My Blog Has Moved.

My blog has moved to http://jsmillerrn.blogspot.com/. Thanks for your interest!

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Redefining Innovation: Programming Complex, Immersive Simulations in Second Life

Ah, a TV talk show, never done one. I had to dress up. International Society for Technology in Education's (ISTE) Eduverse, episode 8

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Discover Magazine Press

I was interviewed recently and this article was published: Can Training In Second Life Teach Doctors to Save Real Lives? .

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Health Care Reform Debate

Here are two interesting publications on the reform needed.

NPR: The Health Care Debate Is Making Me Sick. - Brian Unger.

Washington Post: Like Your Health Insurance. Maybe You Shouldn't. - Simon Johnson and James Kwak.

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Preview of Courses this Quarter

Here are some of my courses in Blackboard currently in preview mode only:

Pharmacology

Medical Surgical

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EMERGING Technologies Center Nursing Education 2.0: A Second Look at Second Life

Emerging Technologies Center Nursing Education 2.0: A Second Look at Second Life is an article that talks about my TCC nursing virtual world activties and is by Diane J. Skiba, PHD, FAAN, FACMI, in Nursing Education Perspectives: Vol. 30, No. 2, pp. 129–131, April, 2009, published by National League for Nursing (NLN), accrediting body for nursing.

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Medical Simulations, Evergreen Island

This is video of an update for nursing area at Evergreen Island, owned by SBCTC, in Second Life. It is HD or high definition and is best viewed in full screen.

If you want to schedule students here, please email me at jsvavoom@gmail.com .

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More Online Courses for Community Colleges

Governor Gregoire yesterday spoke about increasing online courses for community colleges in Washington as part of her reform plan to "Deliver 21st Century Customer Service" Last week, at the Washington State Nurses Association Legislative Day, she talked about streamlining government the same way.

While having more online classes, with all or part of the face to face time reduced, can reduce maintenance, cleaning, power consumption of classrooms, it can also reduce gas consumption by students as well as help create flexible schedules for their busy work schedules. In the long term, parking lots and buildings will not have to be created. Quality methods of instruction using full and partially online delivered classes already exist. Some of the online teaching methods include course management systems ( Angel Learning), interactive elements (GoogleSites, Twitter, YouTube, del.ico.us, Skype), and experiential virtual worlds such as Second Life.

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Virtual worlds by big company

Sony with its Home virtual world is spending big bucks but has created a less than robust virtual world. See this article, A PG Rated Second Life, from Time magazine: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1870505,00.html Maybe good things to come though, as they ARE interested in virtual worlds.

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Creating Engaging and Interactive Online Nursing, Medical, and other Courses

For my college courses, I use Articulate Presenter, Crossword Compiler, and Jeopardy to engage the students in learning with games, as well as to provide slides with audio. The web 2.0 tools besides a learning management system (Blackboard, Angel) include Google Calendar, Docs, Talk, Sites, Video Chat, Blogger, del.icio.us, Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, Skype, ooVoo, Camtasia and others.

The virtual world of Second Life is extensively used for constructivism activities using Archipelis and tools in world. Community in the online world is encouraged with avatar creation, in world classes, and field trips to events in Second Life. Animations are imported into Second Life with Poser, sounds with Audacity, and images with Gimp or Photoshop. Students interact with virtual patients, making critical decisions for assessment, communication and treatment. Support groups in Second Life are numerous and interaction with them is critical for understanding the complexities for those accessing the medical system with major and long term health issues. Virtual Ability and SL Healthy have more information about these activities.


My teaching career has spanned 27 years in nursing, with more than eight years teaching online. For five years I was the faculty trainer for all disciplines in online teaching at a college.

If you need assistance in creating interactive and engaging online courses for nursing, other medical areas, or other disciplines, contact me at http://muvers.org.

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Medical-Nursing Courses Moved to Evergreen Island

Evergreen is an island in Second Life owned by the state of Washington's State Board for Community and Technical College's ELearning council. Here is a link to the island in Second Life: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Evergreen%20Island/104/97/26 There is a teleport directory at this slurl to all the places for teaching. The theory classes are in sky islands above the island, in the clinic and at medical support group places in SL.

Thanks to Todd Tevlin's (sl Esch Snoats) many hours of work, a medical clinic was built. Cathy Walker (sl padlurowncanoe Dibou) and Chris Crawford (sl Silver Tomorrow) have been working long hours on a customized orientation area where students will be born, emphasizing rapid and easy training. In the clinic (small hospital) area, use of patient bots and HUDs helps with training for either synchronous or asynchronous delivery of scenarios emphasizing decision making skills. Students also go to medical support group meetings, coordinated by Gentle Heron (sl name) and Ability Commons (http://slurl.com/secondlife/Commonwealth%202/128/128/2.

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Just attended a panel at BlogHer conference in the virtual world of Second Life. The title of the panel was SecondLife as Educational/Training Tool. This is being blogged from within Second Life.

posted by JS Vavoom on Centralia College using a blogHUD : [permalink]

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3D Creation of Objects For and By Nursing Students

Here is a video of Centralia island in Second Life and a few of the 3D objects I am using for classes. The objects are used to reinforce learning and students can build items to apply their knowledge.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4J7-OlzLV0&feature=related

and an ED simulator area video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wD4dRTR1nVI.

