Will the Virtual Birthing Unit ever make a come-back?

The other day I gave a talk in Second Life (SL) to the American Association of University Women,  Department of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies at The Ohio State University, about midwifery in New Zealand, and the Virtual Birthing Unit, at the invitation of Dr Sharon Collingwood.

This was the first time I had been in SL for ages. I was very nervous about it, especially because there is now a new viewer. But I got around OK, and there were no technical hitches.

Learning in virtual worlds
My talk was the usual one I give about the challenges we face in educating midwifery students, and how simulation in virtual worlds such as Second Life can provide opportunities for authentic, yet safe learning. However, the Virtual Birth Unit has not been taken up in a global sense, because it was really a bit before its time ie it was too complex and time-consuming for lecturers and students who only had limited digital skills.

The future?
The issues that impact on the provision of adequate and quality clinical experience for healthcare students are not going away.  And as educators become more experienced with online technologies, and more programs are delivered in a blended way, I think the Virtual Birth Unit will come into its own.

I am not sure if it will be successful as it is - it may well be "re-born" in another form, in other virtual worlds such as Open Sim. And clearly there are a lot of things about sustainability to think about, when embedding an initiative such as this in an education program. But for the first time in over 18 months, I am feeling a lot more positive about the future of the Virtual Birth Unit and simulation in midwifery education.

Petal goes on a diet

On Monday I went into Second Life (SL) for the first time in ages. This was to give a talk about midwifery in New Zealand, and the Virtual Birthing Unit to the Department of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies at The Ohio State University.

It's all about appearances
When I arrived, I got a very nasty shock. Petal, my avatar, had changed! She was slim! I had forgotten that I had "loaned" her to a student midwife, who had changed her from her usual cuddly self to a slim Petal.

Petal changes
This leaves me in a bit of a quandary.

 On the one hand, slim Petal doesn't feel and look a bit like the old Petal. Old Petal was short and fat. She was fun. She reflected who I felt like in real life. She was also making a statement. She wasn't going to be tall, blonde, slim with big boobs, and look exactly like the other avatars in SL.

 The new Petal
On the other hand, the new Petal is slim. But so am I, now that I have lost four stones in weight. But somehow she feels and looks bland. She lost that certain something that makes her special. Indeed, a little while ago a colleague remarked to me that she missed the old Petal.

What does this all say about identity?
So the question is...do I leave Petal as she is, reflecting my new "real life" image? Or do I put her back to how she was? And what does all this say about how I see myself, and how I regard my identity?

 I love the new "real me". I look and feel so much better now I have lost weight. But I am afraid I don't like the new, slim Petal quite so much...I cannot relate to her... so she's going back to be short and fat again!



Do you have any kind of avatar, or image that you use to represent yourself anywhere, like Second Life, Facebook or Twitter? What does that avatar or image say about you? How often do you change it, and why?

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.

Free education conference in Second Life, March 2011

I have had an increasing numbers of queries from health professionals interested in the potential of Second Life for education. So if you are one of those people, not just health professionals, who are interested in SL and education, I can certainly recommend this free international conference which is about SL...held in SL.

The Virtual Worlds Best Practice in Education 4th Annual Conference – March 17-19, 2011

Call for abstracts: http://www.vwbpe.org/calls/2011-call-for-proposals

For more information, go to the conference web site: http://www.vwbpe.org

How to evaluate the learning outcomes of the Virtual Birth Unit in Second Life?

I have just started looking at the Virtual Birth Unit (BU) and normal birth scenario with midwifery educators in the USA and UK. They want to use the BU with their midwifery students. I suggested we carry out a formal research project to evaluate how the BU impacts on the midwifery students' learning in relation to the learning outcomes of the courses they are taking.

The stage we are at is trying to decide what outcomes we want the students to achieve and how we will evaluate them. Here are some questions that oen of the educators I am working with came up with.

• How do we assess outcomes without a comparison group?
  
• What outcomes are reasonable to measure?
  
• Do we measure pre and post simulation?
  
• How can we best document the value of the simulation and debriefing?
  
• How do we keep bias out when we are the ones involved in the research and teaching?

I'd love to hear from anyone who has used simulation to teach students, especially health students...in Second Life. Or anyone who has experience of evaluating the impact of a specific intervention on students' learning. What methodology do you think is appropriate to use? How would you advise we measure or assess how the Virtual Birth Unit has impacted on students' learning?


