New from UW! Games and Simulation for Healthcare Library and Database

Eric Bauman and his colleagues ad the University of Wisconsin have just published a wonderful new resource for those who want to integrate games and simulation into their scholarship and patient care strategy. It's called the Games and Simulation for Healthcare Library and Database. The site includes an entire inventory of items dealing with everything from anatomy to disaster preparedness to patient education. One can search by vendor, audience, platform, and topic or any combination of these. I did a quick search using the audience "attending physicians" and the platform "iPhone" and came up with three items including an ACLS review tool using 800 flash cards, an interactive anatomy tool, and another set of flash cards for the iPhone. Searching Second Life currently yielded 17 clinical simulation sites including our own SLICE2 (just renamed the NewWorld Initiative for Clinician Education). The site also includes a listing of associations and labs as well as current news/events and reference materials. Anyone with an interest in patient and clinician education, and clinical research taking advantage of games and simulation-based learning will want to bookmark this site: http://projects.hsl.wisc.edu/healthcaregames/

Guide to Using Second Life in Medicine

John Lester of Linden Labs posted a link on the Second Life healthcare listserv for a guide to using Second Life in Medicine published by Webicina. The guide looks very interesting and has much helpful information about how various organizations are using virtual worlds in healthcare, how one can organize meetings and presentations such as case discussions in Second Life and how patients might use Second Life. I am not familiar with the company, but according to the information on their site, "Webicina is a privately held company aiming to build a bridge between physicians and e-patients. Webicina provides services that help medical professionals and patients enter the web 2.0 era." They apparently offer a number of subscription services for both professionals and the general public but the guide is free and is available on the web at "http://www.webicina.com/medicine_in_second_life/what_is_second_life_75/" at least for the time being. I found it to be full of useful information and wanted to share it with you.

MacArthur Foundation Creates a Presence in Second Life

The MacArthur Foundation has opened an island in the virtual world of Second Life. The island is a new laboratory for MacArthur’s two-year exploration of virtual worlds, led by the University of Southern California and the nonprofit Global Kids. The island is designed as an alternative space to educate grantees and others about the potential for philanthropy in virtual worlds and allow grantees and Foundation partners to showcase their work and connect with new audiences. The new island is located adjacent to an archipelago in Second Life dedicated to the public good, called the Nonprofit Commons. Visitors to MacArthur Island can interact with installations created about the work of MacArthur and its grantees. They include a giant pair of 3D headphones that visitors can use to listen to stories by independent radio producers as part of Public Radio Exchange, and a map about Chicago neighborhoods through which visitors can learn about a comprehensive community development effort being carried out in Chicago.
“We are just beginning to understand the potential of virtual worlds for social good, and MacArthur Island will make it possible for us to take the next steps in our investigation,” said MacArthur President Jonathan Fanton. “Although the use of virtual worlds is exploding, we need to better understand when and how nonprofits should invest their scarce resources. Now is the time to do this work. Philanthropy should be an active player as these new spaces take shape.”

Virtual worlds, such as Second Life and Whyville, are user-created 3D communities that allow users to connect with real people from all around the world. Participants engage using avatars, or simulated representations of their physical selves, which they can manipulate using their computer to fly from island to island, talk with others, and even show emotion. Virtual worlds have been especially powerful for communities that are spread out across the globe to convene on issues of shared interest, and have also been used for fundraising, spreading awareness and increasingly for education.

The island is the latest of a series of MacArthur-supported projects carried out over the past two years to explore the power of virtual spaces for social good. They include a number of MacArthur-hosted events in virtual worlds on a range of issues from human rights to community development. The exploration of virtual worlds is part of the Foundation’s $50 million digital media and learning initiative, which seeks to help determine how digital technologies are changing the way young people learn, play, socialize, and participate in civic life. Answers are critical to developing the social institutions that can meet the needs of this and future generations. (Press release courtesy of the MacArthur Foundation.)

Use of Second Life by University of Kansas Medical Center

Particularly for those new to using virtual worlds for educational purposes, David Antonacci and Nellie Modaress from the University of Kansas Medical Center have written a nice introductory overview. It includes a reference to their use of SL role play to provide medical students with practice in physician/patient encounters together with sample video in which they use text chat to simulate the dialogue between the health care team and a patient and his wife. This is very similar to the work that we are doing at the Second Life Institute for Clinician Education (see http://www.SLICE2.com).

