A successful start to your career with practice-oriented further training
3D learning world allows you to gain practical experience at your own desk

v.l. Martin Geugis (WBS TRAINING AG), Frank Siepmann (eLearning Journal) und Markus Herkersdorf (TriCAT GmbH)

Virtual 3D learning worlds are increasingly finding their way into companies, organizations and universities. The fields of application are manifold: From simulation-based technical training to soft skills coaching, almost all possibilities are open. With the WBS LearnSpace 3D, one of the major private players in the continuing education market now also wants to rely on the new learning format and is thus anticipating a development, that promises a massive increase in virtual continuing education solutions in the next few years.

WBS Training AG offers its training services in the form of web-based live lessons. The WBS strives to make the theoretical knowledge acquired with innovative didactic concepts practically applicable. Thus, their learning formats also include simulation worlds in 2D, which depict a company in which the practical application of what has been learned can be practiced. However, the two-dimensionality of the same sets limits to a realistic and holistic experience of the job situation. A joint project with TriCAT GmbH is now to overcome this and create a new three-dimensional learning world.

Project progression

The virtual 3D learning world should represent a new future-oriented and innovative learning format for the WBS, which raises interactive online learning to a new level of quality. To this end, the management has launched the project as a further development of existing planning and role-playing games. Technically and functionally, the 3D learning world was based on the project partner’s virtual world platform TriCAT Spaces – currently the most advanced platform for virtual 3D learning and working environments in the professional sector. The project was successfully piloted as part of the practical workshop “financial accounting”. The new learning format WBS LearnSpace 3D is now to be successively extended to the wide range of WBS.

Project outcome

The LearnSpace 3D offers the learners of the WBS more realism than ever before. In a virtual three-dimensional environment in the form of a company building, the participants can act along typical tasks and test practical action, experience consequences of action and experience a kind of social learning alliance based on a continuous sense of social presence. The LearnSpace 3D is not a classic single user simulation. Rather, the project result represents a multi-user learning environment, in which the participants can interact and learn with each other in a presence-like and realistic manner. Currently, WBS students can gain their first operational work experience on the topics of bookkeeping, accounting or DATEV in the virtual and fictitious training firm “Goldberg E-Bikes”. Within four weeks, the prospective financial accountants go through an entire fiscal year: from the opening balance sheets at the beginning of the year to the closing balance sheets at the end of the year. At the beginning of a working day in the practical workshop, the participants select their own avatar and can move with it through the LearnSpace. Each user has his own virtual office, in which typical financial accounting tasks, such as travel expense reports, are carried out.

LearnSpace’s media library provides learners with additional learning materials in the form of eBooks and videos, to help them successfully complete their tasks. The advantage for the participants is the practical application of what they have learned: From standard bookings, to quarterly financial statements – all tasks must be handled exactly as in a real operation. The participants’ ability to act is thus made tangible for them. At the same time, the learners are completely responsible for their own success, which also represents a change from a teaching culture to a learning culture. Instead of being pure recipients, LearnSpace 3D enables learners to acquire knowledge independently and exploratively and to develop new skills more quickly. The trainers are only available as learning guides, which roughly structure the learning process and enable the participants to follow individual learning paths. This approach currently reflects the latest didactic state of knowledge transfer and ideally supports the demand for competence-oriented education.

Job advertisements often require practical expertise, which many participants usually do not yet have after further training in classical teaching formats. Through the practical workshop in WBS LearnSpace 3D, participants expand and consolidate their theoretical knowledge and acquire practical know-how. In this way, they also gain practical experience with which they can score points in the labor market. The new 3D world of the WBS creates an optimal learning environment in its combination of virtual presence, simulation and a high-value didactic environment, which connects practically to the challenges of today’s working environments. It enables competence-oriented, transfer-proof and sustainable education with a high degree of flexibility and economic efficiency at the same time.

Recap

The project WBS LearnSpace 3D is a convincing example of the successful application of one of today’s probably most significant educational innovations – the virtual, collaborative 3D learning worlds. These ideally combine learning-relevant and learning-enhancing features of present learning environments with those of computer-supported, location-independent learning in a new type of virtual learning environment. In this way, learners within the 3D world experience realistic and holistic learning situations, including spatial and social presence experiences – without having to physically come together in the same place. The eLearning Journal jury awarded the two project partners WBS TRAINING AG and TriCAT GmbH the eLearning AWARD 2018 in the category “3D Learning World”.


Specifications & special features

Specifications:
In order to make learning for their customers even more practical, transfer-oriented and sustainable, the previous 2D learning world, in which the learners could acquire practical knowledge, was to be further developed into a 3D learning world at WBS Training AG. This should overcome the boundaries of a learning environment that can be experienced holistically and create more realism for learners than before.

Special features:

Within WBS LeanSpace 3D, learners move around in their own offices within a virtual, imaginary company. Here they actively go through all the steps, tasks and processes involved in financial accounting and gain initial practical experience for their future profession.


Projectpartner

TriCAT GmbH

Markus Herkersdorf
CEO

TriCAT GmbH
Lise-Meitner-Str. 13
D-89081 Ulm

markus.herkersdorf@tricat.net
www.tricat.net

WBS TRAINING AG

Martin Geugis
Executive committee

WBS TRAINING AG
Lorenzweg 5
D-12099 Berlin

martin.geugis@wbstraining.de
www.wbstraining.de