Character Simulations Make E-Learning Come Alive
By Jennifer DeVries
Let’s be honest, one of the greatest challenges in e-learning is making programs as
engaging as a lively classroom experience. Indeed, many techniques have been used
to turn page-turners into an interesting and interactive experience, including
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activities: slider bars, assessments, and questions that learners must answer
scenarios: small video or animated replays that show real world situations
video: replays of instructor-led programs
application simulation: actual simulated applications that enable learners to
click and interact with software, without really touching a production
application
 business simulation: real business simulations that let learners make
decisions and see the results of their actions.
However, problems persist. In Bersin & Associates’s February 2004 market survey of
some 7000 training practitioners, respondents said that their biggest obstacle in
deploying e-learning programs is the ability to engage learners in a way that leads to
program completion. According to our blended learning research, high levels of
mastery come directly from interaction and real world exercises. Enter simulations.
Growth in simulation approaches
As computer systems become faster and graphical interfaces standardize, the use of
simulations grows. A key value of simulations is that they enable learners to truly
participate in experiential learning, which many industry leaders find to be by far the
most effective way to learn anything.
Figure Error! Bookmark not defined.: Value of Experiential Learning
In this quest toward an immersive experience online, Web developers and
instructional designers have come to realize that an important part of e-learning is
the host, meaning a real person or character that guides, instructs, mentors, and
entertains the learner. In a classroom program, the instructor serves that role. He or
she ensures that everyone is attentive and answers questions. But how can
instructional designers transfer this live host model to e-learning?
Many developers contend that the best solution is to use character simulations. Quite
simply, character simulation is the practice of creating a relevant, interesting
personality who appears and instructs throughout an e-learning program.
As Peter Orton, program director for the IBM’s On-Demand Learning group
discovered, “Immersive learning, like flight simulation, is arguably one of the most
effective learning techniques. For teaching soft skills, animated characters can help
create an immersive environment that elicits a learner's social responses. However
characters must be designed to be right for the task and not distracting to the
learner. When designing characters, it's essential to ensure that all audio, visual and
content cues create an experience that both engages the learner and enhances the
learning process. Only then can you teach how best to respond in a real life
situation.”
Unfortunately, it has typically taken weeks or months of programming to create
characters using most authoring tools. But a combination of factors is working to
simplify this approach, making the use of character simulations possible—and
affordable—for most corporate training organizations.
First, there is a growing understanding throughout the industry that animated
characters are an effective method for gaining the learner’s attention. More
important, developers are starting to demonstrate to managers that such characters
can drive Website and program stickiness.
Next, widespread use of Macromedia Flash continues to flourish. Flash technology
enables users to view animated graphics using vector technology, which makes
character animation fast and easy on low to moderate bandwidth connections. More
than 90 percent of all browsers use Flash today, making it easy to develop for a
broad audience.
In addition, a new generation of easy-to-use, low cost tools make it possible for even
non-Flash developers to create and reuse engaging characters. Tools such as
Oddcast’s [V]-Host™ platform and Learn.com’s e-Agent solution make character
creation, editing, and animation more straightforward. Oddcast’s solution lets you
create faces, animate voices, and embed characters within courses. Learn.com’s eAgent sits on your desktop, outside your browser, to engage with your course or any
other PC applications.
Finally, bandwidth upgrades and standardized audio for PCs is enabling extensive
deployment of characters. Today, most e-learning users have 56K modems or higher
bandwidth when only a year or two ago bandwidth limitations made such an
approach difficult to deploy.
Three models for character simulations
The idea of a character simulation is to immerse the learner in a social experience in
which a “person” speaks, interacts, and guides learning. This character may have a
general persona or be based on a real and familiar personality, such as the CEO, a
client, or a well-known expert.
These characters take on a personality through their visual impact, choice of
language, attitude, and even voice. He or she appears regularly to help learners
remember where they are in the program and to reinforce the learning material at
the beginning or end of each module.
But before building a character, it’s important to think about the role it will play.
Typically, there are three roles for characters in online learning.
Peer. In this approach, the character takes on the role of a peer to instruct or coach.
For example, a 19-year old sales representative in a retail store will most likely be
more receptive to a program that uses a young rep that wears clothes he may wear
and discusses topics using slang. The character talks to the learner as a peer, and
can suggest, joke, and mimic him.
Expert. In this model, the character takes on the role of an expert to instruct. The
character may be a sales manager, flight instructor, or even Albert Einstein. For
example, an Air Force program that Bersin & Associates reviewed was led by a flight
instructor that wore shiny aviator glasses and talked in a tough voice, while
explaining in detail everything the learner must do using his experience as a guide.
Authority Figure. In this model, the character is the boss. In one corporate
certification program, for example, the character may be based on the company’s
actual CFO. She may explain to employees that this particular training program is
not only mandatory but will be tracked by executive management.