Image: Virtual birthing unit. SLENZ tour
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kerryank/3957372087/

Time to move on from Second Life?

I have had a love-hate relationship with Second Life for the last three years. But for all my moaning and groaning, I have known that the Virtual Birth Unit is available for me to use at any time with midwives and midwifery educators, and at last I have a midwifery educator in the USA interested in doing a research project with me.

But just as my new SL research project looks like it is going to come to fruition, Linden Lab (the owner of SL) has made changes to its pricing structure for educators which means I may not have access to the Virtual Birth Unit after next August.

This may be the final straw for many educators and researchers, including myself. Things have not been helped by the fact I cannot use the new SL viewer properly. So this may be a good time to think about exploring other virtual worlds such as OpenSim.

But to be honest, I am not sure if I have the energy to pour into getting to know another virtual world. I have spent three years trying to get my head around SL...I just do not know if it is worth my while starting all over again with OpenSim. This is especially in the light of the lack of interest in virtual worlds in midwifery education. I am just wondering if I am better off spending my time focussing on other platforms that midwives will connect with in a greater way...

If you are a user of Second Life, are the price changes likely to affect your work? Have you thought of moving to another virtual world? If so, which one? If you use OpenSim, what do you think about it?

A threat to the Virtual Birth Unit?

The owners of Second Life have just announced that they are no longer allowing educators and non-profit organisations to buy land in SL at a discount. This has caused considerable discussion and consternation because of the implication for funding ie the cost of projects in SL is going to increase considerably and may become too expensive for educators and non-profits to continue.

This may have direct implications for the Virtual Birth Unit. At the moment it is being hosted by one of the educational institutions in New Zealand until August 2011. After that, I suspect it will be closed down because of a lack of adequate funding.

I have a midwifery education research project in the wings that I have just started work on...so now I am wondering if it is worth continuing with it. It will certainly need to be wrapped up by August next year.

In the meantime, I invite anyone who is going to continue keeping land in SL to copy the birth unit for their own use, because I do not know if it will be available in the future.

Absent from Second Life

I have been very absent from Second Life for the last couple of months because I have been having major technical difficulties. It started when I bought my new lap top. It's an all-singing, all-dancing lap top but since I downloaded Second Life onto it, I have not been able to get into Second Life. This has been extremely frustrating because I have quite a few jobs to do in and about Second Life in the next couple of weeks. This has driven another nail into the Second Life coffin as far as I am concerned.

However, it is the new version of the Second Life viewer which has been causing me problems but I have just realised I can still use the original viewer. So I think I will go back to that. Hopefully, you'll see me back in SL soon as my alter ego Petal Stransky.

Teaching And Learning Health Care Practice In Second Life

Here are a few of my thoughts (with audio) on how to use Second Life for teaching and learning in health care practice.

Teaching And Learning Health Care Practice In Second Life

View more presentations from Sarah Stewart.

Evaluation report of the SLENZ project and virtual birthing unit

The report for the Second Life Education New Zealand project and the virtual birthing unit has just been released - you can download the pdf from the SLENZ (now VLENZ) blog.

The report focuses on the design and development of the birth unit and touches on the students' experiences of piloting it for the first time. It is very interesting reading if you are thinking about carrying out a similar project to develop educational resources in Second Life.

What this report will not tell you is how effective the virtual birth unit is as a teaching tool, particularly in relation to learning outcomes. This is a project that is waiting to be done...hopefully by myself in the next few months.

Please let me know if you'd like to know more about the virtual birth unit and normal birth scenario in Second Life.

Wanted: collaborators for virtual birthing unit project

Over the last couple of weeks I have been talking to midwifery educators in New Zealand about the virtual birthing unit in Second Life and how they can integrate it into their program next year. I have always felt that it will only be used as it was designed if it becomes part of the students' lessons, as opposed to an extra, voluntary activity.

Too much, too soon?
But it looks as if we have really bad timing. The five schools of midwifery in New Zealand are all focused on implementing a new curriculum next year, and do not have the time to try something as new or complex as Second Life. The issues of technology that does not fully work in educational institutions, and the time it takes to become skilled in Second Life continue to be the main barriers to the uptake of the virtual birth unit.

Looking for collaborators outside of New Zealand
So this leaves me in a bit of a catch 22 situation. I need to continue the evaluation of the virtual birthing unit in relation to full integration into a midwifery program and learning outcomes. But I have no midwifery program willing to collaborate with me as yet.

