Transcript of Second Life Education Roundtable: Dec. 1, 2009

Topic: Clinical Simulations in Virtual Worlds

Thanks to our guest moderator, Kali, and to Ponderosafish for photos. Add your own at the VWER groups at Koinup and Flickr.

Kali Pizzaro: Hi everyone, and welcome to this weeks SL Education Roundtable, soon to be called the Virtual Worlds Education Roundtable

Kali Pizzaro: Our meetings are made possible by the Office of Information Technology at Montclair State University. We meet here each week at 2:30pm SLT for an hour.

Kali Pizzaro: The SL Education Roundtable is a forum to educate and inform the community about issues that are important and relevant to education.

Kali Pizzaro: The views and opinions of any of our special guests or visitors do not necessarily represent those who volunteer or organize these meetings,

Kali Pizzaro: or of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, Office of Information Technology , or Montclair State University.

Kali Pizzaro: This is a public meeting, so we do keep a transcript of what is said in local chat. For a copy of transcripts, please visit http://www.virtualworldsedu.info/slroundtable/

Kali Pizzaro: Special thanks to Iggy Onomatopoeia for taking care of this. If you've not seen the transcripts, you should check them out - they are a great information asset.

Kali Pizzaro: Some of our transcripts are now available transcribed into a sound file. You can find them in iTunes Podcasts by searching for VWER.

Kali Pizzaro: Thanks to Margaret Michalski and The University of Illinois at Chicago Deptartment of Distant Medical Education for making this possible.

Kali Pizzaro: Information on FUTURE MEETINGS is available from the notecard giver on the West wall of the Amphitheater. We have an amazing lineup of meeting for you, with topics set (subject to change) between now and the beginning of January.

Kali Pizzaro: The SL Education Roundtable meeting happens each week and we are looking to develop a community of educators from around the world with a variety of thoughts, needs, and ideas.

Kali Pizzaro: The in-world group for the SL Education Roundtable can no longer be joined by new members. We are asking all new members to join the Virtual Worlds Education Roundtable group.

Kali Pizzaro: We are also asking all existing members to leave the SL Education Roundtable group and join the Virtual Worlds Education Roundtable group.

Kali Pizzaro: Look for our SL Education Roundtable group on Flickr and make sure to add your pictures there. Thanks to Olivia Hotshot for taking care of all that.

Kali Pizzaro: You can also find the new Virtual World Education Roundtable group on Facebook as well as being on Twitter as VWER.

Kali Pizzaro: Finally, if you have Mystitool on, or other similar tool, please put it to sleep or detach it for now. :-) It tends to lag things.

Kali Pizzaro: Today is our Special 1st of the Month meeting, when we feature a particular person or panel of people.

Kali Pizzaro: For these Special First of the Month Meeting the guests and I use voice chat. This means that you need to have your voice chat on.

Kali Pizzaro: There are help signs along the back wall of the Amphitheater.

Kali Pizzaro: If you are still having problems, please IM MARGARET MICHALSKI for assistance.

Kali Pizzaro: It is very important that you keep your mic muted during the meeting.

Kali Pizzaro: If you have a question for our guest, please IM me directly and, time and subject permitting, it will get addressed. The local chat is available as a back channel and I encourage everyone to use that to comment. The local chat can go by rather quickly

Kali Pizzaro: That is why its important that you IM your questions directly to me. Thanks to Iggy Onomatopoeia for transcribing today.

Kali Pizzaro: Today we will be speaking about Clinical Simulation in virtual worlds. The following two definitions are offered:

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: glad to do it!

Kali Pizzaro: "Simulation is a technique, not a technology, to replace or amplify real experiences with guided experiences that evoke or replicate substantial aspects of the real world in a fully interactive manner" (Professor David Gaba 2004).

Kali Pizzaro: "In its broadest sense, simulation can include the use of role play, simulated patients, part-task trainers, virtual reality devices (usually with haptic - or tactile - feedback) and electronic manikins (controlled either by humans - e.g. SimMan - or with full physiological and pharmacological computer control - METI HPS). All of these can be used alone or in combination to produce simulated scenarios." Professor Gary Smith, TEAM Centre, Portsmouth Hospitals Trust.

Kali Pizzaro: My guests today are JS Vavoom aka John Miller RN, BSN, Masters of Nursing, Nursing Faculty Tacoma Community College and cofounder of MUVErs, a group to create interactive and easy orientations and simulations in world for students and faculty http://muver

Kali Pizzaro: Alongside him is Professor Noarlunga aka Dr Scott Diener Phd, Associate Director, Information Technology, Academic and Collaborative Services, University of Auckland. Scott is involved in many a project in SL including the SLENZ project which we will be a

Kali Pizzaro: Ok I will start with Scott; can you tell me how you got involved in clinical simulation in SL?

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: Scott: hello all. My involvement began with clinical simulations used for training

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: Scott: when I saw SL I began working on it, and began building our hosital envionment in SL

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: with the attitude of "if you build it they will come"

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: Kali to John: why did you decide to do your work in SL?

