Virtual Reality

As an instructional designed for the Corporation of the President one of our goals was to make training for the people around the world as interactive as possible. The more hands-on a training is the better and more cognitive the experience for the learner. This is one of the highest goals for the training user experience. During my three years of working here I was able to attend a lecture series given by some of the top instructional designers in the nation. One of them used the computer program, Virtual Life in their presentation. It was what we thought was on the extreme side of the conference as he showed how we could have our meetings, trainings, and team building experiences as a virtual experience.

This being noted, I felt quite validated in cutting myself off from pretty much all video games after attending a fireside given by Elder Bednar in May of 2009:

http://lds.org/liahona/2010/06/things-as-they-really-are? lang=eng&query=bednar+virtual+reality

One of my favorite parts of his teachings was reference to those of Joseph Smith, “We came to this earth that we might have a body and present it pure before God in the celestial kingdom. The great principle of happiness consists in having a body. The devil has no body, and herein is his punishment. He is pleased when he can obtain the tabernacle of man, and when cast out by the Savior he asked to go into the herd of swine, showing that he would prefer a swine’s body to having none. All beings who have bodies have power over those who have not."

This talk made an influence on me that I am still grateful for to this day. I do my best to be doing something productive with my time and about the only time I will make the exception for video games is for positive interaction, time on-line to further relationships with friends and family, or teaching and recording purposes, such as this blog.

Last night I had an awesome experience with playing on the XBox with friends! I occasionally enjoy Rock Band and Guitar Hero, I love singing, and rocking out on the guitar, the bass, and playing the drums very much. Dance Dance Revolution and Just Dance are other games I enjoy, but last night I played two games that take the cake...literally I could play them with friends frequently and not feel bad about it. Maybe because they're sports and some of the guys were actually sweating by the end of their turns! Awesome-XBox Kinect Dance and Kinect Sports. Boxing, sprinting, javelin, ping-pong, hurdles, bowling, beach volleyball, discus, etc, and then dancing was more fun to watch others and cheer them in getting their grooves on!! Such a great time and refreshing change of mind-all thanks to our gracious hostesses-Natalie and Ariel!!! Love you both!