Spreading the Word: New Opportunities in Health Literacy

It has been an exciting few months for our work in health literacy.  We are thrilled with the opportunities that continue to arise; opportunities to spread the word about health literacy to our peers, professors, and the occupational therapy community at large.  As we continue to learn about health literacy, we are increasingly convinced of [...]

Health Literacy Grant

This fall, we were funded by the Jefferson School of Health Professions‘ (JSHP) Research and Scholarship program to develop a program that uses Second Life as a training center for JSHP graduate students in occupational therapy. This program is designed to help students learn best practices for promoting health literacy in older adults by implementing [...]

Promoting Occupational Therapy in Virtual Environments

On Friday April 15, Veronica, Elizabeth, Kaitlin, and I presented our poster at AOTA, Promoting_OT_virtual_env. [BTW, I tried to avoid using a colon as recommended but could not take it out for some reason! See Colin Purrington's guide to successful poster presentation for a humorous look at colon use.] Many people stopped by, and there [...]

Mental Health, GO!

Our newest venture is beginning! We have begun preliminary research for our newest exhibit: Mental Health. This is an exciting time, for all of us involved in the project; and for me, personally because mental health is an area of clinical interest.  My fellow students, Katie (Angelica) and Elizabeth (Zunie) are investigating depression and I [...]

Healthy Aging Exhibit Nears Completion

Masters students doing Second Life final projects and grad assistants have been hard at work developing the exhibits for the soon-to-be-launched Healthy Aging exhibit. This exhibit expands the previous Garden of Healthy Aging considerably and has its own separate site to accommodate the larger scale and number of prims.  It will be accessible from the [...]

Renovated Adaptation Home Nears Completion

Last night we met with Kathee Gibbs (top photo, far left) to discuss final renovations to the Adapted Home. We have a duplicate of the home at our sandbox where we experiment. Kathee made some suggestions that Sweeney (“Holodeck queen,” pink jacket) will put in place and was very pleased overall with the displays. Later [...]

IRB Approval of Program Evaluation: A SecondLife® Milestone

Our application for exemption was approved! We’ll be doing a program evaluation of the OT Center at Jefferson in Second Life. I expected questions from the IRB (ethics board) about the methods/aims and so on, but…nothing. I have to credit grad student Alana Scorbal for the literature review she wrote and which we used, in [...]

My Second Life® experiences as a Grad student

I originally joined SL in February, 2008 as my graduate research project. The OT Center was already up and running. I worked with Zsuzsa (my teacher/mentor, Susan Toth-Cohen) and other grad students to produce exhibits using PowerPoints, videos, and some interactive displays and quizzes. With each new exhibit, I feel the Center is becoming more [...]

Generous Donation to Expand Adapting Environments Exhibit

The IM came in out of the blue, from Kathee Gibbs, whom I’d never met. She and partners Lucinda Bergbahn and Pecos Kid were finalists in the Second Life and the Public Good: A Community Challenge from USC. Kathee IM’d because she wanted to talk to me about donating the award Lindens to our Center. [...]

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. [...]