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.