REPORTER: Don McIntosh

How Do You Want to Learn Today? Innovative Design Promoting Learner Choice

• Connie Cassarino and Ginger Swope, IBM Learning

Two of the most interesting sessions I attended were scheduled in the Friday afternoon ghetto - the time when many exhausted conference attendees go out to shop. Contrary to expectations, both were well attended.

This IBM presentation was about the development of an eLearning module for all of IBM on their new On Demand Business corporate strategy. Many people in the company were having difficulty with the idea so some people in the learning department were given an opportunity to work on it. What a concept!

They employed some novel approaches such as giving the learners complete choice as to how they went through the material, avatar character development and storytelling. They used IBM's own tool, IBM Content Producer, to develop the program and they developed the avatars themselves using 3D Studiomax. The session was interactive allowing us to explore some character development based on scenarios they had developed. Participants enjoyed the process although it was naturally constrained by the time and limited tools available.

The eLearning program that they developed struck me as having many creative and engaging ideas. This program runs on IBM's intranet world wide and has proven to be one of the most popular sites on the system. Although they couldn't give us an idea of the cost of development, the value of the program in terms of increased revenue for the company has been put at $320 million. Talk about ROI!

Unfortunately, it is not possible to view the program on the Internet because they are applying for patents and other protection for what they have done.

Check out Don's other reports:

My conference impressions

How do you want to learn today? - Connie Cassarino and Ginger Swope, IBM

Avoiding Performance Technology Myopia
- Joe Durzo

Wow! Where Did That Come From? - Peter Honebein