Figure Error! Bookmark not defined.: Example of Character Simulation
Sometimes the character can play a more focused role. For example,
Characters can provide motivational statements. At the beginning of most
training courses, there’s a motivational segment about what the learners will gain by
taking the course. Learners seem to pay more attention to these benefit statements
when they’re delivered by an animated character than when they appear as plain
text or audio.
Characters can be optional guides. A nationwide bank that Bersin & Associates
worked with uses a program that creates personalized learning roadmaps. The
company offered their employees a choice between using a program that didn’t have
a guide, one that generated a guide from a photograph, or a program that used an
animated character guide. The bank found that 80 percent of its learners preferred
to have an animated guide explain their learning roadmaps.
Characters can deliver brief updates. Many companies who use animated
characters in e-learning programs have found that they can use characters to quickly
disseminate brief updates to their employees. In these examples, a character may
become the spokesperson for the company’s leadership team. The character may
send out daily news updates, important notifications, or a message of the week from
the executives.
An example
At Verizon, one of the most important roles in the company is the communications
consultant. These employees make or break sales by discussing communication
needs with current and prospective customers. Because customers call in with a wide
variety of questions about telecommunication options, consultants are trained to
listen, ask relevant questions, and recommend an appropriate solution.
Communications consultants were traditionally trained in the classroom, giving them
practice responding to customer situations. Classroom training is difficult to
schedule, however, because it requires advanced planning for the call center to
maintain coverage. In addition, classroom training was unable to address all the
learning needs; Verizon consultants needed continuous updates when products and
services change, as well as additional learning and growth opportunities.
According to Miriam Martin, training and development specialist for sales operation
and support, “[Verizon] wanted to leverage small pockets of consultant downtime.
The flexibility to train when the opportunity arises and the ability to grow our
consultants’ skills on a moment’s notice is critical to maintaining our competitive
position. We have lulls where 20 people are available for 30 minutes and it is to our
advantage to make good use of that time.”
As a result, using Oddcast character simulations, Verizon created two 30-minute
training modules. Consultants at Verizon use small amounts of downtime to take this
training, which emphasizes the importance of customer relationships. According to
Martin, the character-based online program complements their instructor-led
training: “This program doesn’t eliminate the face to face classroom training; it
enhances it. The animated characters pull people in. This seems to be an effective
way to reinforce the skills we’ve taught in the classroom.”
Figure 3: Verizon Character Explains Order Process
Tips and techniques
Keep in mind the following tips when designing your character simulations.
Create life-like characters. Be deliberate about characteristics that seem minor
and non-instructional, such as clothing style, speech and idioms, hairstyle, and voice.
These aspects of the personality can make a big difference in the target audience’s
perception of the character. Before you design a whole program, create one or more
characters and test whether the target audience likes and accepts them.
Plan the scenes prior to development. Like other forms of animation, character
simulations use built-in scenes. In general, limit scenes to one minute in length, and
think about pacing them appropriately for the learners. Storyboarding techniques can
be very helpful in the planning process.
Check for understanding. Delivering the information without appropriate user
interaction is insufficient for learning purposes. When you use character simulations,
make sure that the characters interact with the learner to verify whether objectives
are being met. Have the character simulate common situations and use questions to
gage the learner’s comprehension.
Focus on learning objectives. Get to the point quickly. Character-development
products are full-featured and fun, but don’t let their features and functions distract
you. This may seem like common sense to a training professional, but it’s easy to get
sidetracked.
Use plain text before recording the final script. When you create the audio,
create a script first and use plain text on screen until your script is finalized. After
the script is ready, record the audio with a real voice. For major, high-stakes
programs, hire a professional to record the voiceover.
Consider a multiskilled team. To do a full blown e-learning program that
integrates character simulations into your courses, you will need several types of
skills:
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writer or developer who can create storyboards and scripts
graphic artist who can develop backgrounds and other artwork
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Web developer who can integrate all the files, including Flash, wave, and
graphic files.
Run a pilot to gather FAQs. In many cases, character simulations act as a
substitute for interactions with real people. It’s important that the characters can
answer normal questions that come up during the course. Use your pilot program as
an opportunity to gather such questions.
To be sure, character-based simulations are emerging as a key approach to elearning. They enable training developers to create excitement, stickiness, and
engaging content. But don’t get caught up in the hype and excitement of trying out a
new tool, be sure to factor in the role the character will play in the learning
experience and pay close attention to details that give personality to the animation.
A well-designed character can become a much loved icon in your company—and your
secret weapon to improving performance.
Jennifer DeVries is a principle consultant for Bersin & Associates, a provider of
corporate and vendor consulting services in e-learning technology and
implementation. Contact her at www.bersin.com or 510.654.8500.