Here are links to the article and to the physician/patient video.

Article: http://www.editlib.org/index.cfm/files/paper_24253.pdf?fuseaction=Reader.DownloadFullText&paper_id=24253

Physician/Patient Video: http://www2.kumc.edu/ir/tlt/sl/SLPres-RolePlay.wmv

Microsoft to Buy Medical Info Search Company

By Reuters February 26, 2007

SEATTLE— Microsoft Corp. said on Monday it will buy Medstory Inc., a California-based start-up company that develops Web search technology for medical information. The world's largest software maker, which did not disclose financial terms of the deal, said the acquisition is part of a broader push into the consumer health-care market. The company declined to say when the deal would close.

Microsoft said Medstory's search engine is more intuitive than standard Web queries and helps consumers find more relevant information available on the Web and in medical journals.
Last year, Microsoft bought Azyxxi, a software system developed by a hospital to collect and display real-time patient data from a variety of sources.

Security and the Environment

"It is evident that many wars are fought over resources which are now becoming increasingly scarce. If we conserved our resources better, fighting over them would not then occur... so, protecting the global environment is directly related to securing peace... those of us who understand the complex concept of the environment have the burden to act. We must not tire, we must not give up, we must persist."

Wangari Maathai
2004 Nobel Peace Prize winner

The End of Education

UBC - Global Citizenship Seminar Series - January 2006 (Click to Play)

This podcast is a powerful address by Dr. David W. Orr, Professor and Chair of Evironmental Studies at Oberlin College in Ohio. His topic does not target medical education or even distance education in general, but his message on the environment has such global impact that it really needs to be considered in regard to everything we do at the university and elsewhere. I found it on Burks Oakley's Selections blog (see link in sidebar) but it was originally posted on the Global Citizenship Seminar Series site at the University of British Columbia after he delivered his address there on January 13, 2006.

As stated in the notes about his address on the UBC site Dr. Orr "is best known for his recent work in ecological design including his efforts to build a $7.2 million Environmental Studies Centre at Oberlin College. He also maintains a presence in the environmental literacy scene with four books and over 120 articles in scientific, social science, and popular journals."

The notes add that "Dr. Orr's talk is intended to be a follow up to one of his famous essays, 'What is Education For' (published over 20 years ago). This essay was based in part on a commencement address to a graduating class at Arkansas College, and explored 'six myths about the foundations of modern education, and six new principles to replace them.' His talk will seek to connect sustainability, education and politics through careful consideration of how and what the university community learn in an effort to achieve “ecological literacy” for all."

I found this address to be both scary and inspiring. I hope you will find it interesting as well and I welcome your comments.

To listen or download the audio file, click the subtitle in italics above. Note that this address is more than an hour long so it is a large file. You can subsribe to this podcast by clicking the orange "Pod" icon in the sidebar.

Connecting Learners in the Digital Classroom

Wikis, Blogs, Podcasts, and Other Tools for Communicating and Collaborating (Click to Play)

DME Seminar Series (February 2006)

In the UIC Department of Medical Education's February 2006 monthly seminar, I had the opportunity to talk with my colleagues at UIC and others who joined us online about some of the new Web tools educators are using to communicate and collaborate with learners in their online and face-to-face courses. Many of us have generally thought of these tools as social software best suited for entertainment or keeping up with friends, but have not really considered the possibilities they offer for learning communities. While I spent most of my time just introducing the tools for those who were unfamiliar with them, the fun part of the seminar was hearing some of the interesting ideas from my colleagues on how they might be used in the classroom.

You can click the subtitle in italics above to download the mp3 file or go to http://www.uic-dme.org where you will find other seminar archives in mp3 and streaming videos as well listed under "Educational Programs."

Easy podcasting for your students

The following is a sample audio file I recorded using my free cell phone minutes and AudioBlogger which enables one to create a five minute mp3 and automatically uploads it to your blog. Wouldn't this be a great way for students to introduce themselves in your online courses? If you have used this tool already, I'd appreciate any comments and ideas on how others might use it.