If you're still trying to get your head around what Second Life is, and it's relevance to health care practice and education, have a look at this information video by The University of Michigan's Health Sciences Libraries. John Waugh of the SLENZ project, rates it as one of the best information videos around in terms of Second Life and health.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wDl5suE2Uo&eurl=http%3A%2F%2F
6 comments:
I know SL is being used for counseling. The issues are, as always, access to SL - will your clientele - young mums who may not have a lot of money-have access to SL? I still think you're on a winner using mobile technology like Twitter & applications like YouTube.
How's that research proposal going!!??
I think the opportunities offered to healthcare by SL are amazing, but would be interested to know what the actual uptake is... how easily does the average health student or Joe Public find SL, and can they be bothered? Sometimes I wonder if the glam of SL may actually create barriers to learning. Blasphemy???
What you have said is not blasphemy, far from it. It is an issue we struggle with all the time. I agree that SL has huge simulation potential for teaching in medical/health, but outside of the computer labs of education institutions I am not sure of its uptake.
Nevertheless, if I can provide students with an opportunity to learn about the management of post partum hemorrhage in a simulation in a computer lab, then I am not too worried at this stage whether Jo Bloggs can access the sim from his home computer. The problem gets more complicated if I am trying to teach PPH to students who are off-campus.
But....that's what this project is all about - finding out what works and what doesn't work. Thanks for your comment.
I forgot to say, Jean, that it isn't so much the glam of SL that is setting up barriers but rather students' perceptions about the 'seamier' aspects of it.
I'm with you re simulations - am playing around with some research on using SL or some other sort of simulation to do OSCEs with student nurses. My reservations come from feedback from students who find the more basic e-learning features like wikis tricky...can't help wondering about their ability (wrong word, I know) to develop SL skills. There was an interesting article along these lines in the latest Innovate which is why I'm thinking this way, I suppose.
But thanks for the discussion.
I'm with you re simulations - am playing around with some research on using SL or some other sort of simulation to do OSCEs with student nurses. My reservations come from feedback from students who find the more basic e-learning features like wikis tricky...can't help wondering about their ability (wrong word, I know) to develop SL skills. There was an interesting article along these lines in the latest Innovate which is why I'm thinking this way, I suppose.
But thanks for the discussion.
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