The Center for Virtual Worlds Education and Research has just published the first volume of the Journal of Virtual Worlds and Education. The journal includes a number of interesting studies on the effectiveness of education in virtual environments. The first issue is available for free download as a pdf file from http://www.cvwer.org/journal-of-virtual-worlds-and-education.
A group of University of Kentucky Second Life researchers and their colleagues will discuss their work using Second Life for medical resident education at the ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education) speaker series in Second Life on Tuesday May 25. Thanks to Beth Kramer from UK for posting the following information regarding the presentation to the Second Life Education Listserv.
Title: The Doctor is In(world)
Venue: ISTE Island Auditorium: http://slurl.com/secondlife/ISTE%20Island/204/46/23
Date: Tues, May 25
Time: 5:00 PM SLT (7:00 PM Chicago)
Avatar presenters:
Vincent Hillburton (Mark Thomas)
Ingram Gericault (Mark Ryder)
Bobb Kalamunda (Bob Hutchins)
Sammantha Raymaker (Sandra Challman)
Description: The small group seminar has long been the mainstay of medical resident education. Second Life offers an opportunity to bring groups of avatar residents and faculty from different institutions together to share clinical cases, best evidence, and insights on patient management strategies. That vision led to a series of in-world seminars between the University of Kentucky College of Dentistry (UKCD) and College of Medicine and Baylor College of Dentistry and, later, UKCD and the University of California (San Francisco) School of Dentistry. Dental students and faculty from these institutions met in-world in a conference room created on the UK Island. The faculty involved in these sessions will discuss their experiences and feedback from their residents and speculate on the role of SL in medical residency training programs.
I was pleased to see that UIC's Margaret Czart is featured in this month's 3rd Rock Grid newsletter. Margaret is a doctoral student from the UIC School of Public Health who also works as a Research Assistant in the Department of Medical Education in the UIC College of Medicine. In Second Life, Margaret is Director of the Health Behavior Research Center, an Associate Director of the NewWorld Clinic, and a member of the Steering Committee for the Virtual Worlds Education Roundtable.
Margaret is known as Margaret Dashwood on the 3rd Rock Grid and has created a education and healthcare center in that virtual world. To quote Cyn Canada, author of the newsletter, "Margaret stated that since her first arrival the grid has grown and evolved with improved performance and stability. It did not take Margaret long to find a home in 3RG. She resides on Stowa Way which is also where her education centre is located. Margaret believes her talents are in being a people person. She can often be found helping citizens with ideas and suggestions on a variety of topics and issues."
In the article by Cyn Canada, Margaret describes her education build, known as Stowa Way, as "a sim dedicated to education in two specific areas: 1) General Virtual Word and 2) Education & Health Education. There are several goals which I hope to achieve. They are: 1) Clinic and Pharmacy for various types of role play activities related to health behaviors for both health and non-health professionals; 2) To educate citizens about general consumer health & health behaviors; and 3) teach 3RG citizens of how virtual worlds relate to education & provide a location for citizens to learn skills required for virtual worlds."
Congratulations to Margaret and best wishes for continued success with your education oriented work in virtual environments.