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: John: Teaching 20+ years, registered nurse 30+ years

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: Having the Web a plus

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: could see representations of actual situations online

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: and then they had a manikin, but when SL came along

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: they could avoid spending hundreds of thousands of dollars annually on manikins

JS Vavoom: actually, the urls are http://muvers.org and http://jsmillerrn.blogspot.com

Kali Pizzaro: Why did you choose these particular scenarios to develop?

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: John: meets with medical support groups, with his students, to plan. Very interesting for students to meet with these support groups

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: John: they've done asynchronous simulations, but they have problems

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: John: they are set in stone, but it's better to have roleplay simulations of what he is teaching now

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: John: Student or faculty will come in and roleplay patient

cyber Placebo: Hey Grace sorry I am just busy now doing a demo to our librarians

cyber Placebo: I will be in touch soon with you :-)

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: John: Has been using RP since early 80s

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: John: but SL lets it get closer to real hospital setting

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: John: Follows best-practices for these simulations

Kali Pizzaro shouts: Scott, your team use virtual simulated patients. Did the use of these patient actors at a distance present any challenges to the team.

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: Scott: What we've designed is done around a research strategy

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: Scott: Could comparable results occur here?

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: Scott: began developing scenario around post-partum hemorrhage

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: Scott: again, cheaper than using manikin

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: Scott: value of these simulations is people-to-people interaction

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: Scott: simulation allowed for good mentoring of nursing students

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: Scott: goal was to test validity of simulations

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: Scott: new ones under development include ER...longer than current hour. Could run a few weeks.

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: Kali: a problem, these inquiry-based scenarios?

Kali Pizzaro shouts: This is for John. You use a lot of Heads up Displays (HUD) in your work. Did you have a technician to help create these or did you have to learn this yourself.

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: John: Part of Muvers, a group that includes scripters, builders

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: John: What they have done with HUDs has not been done in SL before

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: John: conversations with colleagues confirm this

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: John: it's another full-time job, without pay, to do this.

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: John: trick is to find right help to do this, but it's expensive

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: John: best people work fast but it's pricey

Kali Pizzaro shouts: what has the feedback been like from students on the use of SL and how it compares to RL lab teaching?

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: LOL

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: Scott: sent our surveys to students in the simulations

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: Scott: feedback helped--no code blue button, for instance

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: Scott: students like simulation, but needed more instruction on using apparatus in the simulation

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: Scott: instead of HUDs, they embedded function into the apparatus

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: Scott: they set up an actual room

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: to simulate the environment they would use

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: Scott: they found that in SL, they'd stick around to chat

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: Scott: IRL, they'd go straight home

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: John: They've also surveyed students

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: John: students do come back in to chat with him socially and ask questions

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: John: UI in SL an issue

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: John: they created their own orientation area on Evergreen Island

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: John: this would streamline what students need to learn

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: John: students not so concerned with the HUD but more with hair, clothing

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: exactly--my kids too!

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: John: The students don't really know Web 2.0 so they have to learn...having it as an option helps.

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: John: They have several simulations. As long as lag is low

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: John: they can do the simulation. the experience becomes immersive

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: John: they still use the labs, with the high fidelity manikins

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: John: gets students past memorizing a text, but learning an application by doing

Kali Pizzaro: For JS did he use avatar bots or object manikins

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: John: for avatar bots

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: John: LL change over the summer broke their bots

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: (my aside) as usual

Margaret Michalski: Same problem here! Switching to real-time.

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: John: RPs replaced bots

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: John: advantage of learning manikins is that he can go in quickly and make changes

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: John: but the way they used bots

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: John: phrased-based responses...too structured

Margaret Michalski: yes

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: John: Though they did use bots for a year. RP however is better

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: Scott: also wants to add that

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: Scott: SL is a bad environment to convey a lot of information

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: Scott: SL is a place for people to come together

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: Scott is not interested in automating this

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: Scott feels it a place to challenge students through a close working relationship with research faculty

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: Scott wants to immerse the students and staff in an environment where they can interact and the reactions they see work well. They don't want to automate

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: Kali uses bots, however because of student schedules

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: John notes that asynchronous delivery of some content can be very useful

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: he is looking at some more recent developments in virtual worlds that allow for quick creation

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: but SL still provides the social element that he values

Kali Pizzaro shouts: Are most of your scenarios scripted, using real people role playing, or are they fully scripted environments?

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: John: we must not forget the students' needs, and multiple ways of learning are very important

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: John: he's the only instructor doing the RPs at his school

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: John cannot always be present at all times when students working so he finds it of value to bring students back for a RP session

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: Scott agrees

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: He adds that use of students very important to have students write new scenarios

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: Scott adds that having scripts use common format and in some RPs, Scott comes in and takes a role

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: Scott notes that letting students take charge is powerful. They can run the simulations themselves, and develop new ones

667 Footman: Thank You

Kali Pizzaro: Are any of you using voice in your simulations or text only?

Jerod Bagley: and.. comments on the value of each.

