Producing immersive augmented reality (iAR) learning experiences requires a skill set that many instructional designers have not yet acquired. Determining that training efficacy can benefit from iAR is one thing, but producing an effective experience can be daunting when you haven’t made one before. How does a designer get started? What tools are available to learn how? Can designers learn it on their own?

In preparation for the launch of a brand-new regional haul truck in their key markets, Volvo Trucks had both a dealer training and customer engagement challenge ahead of them. A geographically dispersed dealer base made in-person sales training within the launch timeframe challenging. Similarly, the complexity and availability of the new trucks made it unwieldy to engage customers in live product demonstrations.

Both augmented reality and virtual reality technologies address a world that is 3-D, while most traditional digital learning technology addressed a flat landscape. The movement to 3-D landscapes is going to require new skill sets, including new coding skills. With many possible solutions out there for producing 3-D graphics, digital learning needs a way of producing 3-D that is congruent with tools and presentation methods in current use.

Training firefighters in the field is an expensive endeavor. Traditional field training exercises involve large teams of firefighters, their equipment, a dedicated training ground, and set-up and tear-down time for each field exercise. When training exercises are not performed frequently and with precision to shift tactical knowledge to long-term memory, lives are at stake on the fireground. Additionally, firefighters simply do not experience fires every day.

Social VR has the opportunity to bring learners from all over the world into a shared environment for collaboration, simulations, and serious games. While the potential is immense, broad-scale adoption of VR hardware will take some time. This session will describe how companies are accommodating this adoption life cycle by offering social learning experiences that people can log in to on mobile (2-D), desktop, and fully immersive VR.

For millennia learning has been a social experience, and this critical factor has not been supported well in first-generation eLearning solutions. Until now, it was difficult to replicate the power of the live experience online in a scalable, replicable, and affordable way. However, multi-user VR opens the door to truly immersive collaboration and social learning.

Training professionals in many organizations face similar challenges: how to ensure training is engaging, meaningful, and applied on the job. VR and AR can help ensure learner engagement, but how can they be leveraged to create meaningful experiences that are transferred to the job? We will consider these challenges in this session and view examples of VR and AR that create meaningful engagements that have immediate application to the job.

While YouTube and others make viewing online 360 video easy, creating these videos requires special cameras, equipment, setup, and forethought. But did you know that you can simulate this same look and feel using Blender, the open-source 3-D editing software, to create 360 video?

Virtual reality (VR) has been a hot topic in the L&D space. Its use in the field is growing, and now you can move past theory and explore real examples of VR as a learning solution. You can see the real-world experience that incorporates VR, and find out what exactly you need to create a meaningful learning experience.

It’s that herculean challenge, the digital makeover. Take a bi-weekly face-to-face simulation, costing the firm millions of dollars in travel expenses and staffing, and turn it into a rich digital experience. Prepare learners with tools, resources, and training to begin their careers. Also, make sure they feel welcomed, understand expectations, and are grounded in the company structure, priorities, and methodologies. Oh, you have four months to do it!

Cybersickness is a term for motion sickness that you feel in a virtual environment. The potential for experiencing cybersickness often prevents learners from engaging in VR experiences, and experiencing it can decrease learners’ motivation and possibly leave them with negative after-effects that hinder learning. Understanding how cybersickness can impact learners, and how to prevent it, is critical as VR gains broader use.

Moving your organization forward with new approaches to learning and development can be challenging—especially when the new approaches involve nontraditional ideas or technologies. Our Overcoming Barriers sessions bring together people who have already walked this path to share what they have learned. Join our panel of experts as they discuss how you can overcome the most common barriers to incorporating simulations into your training and development programs.

A key technology component of augmented reality that enables devices to “see” and make sense of the world around them is computer vision (CV). CV by itself is a powerful tool for creating useful performance support solutions for your audience. Understanding the tech’s pitfalls and then designing scalable, easy-to-use tools for your organization isn’t something widely shared or discussed in the learning industry at this point.

Strong interpersonal skills are essential now more than ever as impending disruptive technologies like artificial intelligence and machine learning change the workplace. However, interpersonal skills can be hard to find and a challenge to develop quickly at scale. Most learning programs may do a good job teaching what to do, but rarely give opportunities for learners to practice doing it, especially in “true-to-life” situations.

You’ve seen some amazing augmented reality experiences, and you want to get started right now on a project of your own. But designing, developing, and delivering an AR experience often takes months and cost thousands of dollars. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you could do it for free? And do it today? What if you could make and test your own AR experiences to share with your stakeholders right now?

Immersive learning platforms use virtual reality headsets to enable new kinds of teaching and learning. Unlike traditional web conferencing tools, these new platforms transport users into a shared virtual space that allows them to use their hands to build and manipulate 3-D objects, become immersed together inside a 360 video, and investigate 3-D models.

Simulated scenarios are a key part of learning, but too often you may walk away with only a “gist” of what went right or wrong. There hasn’t been a good way to apply quantitative analysis to performance, lessons, and improvement.

The VR market is broken. The initial hype bubble has burst. Public interest is still vague and inconsistent. Those killer applications haven’t hit yet. Hardware is still in its infancy. Funding across the industry is still fairly limited. Where are the anchor features and applications and experiences that will herald the emergence of VR? More importantly, what steps must those in the industry take to get there?

Today’s networked businesses must contend with unprecedented levels of complexity and variety. Business simulations provide active, dynamic learning solutions where learners can replicate realistic businesses environments as safe-to-fail spaces where learners can authentically model complex, long-term challenges and improve their performance without any real risk. Managing the conceptual and technical load of creating gamified simulations can be its own challenge—but this session will show you how it’s done.

It can be expensive and time consuming to jump on the VR bandwagon. So how do you determine if, when, and how to utilize AR, VR, and MR in your training strategy? If the time is right, how do you get started?

Why is VR effective for training, and how can you identify the best ways to leverage VR to improve training within your organization?