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Virtual Medical Projects besides Second Life

-PULSE project: http://www.sp.tamucc.edu/pulse/home.asp
-Virtual Heroes: http://www.virtualheroes.com/healthcare.asp
-Fortrerra: http://www.forterrainc.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=105&Itemid=47

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ISTE NECC Conference Update

Very busy with presentations on education in Second Life, as well as creating new accounts. Some key points:
-NMC link to join Second Life, with an education emphasis: http://sl.nmc.org/join/
-Second Life Education, SLED listserv enrollment page for education news link: https://lists.secondlife.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/educators
-SLED Archive link: http://www.simteach.com/forum/
-The Shelter, Second Life place for orientation and fun link: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Isabel/50/229/81

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-Yadni's Junkyard, large selection of freebies in Second Life link: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Leda/192/44/79

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Need help teaching with the web in nursing and other medical disciplines?

Am currently seeking some part time work directly with students as nursing instructor or with faculty in training. I am interested in working virtually and in person with others. My experience includes five years of training faculty from all disciplines at my college in online teaching. Of my 26 years of teaching nursing (most is advanced med-surg), I have taught online for the last ten years and use online lectures with interactive games (Articulate) and web links, as well as crosswords, and Jeopardy like games. I currently teach fully online courses, such as pharmacology, and 50% online courses also. I use online simulations and other software to fully engage the students. Use 3D objects in Second Life to help students understand pathophysiology (see the lame lungs in my pic above), as well as important assessments and interventions.

Support groups are very important for the students understanding of the complexity of healthcare. There are several in Second Life. An ACLS like simulator is sometimes used to prepare students for the METI and Laerdal high fidelity human patient simulators. I am also using blogging as an educational tool in most of my classes. See the blogs on this page. All of my testing is online.

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International Society for Technology in Education conference

Heading off in a day or two for ISTE's National Educational Computing Conference in San Antonio, TX. Presenting with several others on Second Life and education and hopefully presenting and moderating discussion in the Second Life lounge at the conference.
This is a huge conference for K-12 and college level educators and other staff. ISTE is involved heavily in Second Life education. There will be several in world activities for those who cannot attend in San Antonio.

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Second Life for Education conference at Seattle Central Community College, May 29

Was to meet everyone at Seattle Central Community College. Would add these additional comments.

1. New Accounts in Second Life It is easier for students and other faculty to create an account at this New Media Consortium link (than the SecondLife.com one): http://sl.nmc.org/join NMC is a very large consortium of educational institutions.
2. Creating multiple accounts from one address, including educational institutions The people at Second Life recommend that you send them dates that you will be trying to create new accounts, but give them at least two weeks notice. If you do not do this, only a few accounts can be created and all others will fail.
3. SLED, Second Life listserv for educators This is a very extensive and valuable list. There is also a very large archive.

4. Centralia Island Besides visiting Evergreen Island and other locations in Second Life, be sure to stop by my class stuff at this location. Many of the units are in the sky also. This link is a slurl, so when you click on Teleport Now, a map will pop in Second Life, where you click on Teleport.
5. The Shelter This is a place where newbies or noobies come to and get help from volunteers on moving, talking, dressing, dancing, etc. There are also freebies there. I send all my students there so that orientation is fun.
6. Tutorials There are many tutorials at this Second Life.com link. I particularly like the videos on Camera-ing and Building from the Noob-Be-Gone series at Natural Selection.

Do not hesitate to call, email, or IM me in Second Life if you have questions.

Thanks,
John, aka SL JS Vavoom

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Games for Health Conference in Baltimore

Thanks to Ben Sawyer for planning the Games for Health Annual Conference 2008 (Serious Game Initiative from the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars) and inviting me to come to present. I saw so many facinating presentations and met some very interesting people. Here are but a few:

1. Play2Train, disaster training in Second Life, sponsored by the Idaho Bio-terrorism Awareness and Preparedness Program (IBAPP): video. I am already doing some collaboration with Rameshsharma Ramloll, Professor at the ISU Institute of Rural Health with Idaho State University and the founder of this group.

2. Whyville, a virtual world for kids, was discussed by Dr. James Bower, Professor of Computational Biology at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio and the University of Texas at San Antonio.

3. Virtual Heroes and George Washington University's NEMSPI initiative (by a grant from Department of Homeland Security) for emergency medical services training was shown. Look at this link for a video.

4. Bart Bartlett, with Forterra , a company that builds simulations and virtual worlds, discussed some products they have developed for medical training.

5. Another project is the PULSE project from Texas A&M, Corpus Christi and the Office of Naval Research.

6. Fold It, a protein folding game to help develop drugs from University of Washington (Zoran Popovic, Professor of Computer Science and Engineering): FoldIt article.

7. Dr. Richard Satava, University of Washington Professor of Surgery, showed demise of the scrub nurse. See the related video . He also did a keynote on the future of medical training and surgery.

8. Many large hospital corporations and foundations were there too, supporting video games that taught preventative health and kept people physically active during them, as well as doing rehab with patients: Kaiser, Humana, Robert Woods Johnson, and others.

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Simulation and Teaching in Second Life

Thanks to Sue Ford for being there in real life, despite the issues with getting Second Life up at Renton Vocational and Technical College, on May 7 :)

The presentation slides are on SlideShare at: http://www.slideshare.net/jsvavoom/best-practices-renton-conf-may-7-2008
A few posts below is the link you saw in the presentation.

Let me know if you have any questions or wish to collaborate :)

I would be happy to meet you in Second Life, my avatar is JS Vavoom. My cell is 253.820.7115 and email jmiller@tacomacc.edu .

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