Today the Learning in 3D blog tour stops here at TechSpectives!
Karl Kapp and Tony O’Driscoll’s book, Learning in 3D, has come at a great time for me.  Our Advance Technology Center is writing a grant – and part of the grant is a student portal in a VIE.  While I do not think I can get my boss to read the whole book, I can bring him the highlights.  I wanted to make sure that if I could get him to read one chapter – which one would it be?  I asked this of Karl and he responded:

In terms of reading the book for the grant, I think that chapter 6 has great case studies and lessons learned that would help if only one chapter could be read. If two can be read then I would also suggest chapter 5 about the learning archetypes, that will help with an over all design concept.

There are 10 case studies in chapter 6.  Each case study had the following information (plus more) that really will help me out. 

  • Making the Case
    How did you convince the organization to adopt 3D approach?
    What was the most important element to securing sponsorship for the project? (This will definitely be good for the grant writing.)
  • The Benefits
    What benefits were achieved from applying 3D to address the business issue?
  • The Results
    What evidence do you have to suggest that this 3D solution was successful?  (This is great – impact is something the NSF wants us to be able to report on.)
  • Lessons Learned
    What two to three pieces of advice would you have for others seeking to implement 3D learning solutions within their organization? (I am less worried about this section of the grant than I was before the book!)

I had also sent some questions to Tony and Karl and they were kind of enough to answer them.  While originally I was going to go into the book, I was seeing that other stops along the blogs were doing that so I wanted to be a bit different.  Being a writer, I am always curious how other authors see things.  Here are their wonderful responses to my curiosity on what they like about the writing, what was difficult, where they surprised by their research, and how they liked the collaboration writing process.

Here are Tony’s answers.

What parts of the book did you best like writing?
I liked writing the case-study chapters. At first I thought it would be difficult but in going through the process of creating a standard set of questions and then interviewing early-adopters and/or reviewing and editing their submissions I found that it was a great way to cover a lot of ground and I learned a lot in the process. The key to the success of this approach lay in the fact that we had developed (and stuck to) a standard set of questions. I would strongly recommend that to anyone considering this approach.

Was there a section that was difficult? How did you solve it?
The first part of any chapter is always hardest for me. I usually start with a mind map that outlines all I want to write about in the chapter and how they are interconnected. I then begin the writing process and very quickly the mind map has to shift. It takes a few iterations going back and forth between the writing process and the structural process before I can get into a groove. I am not sure there is any solution to this, I actually think it is just a part of the process I go through to reach clarity on how the structure and content of the chapter come together in a rational and readable way.

Is there any part of the book that surprised you with the information you were finding out?
From the outset, Karl and I wanted to make this book inclusive. We were more like orchestrators than authors. What surprised me was how many people passionately contributed to the book. There is a lot of energy around the 3D space and that rings true loud and clear when you read the contributions in the book. Also, the contributors were great about brining content to us that required very little editing and they were pretty much on time…..a rarity in my experience when trying to run down contributions on past books.

How did you find the collaborative writing process?
With a co-author like Karl and a tool like Google Docs, it was a synch. Seriously, I think that Karl and I both enjoy working together because we are very complementary in our skill sets. We’d have a phone call to discuss the main tenants of a given chapter, parse out work and then post it on the Docs site. After a few turns of the crank, we’d get back together to refine and that was how we worked through the book.
One thing we both agreed on, but did not manage to follow through on was the length of the book. We agreed it should not be any more than 200 pages and we ended up with twice that. I guess this is testament to the fact that the collaborative writing process was a positive experience for both of us!

Answers from Karl:

What parts of the book did you like best writing?  Was there a section that was difficult?  If so, how, and how did you solve it?
One of my favorite chapters of the book was Chapter 7 which was about applying the instructional design process to virtual immersive environments (VIEs). I was anxious to get that information out to people so they could begin to follow a systematic process of designing a virtual worlds and I felt that this was new and original information that would make a difference to someone who suddenly found they had to design learning in 3D. It wasn’t new in that the instructional design process has been around for a long time but new in the sense of combining the ID process with the affordances and sensibilities of VIEs. I also like the archetype chapter where we describe the different ways of thinking about VIEs for different learning strategies. Of course building the model in chapter 4 was interesting as well. One thing I really liked about writing the book was thinking through the various theoretical as well as practical aspects of VIEs. We really tried to include a strong theoretical underpinning to our work but approach it from a practical aspect so that if someone wanted to understand the field of VIEs as it stands today and apply that knowledge to building their own 3D learning environment that they could.

Was there any part of the book that surprised you with the information you were finding out?
The chapter with the case studies was fantastic. It contains great examples of pioneers using virtual worlds to obtain some pretty impressive results. Additionally, we asked some pioneers to contribute lessons learning and their thoughts on moving VIEs into the future and their insights are incredible. It is awe-inspiring what people are doing within virtual worlds. I especially like the story in the final chapter about the Double Happiness Jeans Factory…perhaps one of my favorite places in virtual worlds. So there was a lot to surprise me and I just hope the book helps, in some way, to push the field forward and to help legitimize and spread the use of VIEs for learning and collaboration at the high school, community college, college and corporate levels. A lot of potential exists if people will just take the plunge and being learning in 3D.

How did you find the collaborative writing process?
Working with Tony was great. For the most part we saw eye-to-eye on the subject. We had a few differing opinions (especially around how to start the book…we did a couple of first chapters until we got it right) and then we had some discussion about naming the macro-structures. However, in the end, we got a long really, really well. A lot of late night Skype calls and discussions on our cell phones driving around the country. The result is a book that contains the results of the writers really thinking about the subject and challenging each other to rise to the occasion of capturing this emerging field. It was an exciting and thrilling process.

Now for what I promised from last week.  Click this link to purchase the book at a 20% discount using code L3D1. This is a courtesy of the publisher, Pfeiffer/Wiley, and Tony and Karl!  So thank you. 

This is the second day of the second week of the tour – so if you want to see all the other great post, or where this tour is going as it rocks around the world, check out this link to Karl’s blog.  Also, you can follow along on Twitter (Twitter hashtag for the book and tour is #lrn3d) and each week, they will give away one book, chosen at random from everyone who tweeted about the book with the hashtag #lrn3d (they will post on their blogs the winners).  If you want to visit the book web site go to www.learningin3d.info.  Become a fan on the Facebook Fan Page and, one final note, they have wiki for the book at http://learningin3d.wikispaces.com/.  (Talk about social media in action!)

One other items of note from Karl and Tony:  If a reader follows the complete tour and leaves a comment on every stop, he or she will receive a free whitepaper written by Tony and myself. 

Thanks guys for a great book (the timing for me was perfect) and for allowing me and TechSpectives to be part of the Learning in 3D Blog Tour!

Mark Viquesney