine.
If you need to have people role-play online, hook them up with fellow learners instead of with some clunky machine logic. The responses of real people are always more interesting, unpredictable, and valuable than anything you could program into a computer.
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, e-learning should be about people learning from (and with) other people, via facilitated online communication. E-learning should not be exclusively about people learning from machines.
E-learning developers should focus on how networked learning can support, facilitate, and guide learning as it takes place in the workplace. In the future, we won’t have a mentor physically watching every skill being applied by every employee, but maybe we will have a computer system helping with some of that work. I'm not talking about having Big Brother watching your every move, or being constantly second-guessed by that annoying animated Microsoft paperclip. But something subtler, less intrusive, and more nurturing might work.
Until that happens, designing blended processes to make much of the learning take place as part of the learner’s day-to-day workflow is a good step forward. Instead of merely blending online coursework with classroom coursework, we should blend workplace application with both modes of learning. Have people learn on the job, using their actual work tasks as the simulation. You might want to avoid doing this if there are lives or major clients at stake, but most people will be doing their jobs anyway. We just need to help them apply their new skills to the work so that the work can help them learn.
As our abilities progress, applications will become available that allow us to create more and more sophisticated replications of reality at lower and lower costs. But we are a long way from that state right now – fortunately, because I suspect that once simulations are really quick and easy to create, we'll be consistently abusing the technology in the same way that we abuse PowerPoint.
* Catch up with all of Godfrey Parkin's columns here.
TrainingZONE 01-Apr-05 Categories: Training Methods Story read 5133
Paul Allman , 05-Apr-05 Simulation Doesn't HAVE To Be Expensive To Be Effective
Godfery brings up some good points - and as always causes debate.
Simulation IS an effective method of learning, it DOES bring an element of skills development to e-Learning and it SHOULD be an option for any appropriate training need.
Unfortunately, when people talk about simulation the audience have a million different ideas about what that is - most based around Football Manager / SimCity / Civlisation - all complex games created over many man years at a cost that is prohibitive to the e-Learning industry. Just as some of the comments here show.
One of the key things to differentiate here is terminology, often the phrase 'soft skills' simulation is taken to mean the replacement of role play - a human interaction. Whereas in reality there is another very valid form of simulation - that of business processes. It is this form that IMO, has the most opportunity in todays market. Business is open to change and various 'best practice' initiatives are driving the review of working practices.
If you also apply this to a service industry, business growth and staff turnover makes this even more attractive.
Yet, very few e-Learning programmes use any form of simulation to benefit the user and even less people understand the benefits.
As a result, simulation is another e-Learning application "we're not ready for yet" or "we can't afford" etc. Shame, as it has the capability to make a difference to certain training needs and as a result can make proving RoI easier. Paul Allman
Kevin Corti , 04-Apr-05 Customisation of business sims
It strikes me that there is a wide disparity in people's understanding of the term 'simulation'.
Software sims are relatively straight-forward to construct - the base software exists in a set of defined graphical screens and code functions - and hence non-technical (or semi-technical) learning professionals can put them together by copying how the real software looks and how it works.
The same is not true of business and management simulations as the organisation/business/market/industry specifics and dynamics require such a large degree of elements to identify and model that to do so would require a whole range of skill sets to define, design, develop, test and implement, a large budget and a lot of time.
This is the reason that a typical entertainment computer game requires several dozen developers, takes up to (and sometimes more than) 2 years to create and costs at least £2million to bring to market. How many eLearning course developers could afford to do that and how many eLearning users could afford the end result?
I cannot see many organisations being able to undertake development of soft skills sims for themselves or to be able to afford to commission anything other than simplistic (low fidelity, low interaction) examples that, quite frankly, will fail to do justice to what is, I believe, the key to making eLearning truly live up to its billing.
In the context of (the so called) "soft skills", my company uses complex business simulations and role playing games approaches to put people into realistic scenarios with detailed objectives, authentic modes of information flowing to and from the learner and realistic ways of interacting. We've built a reusable engine that cuts development time by anything between 10% and 75% of the time it would take to build a new sim from scratch (depending upon the nature of the topic and scenario) but this can still represent several man-months of development time.
I personally believe that organisations need to be able to create their own soft skills sims in order for the scenarios, terminology, focus, assessment data etc etc to be really useful to them. Soft skills sims need to be capable of transcending what generic off-the-shelf games could do, so that they are industry sector, organisation or even user-focussed.
My company is working upon an authoring tool aimed at non-technical learning professionals and subject experts (which could be a senior manager or supervisor) which will enable them to do this. I’d be interested what my Training Zone colleagues think of this approach.
Jeremy Hall , 04-Apr-05 Simulations - a counter view
Simulations in Learning
I develop computer simulations for management development and business training and have done so AND used them in the classroom for 35 years. Hopefully this background can add to this Parkin Space column - especially as I feel that he has taken a very narrow view about simulation.
First, business simulations to develop and explore both hard and soft skills are not limited to Internet E-learning delivery they can and are being used in the classroom. And I believe, for managerial and business learning ,classroom use where the participants work in groups sharing knowledge and experience, presenting, promoting and negotiating views, and where the process is "managed by a trainer" are far more powerful and better.
Godfrey suggests that an alternate is learning on the job and he suggests that "Often the most effective (and cost effective) simulation is reality. That is why people learn so much more "on the job" than they do in training". Except, most of us do not spend enough time reflecting on what we have learned each day. There is little opportunity to discuss and share our learning and get divergent views. Our day to day task is not "coached". And, finally, reality, is often very, very messy and it is not possible to "see the wood for the trees".
In contrast, a business simulation provides through the simulation model an opportunity to focus on defined learning objectives. To illustrate this, when planning a journey, would you prefer to use an aerial photograph (the most real model of the geography) or a road map. The latter is simple and will exist in different forms depending on the planning process (local, long distance, to places of interest etc.)
Secondly, the use of simulation allows control of the learning process. Reflection is ensured and the trainer can intervene when it is necessary to coach or challenge. Overall, this ensures the deep cognitive processing necessary to embed knowledge.
I have looked at one or two but I have not seen many who enable the trainer to adapt and customise. I would like anybody who knows of any low cost products to let me know. Archie Scott