So, if you are a midwifery educator interested in virtual simulation and role play, and/or Second Life, and would like to investigate its effect on the learning of midwifery students , please get in touch.

Top 10 virtual places in Second Life for nurse and midwife educators

I have been asked to compile a list of places in Second Life that are useful teaching tools for nurse and midwife educators. So here's ten suggestions from me - please let me know if you know of any other places.

1. The virtual birth unit
Of course I had to put the virtual birth unit at the top of the list considering I was the lead midwifery educator on the SLENZ project. This place is designed for midwifery students who want to learn about birth environment and caring for a woman in normal labour. It can also be used by anyone interested in birth including medical students, obstetric nurses and doualas. What is particularly unique about the birth unit is that the interactive normal birth scenario is open and free to use - here is a video that explains how it works, and here are the teaching resources and plans that go with the birth unit.

2. Virtual hallucination
I have written about this place in Second Life before and feel that it is one of the most moving and effective learning experiences I have ever encountered. Suitable for all areas of health education, this simulation gives you the visual and audio experience of a person with schizophrenia. I think it is worth watching this video if you are going to use this resource with students to be sure that you do not miss any aspects of the simulation.

3. Post-partum hemorrhage simulation
The post-partum hemorrhage simulation is part of the virtual hospital built by the University of Auckland. Particularly relevant to midwifery students and obstetric nurses, this simulation allows you to direct students in their management of a post-partum hemorrhage. For further information, contact Scott Diener.

4. Genome Island
Genome Island is a fun place to take students when you are teaching genetics. There are a number of activities that give a visual element to a topic that can be difficult to teach and learn. This is a place that is open to walk around so needs no special permission or funding to use.

5. Menstrual cycle
One of the things I took ages to get my head around as a student was the menstrual cycle. So if you're involved with teaching this to students, take them to the OSU Medicine site. At this place you can follow the growth of a follicle and take a quiz on how the menstrual cycle works.

6. Da Vinci Gardens, Kalepa
Another 'dry' subject is the anatomy and physiology of the cardiovascular system. If you want to put some fun into your teaching of blood, take your students to the Da Vinci Gardens at Kalepa. Once there, you can be miniaturized, put on a diving suit and swim through a blood vessel.

7. Second Health Orientation Experience
If you and your students are completely new to Second Life, you may first wish to work your way around this orientation trial. During your walk around you will find out how to move around, change your avatar and manage your inventory. Once you have finished the trail, you'll be directed onto the Second Health Virtual Hospital. Personally, I do not find looking around empty hospitals very exciting or engaging, so you'll have to develop lesson plans that take this into consideration.

8. Imperial College London
This simulation gives students an opportunity to investigate respiratory disease in the Respiration Ward. Whilst this sim is designed for medical doctors, I feel it is just as useful for nursing students. I found the sim quite complex initially so if you're a newbie, it is worth taking the time to sort out what to do before you introduce students. Here is a video that gives you an overview of what to do.

9. HIV Prevention and Education Center
The HIV Prevention and Education Center is jammed packed full of information about HIV and AIDS. A treasure hunt type activity may work well as a lesson plan for this place. It is also probably worth checking that the information is up to date before you recommend it to students.

10. Free stuff
Whilst this may seem frivolous, part of the learning experience in Second Life is tied up with the appearance of your avatar and how he or she behaves. To get your avatar looking how you want and to improve your SL skills, I suggest you go to the Forou Freebies Store where you can acquire all sorts of free things like hair, clothes, shoes, jewelry etc. Pottering around this store will help your students gain confidence in Second Life which in turn will improve their learning experience.

What places in Second Life have you found and would recommend for nurses and midwives?

Normal Labour and Birth: 5th Research Conference

The 5th Normal Labour and Birth Research Conference is coming up next July in Vancouver.

This session will specifically focus on concepts and controversies around the experiences of physiologic birth by providers, women, families, and systems of care within the current social, political, and economic context.

The conference will provide the opportunity to develop and disseminate evidence related to the benefits and challenges of preserving normal labour and birth with a particular focus on the multidisciplinary perspectives on the implications for clinical practice, perinatal outcomes, education, management, collaboration, and policy.

I am thinking I will submit an abstract, talking about how we're using the Second Life normal birth scenario to teach midwifery students about birth environment and how to work with women in primary birth units.


Image: Vancouver at night janusz l
http://www.flickr.com/photos/januszbc/3841429899/

Learning a few painful lesson about presenting in Second Life

I had the life scared out of me last Friday morning in Second Life and as a result have learned a few painful lessons about presenting in Second Life.

