On February 16, 2007 I hosted an Adobe eSeminar on Machinima as a tool for developing training videos. Tom Crawford explained how one can co-opt video games or re-purpose them for creating cheap, effective training videos.
Using something like The Movies you can short-circuit the painful process of shooting "real" video. You also skip the painful process of morphing your own SMEs or yourself into 3D artists/animators. Instead you can cast, script and "film" in the virtual sets. It is a great way to spend $20 USD and a few hours to develop mini vignettes to bolster the reality of your elearning and add life. It is a cool idea that text does not do justice to, so I’ll link to the seminar recording as soon as I can.
Speaking of adding life to training, I just received a note from Kris Rockwell of Hybrid Learning Systems about using Second Life for learning, including a HUD (heads-up display) add-on that lets learners easily blog about their Second Life experiences with geo-stamps of where they were in Second Life at the time/place of the entry. A quick YouTube demo of the SL Blog HUD is online.
Check out the Sloodle site for more info on use of SecondLife for learning education and training. Sloodle is a sort of mash-up of the Moodle open-source learning environment and the Linden Research Second Life virtual world.
UPDATE: Catching up on my reading, I see that my friend Professor Kapp has posted an entry on taking ESL in SL. It usually takes an AICC meeting to get that many confusing acronyms in a sentence. Anyway, check out his post on the experience as a learner and observer.
I believe BP has used it for training on gas station operation and
safety. In Second Life, trainees can walk down "through" the ground and
better understand the underground tanks at the gas station. There have
also been training sessions on negotiations and management topics held
in Second Life by other organizations.