CORPORATE LEARNING IN A VIRTUAL WORLD

Abstract

Corporate training professionals led the explosion of e-learning solutions in the 1990s. Yet in 2008, as new generations of technology-savvy, computer games-oriented employees are entering the workforce, corporate training departments are far behind universities in exploring the use of virtual worlds like Second Life or Protosphere as platforms for corporate learning. Virtual world learning early adopters like IBM and Intel are laying the groundwork for what promises to be a critical shift in the education of younger employees to collaborative, constructivist learning within increasingly sophisticated online worlds. In the meantime, the development of new pedagogies that address virtual world learning should help corporate learning organizations begin to embrace the inevitable incorporation of virtual worlds into their learning strategies.