Virtual birthing unit becoming famous
A few weeks ago I was approached by the Gronstedt 'Train for Success Group, one of the biggest education and research groups in Second Life...except at the time I didn't know that. They asked if I could give a presentation about the virtual birthing unit and show them around. I said 'yes' and didn't think much more about it. I am so used to planning virtual events and no-one turning up that I didn't put any thought into how I was going to manage the presentation and tour.

Do what I say and not what I do
The irony is that I am currently teaching students how to facilitate online and yet I didn't take my own advice. I under estimated the number of people that would attend and the effect it would have on the technology of Second Life, and I didn't consider the practicalities of showing 40-50 people around the birth unit by myself. Luckily for me, I managed to secure the services of John Waugh who is one of the SLENZ team to help me out.

Sharing knowledge – The Gronstedt Group begins tour of the SLENZ birthing unit

How things turned out
In the end things didn't turn out to badly, although they could have been a lot better if I'd been more organized. I am not sure how many people turned up but it must have been over 35 people. The technology held up well, but I have to acknowledge that it is a challenge showing more than 10 people around because of time lag and keeping people together.

What did I learn about presenting in Second Life?
Giving a presentation in SL is no different from any where else...you have to be well prepared. The main lesson for me is that I need a lot more helpers in SL than I would need in another web conferencing environment. This means I have to be a lot more organized...give my helpers plenty of notice and make sure at least one of my helpers is very skilled at sorting out problems in SL.

It's also a good idea to have a notecard to hand to people, like a business card, with the contact details of everyone involved in the birthing unit project.

Feedback about the birth unit
We had great feedback about the birthing unit. One of the group said it was one of the best educational resources that he had ever seen. And we had lots of comments about the toilet being the first one that people had come across in Second Life! :)

What tips would you give people about presenting online, especially in Second Life?

PS: Keep an eye on the Gronstedt website because a recording of the presentation and tour will be available in a few days.

Embedding the Second Life virtual birthing unit into midwifery education

I have been invited to the schools of midwifery at Hamilton and Wellington later in December to demonstrate the virtual birthing unit and brain storm ideas about how it can be embedded into midwifery education.

Plan for the sessions
I thought I'd break up the days into several sessions. The first session I will talk about the Second Life Education New Zealand (SLENZ) project and how the virtual birthing unit came about. I'll also describe exactly what the birth unit and normal birth scenario do and achieve. Then, I'll run a Second Life workshop and orientate the midwives to SL. At the same time I'll talk about some of the barriers to SL and how we can overcome them. In the last part of the day I'll ask the midwifery lecturers to brain storm how they could use the birth unit in their program next year.

Where does the birth unit sit in a three year midwifery program?
I haven't seen the SLENZ student evaluation so I feel a little as if I am groping in the dark. But my sense is there are three options for the birth unit:

• orientation to the clinical context for first year students
• activity for second year students as they learn about normal birth
• revision activity for third year students.

In view of what I have heard from students, I wonder if the scenario is sophisticated enough for the senior students - I get the sense that it is more appropriate for junior students. We need to do more development, giving a wider range of options and variables before it will capture the attention of senior students. In the meantime, it is an ideal orientation tool for junior students - it makes them think and really stretches them, yet at the same time they feel safe because they are unable to 'harm' anyone and feel protected from the less forgiving real-life clinical situation.

Other options in Second Life for midwifery education
I was thinking that it would be worth talking about other resources in SL that midwifery educators could utilise in their program. The first thing that obviously comes to mind is the post-partum haemorrhage scenario that has been developed by the University of Auckland. There is also the heart murmur simulation and Genome Island.

The Virtual Hallucination may also be of value. I would love to see it adapted to fit the context of post-partum psychosis but it is still relevant to midwifery students who will come across women (and their families) who have mental health issues.

Working with midwifery educators outside New Zealand
I'd love to hear from any educators outside New Zealand (or outside midwifery) who are interested in using the birth unit and normal birth scenario in their own programs. I am very interested in setting up an international collaborative evaluation/study so please let me know if you'd like more information.

In my next blog post I'd like to talk more about how the birth unit and its impact on midwifery education can be evaluated.

Image: Visiting Genome Island

Second Life and science teachers

I have been asked by one of the science lecturers at Otago Polytechnic to show her Second Life. She is involved with teaching foundation science to students who want to go on to programs like nursing and midwifery.

