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 age. The Adaptation Home permits the user to explore (with or without a wheelchair) different ways to modify a home to increase safety and independence when a limitation is present in mobility, vision, or cognition.

The Main Building encompasses informative videos, materials, and quizzes on a range of health topics, such as carpal tunnel syndrome, backpack awareness, and assistive technology.

So far, the overall opinions from the participants have been positive! We have had 29 participants take the survey and 20 of whom have taken part in follow-up interviews to further elaborate on their impressions of the exhibits.

Ø 86% of respondents strongly agree/agree that visual, interactive 3-D displays help them learn better than reading the same material on a 2-D website.

Ø 79% of respondents strongly agree/agree that the information given in the exhibits at the OT Center in SL will be beneficial to them in real life.

The interviewees have given complimentary and constructive feedback which we will use to enhance the exhibits to maximize the learning experience for user.

There were some difficulties during the preparation stage. Things did not go exactly as planned, but in the spirit of the Adaptation Home exhibit as well as occupational therapy, we ADAPTED and OVERCAME. We modified some of our original plans (using holodecks throughout the house) to an interactive, well-received display that illustrates typical problems and adaptations that can be made. 

We hope you will stop by the Jefferson OT Center @ Eduisland II and explore our exhibits…Please check back on the blog for updates as the data continues to be collected and analyzed.

Thanks, Alana Scorbal

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 part, as the opening text justifying our application:

Virtual reality is emerging as a new venue in the educational arena through the use of a virtual world called Second Life® (Stott, 2007). Second Life® is an online three-dimensional world in which individuals assume online personas called avatars that interact with one another in simulated environments (Boulos, Hetherington, & Wheeler, 2007). Virtual worlds can be utilized in any number of contexts, such as public education and health care (Skiba, 2007). According to Woodford (2007), the American Cancer Society (ACS) and the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) utilize Second Life® in order to encourage health promotion and education to the public. A reported nine million users, or avatars, have ventured into this virtual world and dozens of colleges have leased space in Second Life® (Bugeja, 2007).

According to Babiss (2007), the therapeutic and educational benefits of Second Life® have only begun to be discovered. Occupational therapy needs to seize new opportunities beyond traditional boundaries (Pattison, 2006)and become entrepreneurs in this new field technology that is virtual reality. Current technology, such as Second Life, can assist occupational therapy in advancing the profession by reaching audiences that were inaccessible in the past to inform the public of the valuable information this profession holds (Babiss, 2007).

Thanks are also extended to Rachelle Munro for her helpful guidance. Rachelle conducted a study via Texas A&M in which I participated. I applied her ideas about recruitment and informed consent to our program evaluation. Additionally, Kathee Gibbs’s generous donation to our center will enable us to provide lindens as honoraria for participation in the evaluation.

We applied for exemption as follows:

Research activities in which the only involvement of human subjects will be in one or more of the following categories are exempt from IRB review. Please check those items that apply to your research.
_(2) Research involving the use of educational tests (cognitive, diagnostic, aptitude, achievement), survey procedures, interview procedures or observation of public behavior, unless: (i) information obtained is recorded in such a manner that human subjects can be identified, directly or through identifiers linked to the subjects; and (ii) any disclosure of the human subjects’ responses outside the research could reasonably place the subjects at risk of criminal or civil liability or be damaging to the subjects’ financial standing, employability, or reputation.

So, good to go! We’re looking forward to the process itself and of course, to finding out what people think of our exhibits. Let me know if you’d like more information about the application for your own IRB/Ethics board proposals.

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 interactive and fun! Collaborating with other disciplines and groups in SL has been beneficial to me and the Center to produce more informative, interactive displays.

 

Working on the latest exhibit, Adaptive Environments, has really helped me hone in my knowledge and skills I have learned so far at Jefferson and apply it universally to any population. Trying to simulate a home in SL that illustrates the barriers people can face in RL has been challenging. I am still a newbie as far as building, but I did make a few things and plan to undertake some more to enhance the exhibit.

 

I am learning how to make a video of the Adaptive Environments exhibit. I intend to use it as part of a teaching module for the undergraduate OT students at my school who are taking that class in RL. I hope to show them the benefits of using 3-D worlds to gain a better understanding of the learning material as opposed to typical classroom settings.

 

For my preliminary project, I have collected and analyzed initial survey data. Now I have revised the survey questions and will use the analysis of this new data for my final research project. The new survey is more comprehensive and includes an optional follow-up interview. Overall the preliminary data was positive and I am hopeful that the new data will bring similar positive results.

So stop by the OT Center at Eduisland II and check out our displays and if you can….take the current survey. Please check back frequently for information about the new survey and program evaluation. J

Thanks, Alana Scorbal

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 to its Fullest) and build exhibits around it related to our aims in Second Life®
• use interactive media whenever possible to provide education. Displays such as slide shows have their place but should be used minimally.
• create a structure for projects through regular meetings
• collaborate with other health professionals, persons with disabilities, and others to create experiences within virtual worlds.
  On some level, I think I “knew” these things were best practices a year ago, but experience provides a deeper, richer understanding and commitment.
  For a description of current work, see the updated YouTube video at:
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1gFem4YnWA

Stroke Exhibit Finds New Home at HealthInfo Island

Walk-through middle cerebral artery at HealthInfo Island

Our stroke awareness exhibit, with its displays, quizzes, and free gifts, is now up and running at HealthInfo Island.

