Augmented reality allows you to create an immersive experience for learners. AR can combine images, sound, movies, games, search engines, databases, social media, and the web and explode them across the physical world, revealing invisible stories around products, processes, and operations. But what makes a compelling AR experience that makes learning stick, and how can you get started creating AR content?

Navigating larger-scale virtual spaces presents difficulties for learners. The difficulties and the solutions parallel those in eLearning but take unique forms in VR. How do learners know where they are? How do learners know where to go or look next? How can multiple paths be presented and organized?

Technology is being used in many settings to augment work, but mainly in task completion. VR and immersive 360-degree video, however, can aid people in more emotionally challenging situations. The Hospital for Sick Children sought to help children who face severe hospital-based anxiety in the preoperative area. The team also faced the challenge of making 360-degree videos acceptable to parents and healthcare professionals.

For years, training departments and instructional designers have struggled to develop quality mobile learning. Users don’t want to access eLearning courses designed for a computer or watch 30-minute training videos from their phone while using up all their data. And technologies like VR and AR sound expensive and difficult to make scalable for a company.

As virtual and augmented reality technologies continue to advance, it becomes more important than ever to determine how best to utilize these tools in eLearning and training programs.

Two of the more important elements in quality eLearning are interactivity and storytelling. Virtual reality enables you to take those two elements to new heights, but it also presents new and unique challenges.

Many global companies today are aiming to develop deep understanding of the human side of organizations, markets, and societies. The challenge many organizations face, as they seek to develop their leaders, is how to bring about this level of insight and understanding without sending all of their managers and leaders around the world. Enter 360-degree immersive video.

When you’re about to launch new software, hardware, or programs, you may be focusing on the technical aspects of the launch. But there’s another angle you need to consider: user buy-in. That was the concern for USPI, a company that owns more than 300 surgical centers and hospitals across the US, when it was preparing for its new staffing software rollout. This software was mandatory for all employees to use, and with so much on the line, the team knew engagement was key to success. But how could they build that staff buy-in when they lacked both an established communication platform and, more importantly, an existing culture of change to lean on?

Today’s learners are faced with an ever-growing surplus of content to learn, process, and employ in their careers. Companies have terabytes of knowledge, skills, behaviors, and standard work required for successful day-to-day operations. They need to empower their employees with a system for efficiently building on or augmenting the capabilities each person brings to the organization. Augmented intelligence is one possible solution.

Virtual reality has great potential for learning and development. Like any new technology, VR also comes with risks, such as investments of time, money, and other resources. To minimize these risks, it’s important to do everything you can to get things right the first time.