I want to show her some sites that would interest her and that she can use with her students. The one place I know of is Genome Island, which is a place where you can explore resources and activities that focus on genetics.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LUidRI_MnM&feature=player_embedded

Do you know of any other places that would interest a science teacher, especially with a health focus?

A disturbing experience in Second Life

I had a very intense, disturbing experience in Second Life last night.

I went to see the Virtual Hallucination simulation that has been developed by UC Davis. It has been designed to give us a better understanding of what it feels like to have schizophrenia. Based on the stories of two people who have schizophrenia, it aims to provide an auditory and visual experience that simulates how schizophrenics see and hear the world.

To my mind this is the most powerful teaching/learning experiences in Second Life - it moved and disturbed me. If you have any interest in mental health, especially if you are a health professional working in the area I would recommend you visit this place. But be warned that it is an intense experience.

If you cannot access Second Life, have a look at this video which will give you a feel for the place.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s33Y5nI5Wbc

Nurses and Second Life

I was invited to a meeting of nurse educators in Wellington on Friday. They were from a number of New Zealand educational institutions and were very interested in the potential of Second Life for nurse education. Needless to say, they were especially interested in hearing about the Second Life Education New Zealand project and in particular the virtual birthing unit.

Nursing and medical resources in Second Life
There are few avenues these days for educational funding in New Zealand so these nurses are going to have to think about how they can utilize resources that are already available in Second Life. So the first step in their collaborative project is to review how nurses and health professionals are using SL.

• Projects in JoKaydia
  
• Health education in Second Life
• Top 10: Virtual Medical Sites in Second Life!
• SLENZ virtual birthing unit
• Land of the Long White Cloud - virtual hospital
• SL Health - email discussion list for health educators using SL
  

My advice
My advice to nurse educators looking at Second Life is to:

• find a SL mentor and learn as much as you can about how SL works;
• network with other nurse and health professionals using SL using online communication tools such as blogs, YouTube, Slideshare and of course, Second Life;
• develop learning activities in SL that require little or no development to keep things as cheap and easy as possible;
• work alongside your educational institution to ensure you have full access to SL;
• collaborate with each other using virtual tools such as wiki, Google Docs, Skype and SL.
  

I would love to hear from you if you are involved in nurse education and Second Life - what do you teach in SL? How effective have you found it? What would you advise nurse educators starting out in SL?

The future of Second Life and education

I have been thinking about where I stand in relation to Second Life now the virtual birthing unit project has more or less come to an end. If I want to continue to develop the birthing unit and become involved in more SL projects, I need to develop my SL skills. At the same time, I am not sure if the future in education for SL merits the time it will take me to upgrade my skills. And the contradictory opinion about SL of education experts doesn't help me in my decision-making.

The problems with Second Life
Clearly there are barriers to the use of Second Life in education, especially in New Zealand. Lack of Internet access, inadequate computer technology, institutional firewalls and policies can make it difficult for students and teachers to engage with SL. And the time it takes to learn SL skills can be prohibitive. Stephen Blythe is one of my students in the online course Facilitating Online - his story is a typical one.

Dr Alan Cann, a lecturer at the University of Leicester feels very strongly that SL is expensive, cumbersome, poorly designed and time-consuming. He says:

There is, above all else, one thing that Second Life is unsurpassed for. If you need to generate a large amount of cash from a naive grant-awarding body over-eager to jump on the Web 2.0 bandwagon, offer to build, for a preposterous amount of cash, a virtual representation of something that already exists in the real world but that no-one will ever use in SL. Something like, say, Belgium. You'll be quids in. Careers have been built on it.

Second Life and Gen Y
I was talking to Dr Erika Pearson this week about how young people use the Internet. Erika is a media studies lecturer at the University of Otago. She believes Second Life will not become main stream with Gen Y students because they are only interested in communication tools that are cheap, quick and easy to use like Facebook and cell phone text.

The future of education lies in virtual reality
Nevertheless, there are educators who believe the opposite - that students do better learning skills in Second Life than those who do not use SL. John Waugh, of the Second Life Education New Zealand project says it is vital that educators become familiar with Second Life and other virtual worlds and realities - educators who ignore virtual reality do so at their peril and will be left behind in the very near future. Whilst SL may not be the preferred virtual world of the future, skills learned in SL will be transferable.