…the island is home to a consumer health library and a medical library, as well as virtual outposts or displays run by the National Library of Medicine’s Special Information Services, contractors for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the Accessibility Center.
http://healthinfoisland.blogspot.com/

Carolina Keats, who runs the island, had seen the exhibit when it was up at the OT Center on Eduisland II and asked if we would consider placing it there after the exhibit period was over. We’re delighted to have the opportunity to be part of the wonderful resources and collaboration that make HealthInfo Island a unique Second Life(R) venue.

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. When we had a chance to talk yesterday, I found out that we shared the same idea for a program development project in Second Life: educate people about adaptations that can be put in place at home, to improve daily life. Specifically, Kathee’s proposal was to “provide a tool that persons with mobility impairment can easily and cost effectively access to explore ways in which they can improve accessibility in their homes and thus the quality of their daily lives. ” We met at the OT Center to talk, and Kathie shared her ideas about how the adaptation exhibit at the Center might be further developed to incorporate more interactivity and consumer choice.

Kathie and Zsu discuss ideas for expansion of the adapted home

Today, Kathie told me she discussed the donation with partners Lucinda Bergbahn and Pecos Kid, who gave the green light to provide funding to our Center! I’m amazed at their generosity and so pleased to know that their gift will enable us to expand our work and, we hope, benefit persons with and without disabilities and raise awareness of the possibilities that can be achieved through home adaptation.

Mixed Reality Dinch (Dinner-Lunch) Philadelphia-London-Somewhere in Iowa

Part of the fun of SecondLife(R) is experimentation, whether it’s in-world or doing SL-related work in first life. Well…we experimented in both worlds (mixed reality) with a Dinch (Dinner-Lunch) shared by Gia Rossini and Dizzy Banjo (London), Penelope Drucker (somewhere in Iowa), and  Plato Pizzicato and me (Philadelphia).  Check out the YouTube vid:

Things weren’t perfect–it was hard to hear, and we couldn’t get much of a sense of what was going on in London (just that it was very noisy). And, apparently the bartender where Gia was did not have the same fascination with what we were doing as the Bonte employee. Next time, we’d like to try multiple video streams, so each can see each other’s first life setting.

It’s all about immersion..

Adaptation stations inside the home modifications exhibit at the occupational therapy center at Jefferson

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 meeting Cynthia (Lyr Lobo) at the Sledupotential workshop at NECC, where she led the group in a building project. Hearing the podcast, I can easily understand Lyr’s interest and expertise in building as a tool for learning, as well as a learning activity in itself. In the podcast, she discusses how abstract science concepts come alive for her computer science students.
I found similarities in the themes about immersive education from Lyr’s podcast and a number of publications including Seng and Edirisinghe’s article about teaching computer science in SL and Dickey’s frequently cited Teaching in 3D: Pedagogical Affordances and Constraints of 3D Virtual Worlds for Synchronous Distance Learning that directly apply to the OT Center’s most recent exhibit on Adapting Environments for Daily Life. As one visitor put it:

This is great information! I didn’t realize this would apply to us … a house with seniors in it.

She had read about the hazards of things like throw rugs and heard about adaptations, but it was not until she experienced the exhibit that the message really came through.

Slipping and falling on a throw rug

So, we’ll keep racking our collective brains to come up with more ideas on how to engage visitors and provide educational messages they’ll remember. Stay tuned…

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. So, I returned to a rumination I’ve been having lately, about how SL exhibits are a bit like interactive museums. In semi-desperation, I did a search on museums within Second Life and came across the Tech Museum of Innovation.

Well…good move, Zsu. They have a thought-provoking and very practical tutorial about how to design exhibits in Second Life. #1 on the list was What’s the Big Idea? This alone was worth the trip. Among the comments about #1 was:

Every museum exhibit has a big idea behind it. If you can’t articulate what the exhibit is about in one sentence—one big idea—then it probably needs to be pared down.

I pondered for a bit, and it suddenly came to me: Well of course, the big idea is, Living Life to Its Fullest. This is the new tagline for occupational therapy from the American Occupational Therapy Association. It became clear that LLTTF could be the overall theme of the Center, and that each exhibit could tie into this theme. So, for example in the picture below, there is the sign, LLTTF, with the link to adapting environments below it. It says, [LLTTF] “May be hard to do because of physical,
mental, or emotional issues and/or barriers in the environment.

The other points included in the tutorial also were very good. It think it will probably take some time for these messages to sink in. But…at least it gives a leg up to begin doing that 3-dimensional kind of thinking Gia and I spoke about. It’s a process…

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 taught the class, really made it easy, and we went from knowing very little and knowing how to do even less to a completed holodeck in about 1 hour. However…last night was starting from scratch, which of course is an entirely different story. It included:

1. Figuring out what objects to include
2. experimenting with where to place the objects
3. looking for the essential “object a script” that for some reason was missing
4. going through all the steps to create the holodeck
5. redoing the holodeck after realizing the script I thought I found was not the actual object a script
6. coming to the realization that maybe just rezzing 3-D objects that illustrate assistive technology and self-help aids isn’t enough
7. figuring out what else I wanted those 3D objects in the holodeck to do
8. experimenting with scripts for the objects

   Okay, are you exhausted just hearing these steps?? I sure was after working on the project for 2-3 hours (I never keep accurate tabs on how long I spend to do stuff in SL, it would probably discourage me from doing it!).

Anyway, I took up the challenge again this morning and creating my first holodeck for the exhibit. I was able to put it together, using the entire holodeck process (no pre-created scenes) in about 30 minutes. Mind you, this replaces only 2 of the 17 powerpoint slides originally planned…but no one said this would be easy or quick!