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: Kali feels that it could be an adjunct to the lab

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: Scott is using voice exclusively; some students have problems and use text, but this creates issues in the simulation

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: For example, when a student encounters a situation, they may gasp in voice and that is realistic

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: but in text chat, it's easy to get multiple streams going at once

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: John adds that with the HUD to generate text for reflective work later

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: John's students can assume that when they talk, everyone is looking at them, which is not always the case

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: John feels that if he had them another term it would be easier and his school blocked sound for a time..now fixed

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: John notes that some of the SL support groups prefer text, not voice

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: John notes advantages and disadvantages to each

Kali Pizzaro shouts: Clinical simulation is seen to help increase confidence in practitioners. Have you seen any difference between the confidences of your students in SL compared to RL simulation?

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: Kali feels it useful to capture the text...can be used as data for research

Ignatius Onomatopoeia rests fingers :)

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: John feels that he is seeing students be more outgoing in SL, who might never talk in class

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: John says that they begin in the orientation area, then go on to the simulation

cyber Placebo: We are going to mediazone now

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: by the end of the experience, they are more comfortable with Web 2.0 tech

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: John says that bringing them in here, the students are amazed by what they encounter here. Gets them closer to becoming life-long learners

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: Scott says that he's not seeing a significant difference between simulations in SL and in the real world, but students add that the simulations are better than watching a film and it's significant that the simulations increase confidence

Jerod Bagley: good point

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: also that the RL and SL simulations show so little difference

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: John Notes that for their program students can experience some of the situations they will encounter. Then they will know what will follow in high acuity, low frequence situations.

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: John realizes certain things from his years of work that students in these simulations are applying actual knowledge they'll need and the simulations make them more comfortable

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: except the typist :)

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: Kali--no one dies in SL

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: but John notes that the patient can be allowed to die and students react strongly, as do Kali's. This is for both manikin and SL simulations

Kali Pizzaro: You have both managed to collaborate successfully with other institutions. How did you go about setting that up? Was it a formal arrangement or did you come across each other in SL?

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: Scott's experience was by accident but he met people in his field and they collaborated to make these simulations happen

Stephan Mrigesh: Have you explored the Mental Health benefits of using SL as a platform for recovery?

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: yay!

Margaret Michalski: Ah! Great

Jarrad Voom: ahhh Great

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: They agreed to release the simulations under the Creative Commons license so others can get and use the content, so long as they give credit

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: Scott notes that, for instance, why should both he and John develop hospital beds? Why not share the content?

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: John says that after a conference presentation he began to work with other collaborators and many of them have a limited budget. And there's a Q of support, so their simulations have a subscription price to help with costs

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: John's prices are comparable to software costs

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: He adds that SL is changing so what works today, may not tomorrow but he works with top folks at LL, and they are aware of the simulations. LL has been responsive

Zotarah Shepherd: Would you allow subscribers from other hospitals to use your facilities to help you with your costs?

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: John says that their simulations cost far less than simulations outside SL

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: This is John's third year with simulations

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: John answers Zo's Q about other subscribers

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: he note that they are still developing the simulations such as four-bed hospital with all body systems inside

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: John has to have users pay something to support this. They have not decided on how others outside his school might use the simulations

Stephan Mrigesh: Mental Health includes the sick and dying.

Margaret Michalski: What do you see as the best way to assess students

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: there you all are :) Dead air

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: Kali says that there are a lack of SL scenarios about death and dying

Kali Pizzaro: mental health

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: Scott says that he has an interest in that in SL, given his training as a clinical psychologist though he has some reservations about in-world therapy. He sees more value in roleplay

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: Scott has been working with a skin designer to have half a dozen skins from healthy to nearly dead and use them on an avatar, so the avatar would respond to correct or poor treatment and students can see patient change over time. They are still talking about it.

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: At John's school, one other faculty member is using SL; this faculty member is from nursing and not using a simulation setup.

Kali Pizzaro: Mental Health

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: Though John probably wont' be working in the mental health area he sees great value in that

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: thank you both! 21 on the sim for the record

Margaret Michalski: Thanks you!

Margaret Michalski: Great Kali!

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: and special thanks to Kali!

Sheila Yoshikawa: thank you all, excellent session

Liana Hubbenfluff: Thank you all

Zotarah Shepherd: Thanks for the great interview. Great Kali

Zotarah Shepherd: Hi everyone. I just want to invite you to a seminar at my new sim tomorrow at 5pm to 7pm slt. about "Play-based Learning" on Ralanora http://slurl.com/secondlife/Ralanora/128/128/76. Great presenters panel and discussion. IM me if you want more information. I hope to see you there. *smiles*

667 Footman: Thanks All!

Jerod Bagley: Thank you all. Very interesting work.

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: John and Scott, let me know if the transcript needs correcting

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: I'll run it by week's end

Mackmarn Parx: Thank you!

Ignatius Onomatopoeia: LOL--sore fingers

Professor Noarlunga: Thanks Iggy...you are a champ!!

Kali Pizzaro: hey Scott might chat about the mental health stuff

Zotarah Shepherd: Thanks Iggy

Margaret Michalski: I hope to have you stop by again sometime

Margaret Michalski: an we get your landmarks

Jarrad Voom: great session

Kali Pizzaro: Thanks Margaret

Jarrad Voom: thanks. Kali