Sealund’s Serious Games Blog

At Our Booth

We unveiled our new Alaris Financial Literacy eLearning at the SALT conference in Washington, D.C on August 20th. The Alaris eLearning programs—at http://www.sealund.com/alaris– provide personal financial literacy to consumers throughout the world. Alaris Financial Literacy eLearning achieves superior retention by engaging users through best practices of instructional design, technology and virtual learning environments to ensure application to real life. Visitors to our booth agreed with the conclusion our pilot project participants had reached: Understanding key financial literacy concepts is critical in today’s global economy.

Visitors to the Sealund booth enjoyed meeting JT (below) and the other Alaris mentors virtually, of course!

Our visitors also entered a drawing for a 32” HDTV. SALT President John Fox selected the winner at our “big moment” of the drawing.

At Our Reception to Unveil Alaris

On August 20th, a standing-room-only crowd of SALT participants, hungry for hors d’oeuvres as well as information, attended our reception as the curtain rose on the Alaris Financial Literacy eLearning Library. They discovered that the Alaris Financial Literacy eLearning helps people solve personal financial problems and encourages planning by teaching Credit Management, Budgeting, Identity Theft, Debt Management, Money Management, Retirement Planning and Investing. Learners take a personal financial journey, traveling through Life Scenarios, Games, and Virtual Learning Environments, using Financial Calculators and accompanied by the personal mentor they select from among the Alaris avatars.

Pilot program participants confirmed that the Alaris Financial Literacy eLearning programs are highly effective for ages 18 to 88. Walt Chandler of Northrop Grumman declared, “Excellent course! Highly interactive mentors/avatars kept the learner engaged. This is a great value for our organization.” And Pat Smolen of PSCU Financial Services found that “These online courses are well-developed and comprehensive, and allow for a participant’s privacy. This results in increased retention of important concepts.”

Virtual Worlds Presentation

With Walter Chandler, Training Manager Technical Services at Northrup Grumman, I co-facilitated the case study session “Virtual Learning Environments Are Making a Positive Impact for All Learners.”

From Northrup Grumman’s virtual learning environments (VLEs) for military field personnel to the office-skills and life-skills virtual environments for Sealund’s financial industry clients, all VLE learners gain better knowledge retention and skill transfer to real life than simple eLearning alone can help them achieve. The visual and auditory surroundings of a VLE help you picture yourself there while learning, and they make that environment familiar in your real life so you feel confident applying the knowledge and skills you practiced in the VLE. Northrup Grumman’s Alaris pilot program learners, used to both standard eLearning and VLEs for military training, rated the Alaris Understanding Credit Scores course between 4 and 5 on a scale of 1 to 5.

What do you think? Please share your comments.