The great ILS challenge

When my friend and fellow blogger Mark Oehlert contacted me a couple of weeks ago to ask me if I'd participate in a session at DevLearn called The Great ILS Challenge, I was up for it before I'd even heard what was required. It is, of course, flattering to be invited to take part in any event, but it was the word 'challenge' that really got me. It just shows how much latent energy there is just waiting to be tapped, which is a good argument in itself for introducing game play into learning experiences. Even though I have a note on my pinboard which reminds me to say 'no!' to time-consuming requests which yield no income (sorry, but a boy's gotta earn a living), my resistance was, as usual, pathetic and I succumbed. Although I wasn't able to attend the session live, I committed to contributing online.

Mark's idea for The Great ILS Challenge was to invite learning designers to grapple with a difficult assignment, and to have them pitch their ideas to an audience of their peers. The challenge, in this case for an immersive learning simulation (ILS), was as follows:

How would you design an ILS that would either help rehabilitate convicts or prepare them to re-enter society?

It's been a while since I've designed any sort of simulation, and I haven't yet had a chance to work in real-time 3D, so I consulted with a good friend of mine Graeme Duncan from Caspian Learning, which specialises in developing virtual worlds for education and training. Between us we came up with some ideas which we thought might make an impact on the objective.

Now I have to admit that I had my doubts as to the suitability of an ILS to meet this challenge. It's hard to imagine an audience more likely to be resistant to attempts to shift their attitudes, more alert to manipulation, more wary of 'do-gooders'. But Graeme convinced me that it could be done, as long as the intervention was:

• truly immersive
• realistic
• contextual
• humorous
• hard hitting
• not drawn out

Graeme was committed to a single player mode and a 3D environment:

"The theme of the game could be co-operation and collaboration. I actually think anything that is a get together in a virtual world to chat and discuss stuff whilst some overarching aim sits in place around collaboration would be viewed with more skepticism than a single player mode. They are brain washed with post-release mentors and help."

"The use of 3D would be to provide authenticity to the learning environment which means that the situations that they face would be relevant to their everyday lives rather than being abstract or way beyond their normal experience. It can also provide more immersion and control which are useful with this type of learner. These will typically will not be 'compliant learners' so engagement and feeling in control are important. Again, a multi-player world would have too many forced conversations with real do-gooders for me, that will annoy and alienate the audience. The tasks necessarily have to be real world and have to have some realistic consequences: time, money, work, relationships, housing, etc."

"I would suggest some sort of game where the player explores the value of cooperation in society, the benefits/rewards that this brings and the penalties of re-offending. This could be made real with examples that are relevant to their context, so not some macro-economic view but demonstrating the value of cooperation in societies and communities in which they operate. They will meet AI mates that may try to coerce, to help, to tempt, to nag, etc. They have to make decisions based on these encounters. This would draw on research work that examines the implications when actors in a society do not cooperate versus when they do."

So here's the idea. The game takes place over a two-day period, immediately following the convict's release from jail. Here we're assuming the convict's a male, but obviously they could be female.

Day 1

• He’s picked up by an old friend who delivers back his car which the friend's been keeping for him. The insurance and tax has run out. They have lunch and a drink or two. His friend gives him the news that his girlfriend has long since gone off with another of his old mates. Lots of temptation to resist in the form of drinking more, taking revenge on the friend who's gone off with his girlfriend, driving illegally and under the influence, leaving without paying, causing trouble with the waiter, etc.
• In the afternoon (assuming not too drunk and wants to bother), he goes to a job interview arranged by the prison/probation service. Interviewer is a bit patronising. Scope for more trouble, including lying about what he’s capable of.
• He goes home to his Mum’s place where he intends to stay overnight before finding something more permanent. Gets moaned at. More potential trouble.
• His old gang mates turn up for him and want him to go with them for the evening. Some more serious temptations, including robbery, drugs, potential violence.

Day 2

• First temptation is to stay in bed rather than getting up for the first day of the new job. Why bother?
• Arriving at the job, he attends a short classroom orientation session. It's like being back at school and exposes some of his weaknesses, e.g. with reading or writing.
• The people he is asked to work with bring new challenges. Some taunts him about his criminal record, others invite him to join in scams, a female supervisor comes on to him.
• There's an opportunity to do some overtime or to hunt for new accommodation. There's also the temptation to join his mates again. Choices, choices.

Each of these choices has consequences, many of which will knock the player off the course described above and on to an alternative path. At the end of the  two days - and of the game - the player is presented with a brief status report and a prognosis. Has he made progress over the two days, or is he on the path back to jail? Would he make the same choices again or would he approach things differently next time? No value judgments are imposed on the player - the learning is his alone.

How did we do?