Health Care Panel on Metaverse TV

Metaverse TV’s panel on health care in Second Life was a lively discussion that included the challenges of ensuring service quality, turf issues in academia, and support of telemedicine on par with face to face treatment. The segment can be found here, the panel starts at about (time marker) 20.09. I participated along with Tymeless [...]

Virtual World, Real Learning: Graduate Students discuss Second Life® project

The Evaluation Begins…

The program evaluation commenced on November 8, 2008 with opening of the Garden of Healthy Aging and the reopening of the Adaptation Home and Main Building exhibits. The Garden of Healthy Aging provides interactive displays in a serene setting to allow one to discover various ways to keep your mind and body active as you [...]

Reflections on a year in Second Life®: What have we learned?

Looking at the video I produced about our work in Second Life® last year, I’m struck by some important differences then and now: a shift to project-based work – instead of seeing virtual worlds as a place to hold classes (and create rather traditional looking classrooms to house them), take a primary theme (Living Life [...]

It’s all about immersion..

Ideas about immersive education have gained considerable momentum recently. The new educational grid from Sun Microsystems, Project Wonderland, has stimulated even more discussion than previously. The gist of immersive education (as well as other aspects of Second Life such as identity) is summarized well in a podcast from Cynthia Calongne. I had the pleasure of [...]

New Perspectives from the Tech Museum of Innovation

It was June 16, and the new OT Center exhibit on adapting environments for daily life was scheduled to open in less than 2 days. Having trashed my powerpoint ideas, I found myself surrounded with cool 3D objects, a holodeck, and…CHAOS. i felt completely at a loss as to how the exhibit would come together. [...]

Zero to Holodeck in 30 Minutes (well sort of)

On my day off today, I continued to work on and finally was successful at creating a holodeck for the new Adapting Enviroments exhibit. When I say, “continued to work on,” let me explain what I mean… Last night I pulled my holodeck materials together after taking a class several months ago. DeadheadDMT Infinity, who [...]

Taking on the Challenge: Beyond Powerpoint in the 3D world

Had a very interesting and inspiring time with Gianninna Rossini, (best known for her work on Sloodle). I stopped over on Saturday to wish her a happy rez day, and she showed me a 3-D presentation she had given. Wow! It consisted of a series of blocks that appeared and when clicked, provided you with [...]

The dilemma of “structure” in Second Life(R) program development

One of the challenges of working with a group of 7 to create a Second Life project is: how much structure should the team leader provide? One of our aims is to provide a venue for graduate students to actively create content related to healthcare education. Graduate students are expected to think critically, problem solve, [...]