My love-hate relationship with Second Life
If the interest and enthusiasm by New Zealand educators is anything to go by, I cannot ignore Second Life. So whilst I continue to have a love-hate relationship with SL, it's clear I need to develop my skills so that I can continue research on the virtual birthing unit and evaluate learning outcomes, and become a resource for educators wishing to explore virtual worlds.


Image: jokaydiaunconf-SLENZ_001 kerryj.com
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kerryank/3957681375

Teaching students about Second Life

I have talked about the course I am doing Learner Centred Learning and how I have to carry out a teaching session that is observed and critiqued as an assignment. Originally I thought I would teach a 'class' in Elluminate...something about social media. But now I have decided to be very brave...or extremely full-hardy, depending on your perspective, and teach students how to use Second Life. This will be part of the Facilitating Online course which I am currently facilitating.

Here is my lesson plan.

Aim
The aim of the session will be to introduce students to Second Life as part of the "Looking at virtual worlds" segment of the Facilitating Online course. In this course, students are expected to explore Second Life and think how they can use it as a space for facilitating events and activities. The aim of my session will be to give the students some basic skills so they can get out and about in SL.

Outcomes
1. Be able to walk and fly in Second Life.
2. Be able to teleport from place to place.
3. Be able to 'make friends'.
4. Be able to search for landmarks and make landmarks.
5. Be able to talk and text.
6. Be able to change appearance.

Date and time
The date and time will be in the week of the 11th October – the lesson will be one hour long. The time will be in the evening, probably at 8pm...giving students time to put children to bed. This means students will have to be able to access Second Life from home. This may be problematic for some if they do not have adequate computers or Internet access. But if I lead the session in the day time, students may have even more problems accessing SL because of institutional Internet policies and firewalls.

Location
We will start off in Elluminate because this is an environment that students are very familiar with, and if Second Life is down for some reason, we can continue discussions in Elluminate. Once I have connected with students in Elluminate, we’ll head off to Second Life. Once we’re in SL, I will show them the two SLENZ projects as examples of how SL can be used for education. Then, we’ll head off to Jokaydia because it has wonderful examples of community life in SL. I have asked Leigh Blackall if he will accompany me during the lesson. He will be the lesson facilitator and be a second helper just in case I have a large class and need extra help supporting students.

Recordings
I will be able to record the part of the lesson that I hold in Elluminate but not the session in Second Life. However, I will offer students the opportunity to meet me in SL for a one-on-one orientation session for a period of a week following the lesson.

Students’ pre-lesson preparation
I will ask student to prepare themselves before the lesson by creating their own avatar and reading the orientation information developed by SLENZ. They will also be asked to add their avatar name to the course wiki so I can track them when they are in SL. I will have a couple of ‘spare’ avatars ready just in case some students have problems with developing their avatar. They will also need to have downloaded SL onto their computers prior to the lesson. The information about the lesson will be dissemination to students via my blog, the Facilitating Online blog and email group.

Equipment
Students in this course are already familiar with online real-time meetings/lessons so they already have headsets with microphones. They also need computers that can handle SL. Students who do not have adequate access to SL will be unable to take part in this lesson. I will plan to run a session in Elluminate at another time for people who cannot access SL so we can discuss the requirements of the Facilitating Online course in regards to virtual worlds.

Learning style
The learning styles used mostly in this lesson will be kinaesthetic – student will learn by ‘doing’ and experimenting. The SL environment with its high-level graphics will also appeal to visual learners. People who are readers/writers will be catered for as I provide written instructions for using SL. Visual learners will be provided videos on how to use SL.

Plan

• 00 – 10 Meet in Elluminate. Introduction to the lesson. Explanation about Second Life. What I aim to achieve – what students would like to achieve.
• 10 – 30 Take students to SLENZ projects. Make friends. Teleport. How to communicate. Change appearance. Create landmarks.
• 30-45 Jokaydia. Explore newbie gardens.
• 45-50 Questions

Barriers to learning
The main barriers to learning will be lack of access to technology and Internet. Time constraints may also be a barrier. The lesson will be just an hour long which may not be long enough for students to really get a grip with SL. Thus, this lesson will be approached as an introduction to SL rather than and in-depth exploration.

Evaluation
Students will be invited to complete a brief online evaluation form, and leave comments on my blog.

• What did you learn in this lesson?
• What did you feel went well in this lesson?
• What would you recommend for a similar session in the future?

Can you see anything I missed? Any tips or hints for me about teaching newbies in Second Life?