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.

Do you have a public Google profile?

I have just discovered a new element of the Google range and that is the public Google profile - here is mine: http://www.google.com/profiles/sarahstewart07

Having a public Google Profile will increase your presence on the Internet which is particularly important if you want to promote yourself online for whatever reason. The instructions on how to do it can be found here.

What I like about it is that it very easily hooks in your other online channels like YouTube, Slideshare and blog accounts. Let me know how to find your profile - I'd love to have a look to see how you use it.

Which is more effective - a team or community of practice?

I am writing an abstract for the conference "Breathing new life into maternity care". This conference is a multi-disciplinary conference held in 2010 in Alice Springs, Australia.

Team or community of practice?
One of the main aims of the conference is to bring midwives and obstetricians together to encourage more collaborative teamwork amongst the two professions. I was all set to write an abstract talking about how we can use online communication tools to work more effectively as a virtual team. But I have got side tracked into asking the question: should we be aiming to form virtual teams in maternity services or would it be more appropriate to think in terms of communities of practice? What is the difference? What will work better?

Working in teams
I have to be honest and admit to some suspicion when I hear the call for 'teamwork'. I welcome inter-professional collaboration but my idea of teamwork sometimes differs from that of other health professionals. I'm all for teamwork but in a team where I am an equal partner, bringing my own strengths and perspectives that are valued along with every other member of the team.

Developing communities of practice
So maybe we should be focusing on developing communities of practice as opposed to teams. I see communities of practice being less hierarchical than teams and more inclusive...where members work together to support, mentor and develop each other....and where consumers (and their families) can join and contribute.

What do you think - is there a difference between teams and communities of practice, or is it just a matter of semantics?


Image: '3D Full Spectrum Unity Holding Hands Concept'
www.flickr.com/photos/22177648@N06/2137735924 lumaxart

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

Free mini-conference starts today

The course 'Facilitating Online' has a mini-conference that starts today - details can be found here. There are a range of free synchronous and asynchronous events that you can attend - if you want to know more about a particular event, please contact the individual facilitator.

This mini-conference is the highlight of the course I have been facilitating over the last few months - I feel like a new mum about to give birth :) I'm a little nervous but also very excited.

So please feel free to attend and support the students - I'm sure you'll find heaps to interest you, especially if you want to know more about social networking and eLearning:

• All you need to know about Twitter
• Going online to save the mala - early lessons from a web-based conservation planning process
• Use of wiki in education
• Implementing online tools into your teaching
• Google Reader and Delicious
• Moodle, Ning, Wikieducator,Facebook and WiZiQ
• Too many cooks spoil the broth, so they say....So what of Too many Tools?

Image: 'yellow umbrella' // solidether
www.flickr.com/photos/7185311@N03/1084349065

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

Vuvox: a great alternative to PowerPoint

I have just been introduced to a nice alternative presentation tool to PowerPoint by @carlosrizo: vuvox collage. It's very easy to use and looks really nice. The only thing I need to work out is if I can download the collage so I can use it if I haven't got access to the Internet.

Here's a collage I have made about Flickr and Creative Commons.


http://www.vuvox.com/collage/detail/0196513e3b

Meeting people who actually read my blog

It was very exciting on Friday to meet people who actually read my blog. I don't have a large readership and use this blog primarily to process my own thinking and learning. But it's lovely hear that people find my writing interesting (although goodness knows why!?) and get some useful information out of it.

So a big 'hello' to Susie Lepage, Yvonne Rika and Jean Jacoby who are nurses and educators interested in exploring Second Life for nurse education. Thank you for reading my blog. I hope you'll find what I have written to be of help as you plan your Second Life project, especially my experiences of working on the virtual birthing unit.

To anyone who reads this blog: please don't be afraid to leave a comment to say 'hello'. It feels very lonely here at times and is always nice to hear from people, even if it's just a quick word or two :)

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?

Facilitating a forum for indigenous aged care workers, November 2009

I feel very honored to have been asked to help facilitate a forum for aboriginal and Torres Strait aged care staff in Cairns, later in November. This forum is the last element of the eMentoring project I developed for Aged Care Queensland.

What mentoring support aged care staff require
Whilst the eMentoring project was aimed at indigenous aged care staff, very few people volunteered to take part. It goes without saying that we should have consulted more thoroughly with indigenous workers before we even started the project, so we're doing things back to front. Nevertheless, what we would like to know is:

• what mentoring support do indigenous aged care staff want and need?
• how can Aged Care Queensland facilitate mentoring support, if it is required?
• how would staff prefer to receive mentoring support - face-to-face, electronic or a mix?
• what are the barriers to eMentoring?
• how can Aged Care Queensland break down the barriers to eMentoring?

Plan for the forum
We are developing an agenda for the forum with indigenous advisers. Our plan is for an informal discussion, focus group approach to seeking information. The other part of the forum is to run a computer skills workshop.

Seeking ideas and advice
I have not worked with aboriginal and Torres Strait people before. The last thing I want to do is offend anyone or go about things in an inappropriate way. In particular, I hope to make the computer workshop as user-friendly as possible. So I would especially appreciate any ideas or advice about how to approach the computer skills workshop.


Image: 'Great Barrier Reef, Cairns, Australia' The Lightworks
www.flickr.com/photos/22385963@N00/340751615

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

Can someone lend me their garden please?

Every spring my hubby and I have the same argument about the garden. I want to have a go at growing vegetables but the truth of the matter is we just don't have enough room. I grow a few tomatoes, but I'd really like to have a decent allotment or something like that.

I understand there are a couple of community gardens in Dunedin, but I'm not too sure what they entail, and I'm too selfish to want to grow a lot of veggies that then get pinched by the 'community'. I also know that Horty Kim is running a permaculture garden at Otago Polytechnic, so I need to go and have a look there.

But what I would really like is for someone to 'lend' me a patch of their garden that I can turn into a veggie patch. If you have a garden that you're not using and would be happy to let me potter around in it, please let me know as soon as possible.