Below are two links to little stories about how Second Life is being used by universities.
One thing I've wondered about using SL for these purposes is whether the learning curve yields sufficient payoff. Perhaps in the case of medical training if the learners are expected to spend many hours practicing in the virtual environment. But what about for a one-of event like graduation?
That story also made me wonder: would those of you who are distance students like to have such a virtual graduation? Would you attend it and invite your family?
Virtual Medical Training with a Second Life Approach
Virtual Graduate in Second Life
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When I clicked on the link for virtual graduation, it said the page wasn't found. But, even without reading the article, I wouldn't attend a Second Life graduation. I haven't even attended my own graduations. As an academic tool, I can see the value, but I wouldn't want to use it as a social tool (and I consider graduation a social event).
ReplyDeleteAs far as training medical professionals in Second Life, I say "why not?" It seems like a great place for training and interaction with professors or SME's. I have to admit, it would be strange to see a bunch of avatars looking at me in a virtual classroom, but I'd be willing to give it a try at some point. Maybe I'll create a virtual outdoor classroom on our island. We can sit on the grass under a tree and learn about something together. :)
Sorry about the dead link, Bryan. The Chronicle got a facelift this week and it looks like older stories have dead links now. I found the link to this on via the medical training one, and it's dead at the source now, too.
ReplyDeleteI was skeptical about the med school example from an ISD standpoint. Can random Joes be good virtual patients? My understanding about how med schools traditionally use faux patients is that the patients are, effectively, actors. They're told what to do, what symptoms to have, etc. That way there is a known ideal diagnosis toward which they work and against which they are assessed. Second Life, unless the other avatars are plants, seems like it would be too much of a free-for-all.
Before the med school article was a deadlink, it talked about using virtual patients in a controlled environment (which I'm assuming are actors in a controlled Second Life region). It even talked about using real audio files to have med students diagnose a heart murmur (which I find really cool).
ReplyDeleteUploading audio and video files (although only quick time formated video works in SL) would give med students a chance to listen to patients, read video charts and xrays, and other similar activities, and then allow those activities to be embedded into an avatar, which would be the patient. You could attach audio and video files to a SL patient, and then, using scripts, make the patient respond to certain commands in the chat function. For instance, when the med students types "turn your head and cough", the script would automatically play the 'cough' audio file. Or another script could play the 'heart murmur' file whenever a med student touches the patient avatar.
OK, sorry I'm getting carried away. My point is that real life actors don't always make the best 'controlled' subjects because they tend to interpret their roles as patients. In SL, all of the interaction could be scripted, allowing each student to have the exact same experience, providing they followed protocol.
The med school article link still works -- probably because it's a current story. The other was archived.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, this time I followed through the link in the Chronicle story to the referenced Discover story and saw where they mentioned having scripts for the virtual patients to use in SL. Still, none of this seems like anything new to me. The basic learning activity is one that's been used by med schools for years, and there are many sim programs available too. (One of my PhD students was working on a dissertation in this area for a while so I got a bit of an inside view.) SL blends the two experiences a bit, since with live interactants it's not as tightly scripted as the other computer-based sims.
Using SL seems more resource intensive still, at least from the virtual patient angle. Using it to provide access to experts far away makes sense -- but really there's nothing new there, either. We've had videoconferencing for years, and the stuff that is programmed in SL is nowhere near the level of virtual reality sim with tactile feedback, etc. that would be necessary for actual surgical training.
< shudder uncontrollably > Learning surgery in SL? < /shuddering >
ReplyDelete:)