Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Sustainability of the Virtual Birth Unit in Second Life

Deborah Davis and I are writing an article that focuses on the sustainability of midwifery teaching initiatives in Second Life and we hoped that we could have a chat with anyone who has heard about the SLENZ virtual birth unit. We are interested in anyone who has visited or used the Birth Unit (even if you used it to inform the development of your own).

We have put a couple of questions together but we would love to chat in Skype or by phone with you if possible.

1. How did you find out about “Te Wahi Whanau”, the virtual birth unit on the island of Kowhai?
2. What is your interest in VBUs such as this?
3. Do you/did you use this particular VBU (or any aspects of it)?
4. How do/did you use this VBU? What aspects of the VBU do /did you use?
5. What are your experiences of using the VBU?
6. Did you make a copy the VBU?
7. If so, for what purpose?
8. Do you know of anyone else who might be using this VBU that we could contact?

Please let me know if you have any feedback for us.

4 comments:

starpath said...

Hi Sarah, I visited SL birthing unit quite a few times when it was being developed, to experience SL and just to satisfy my curiosity. I saw great potential for student teaching. Is it being used now? I hope so. Cheers.

Sarah Stewart said...

As far as I am aware it is not being used...that's what Deb and I want to talk about...why this initiative has taken off and ask the question...is it sustainable?

moira stephens said...

Hi Sarah - I visited the VBU quite a few times (about 12).
I heard about it from you on via Twitter - in fact this/you were my introduction to SL.
I became very interested in SL as a teaching and learning resource and saw potential in (for eg for my own students who come from across Aus from different cancer units, I would live to build a virtual Bone marrow transplant unit - students looking after post transplant patients in rural areas could 'experience'inpatient BMT unit - for eg. Similarly - building a pall care unit or a remote haematology service - getting students to have a look at services delivery across the spectrum of patient experience - more than a look because of the immersion effect in SL. However - with no resources, faculty interest nor cash - it remains a dream.... for now.
Having said that - I have taken students there - but they have never seemed that keen and I wonder about digital accessibility for all and 'being all too hard'.
I wanted to meet someone in there using it for things birthing - but never met anyone there (apart from Sarah once I think), however, I used it to show colleagues an example of how SL could be used in nursing education.

Sarah Stewart said...

Thanks Moira...great feedback for our article :)