Do you have a good example of a business simulation or learning app?

[Claire Condra]

I've been invited to speak to a group of educators about business simulations and experiential learning in virtual worlds. I have a few good examples already, but I'm looking for one more! Part of the program will be live online, and part machinima. This will be a keynote address on March 5th to ABSEL (www.absel.org) in Charleston, South Carolina.

Thanks!

[Emil Stoyanov]

I am not sure what you mean by business simulation, but you can give examples of using virtual worlds for rapid prototyping and concept modeling. A good example of that is the sim of PAConsulting: http://slurl.com/secondlife/PAconsulting/196/38/25 - there you will find a prototype of a Smart Home - home-automation and entertainment facilities. On the other 3 islands of PAConsulting you will find an airport building as a demo for eventual planning of emergency situations.
The only example I know so far as an effort for bringing elearning into SL is the SLoodle project - an effort to integrate the Moodle platform with in-world tools for visualization and interaction. Recently the guys developing sloodle did a two day workshop sessions, it was quite informative.

[Claire Condra]

Emil, Thanks so much for the examples -- I'll check them out. And you're right -- prototyping certainly does fall under "business simulation." This SLoodle project really does sound interesting. BTW, have you seen Butch Dae's 3D mind map of virtual worlds? It outlines the entire virtual world space and industry... you can run around and fly up into it... it's pretty trippy! Here's an article and picture: http://www.theseventhsun.com/1107_mindMap.htm

[Emil Stoyanov]

Hi Claire,

In one of the following Fridays we'll host a workshop on the topic "Mindmaps" at TechTalk@SL. Butch will join too (I believe as co-host later), or at least this is what Dan has told me on the last Decision Support Workshop. I will announce it on my blog here and on TechTalk@SL's site - http://techtalkers.ning.com. If you are interested in this kind of discussion, please feel yourself invited to the events.

[Claire Condra]

thanks, I will!

[Justin Lyon]

You may find some of the examples here helpful: Simudyne Simulation Examples

[Claire Condra]

Justin -- wow.. I would love to include something about this. I'll spend some time in your site and then get back with you. Thanks!

[Richard Hackathorn]

I wrote an article on Serious Games in Virtual Worlds at....
http://www.b-eye-network.com/view/4163

Would be glad to discuss it with you. Giving an in-world talk on this topic for the Training-For-Success group on March 6, so gathering similar examples. Richard

[Claire Condra]

Hi Richard!

Hey, your speech is the same day as mine! This really is a wonderful article and I could use a quotable quote from you on this subject,. I know just where it can go.

So are you and Eric brothers? We published an article about the NOAA sim last year, and I also did a demonstration of global warming at the glacier exhibit. http://www.theseventhsun.com/0108_gallery_glacier.htm

I'll email you and tell you more about the direction I'm going with this speech...

thank you!

[Ina Centaur]

Shameless self-advertisement for the SL Shakespeare Company

Virtual simulation of a professional live theatre production based, in part, on a microeconomics biz model that wouldn't work for most other RL live productions... But anyway, check out our first miniproduction of the year...

[Claire Condra]

Ina,

Thank you so much for sharing this... I don't think I'll be able to work it into my speech, but I'd like to cover it for The Seventh Sun. btw, this is a beautifully designed poster. :o)

Claire