Nursing education 2.0: a second look at Second Life.

Abstract

IT HAS BEEN TWO YEARS since I wrote a column on Second Life (SL). (See Nursing Education Perspectives, May/June 2007, pp. 156-157.) At that time, there was a lot of hype about SL, especially by corporations trying to sell products, but there were very few health-related applications. And only a few pioneers in education were using this virtual world for teaching. Now, many in the corporate world have left SL as the dollars they projected did not appear. But SL is thriving in education. Numerous universities, from community colleges to Ivy League schools, have property on SL. At last count, more than 13,000 people were involved in three user groups: Second Life Educators (SLED), Real Life Education in Second Life, and CC International (Harrison, 2009). Higher education is using SL to recruit and retain students, to teach classes, and as supplementary learning experiences. SL is all about experiential learning, being immersed in a virtual environment. It adds another dimension to simulations and allows for role playing, collaboration, real-time interactions between students and faculty, and experimentation. So, as you read about high-fidelity simulations in this special issue of Nursing Education Perspectives, understand that there are alternative environments to create real-life scenarios for nursing students. To highlight this alternative, I contacted the originators of three pioneering projects to showcase their use in nursing education. I asked them why they chose SL as a teaching method, what facilitated and hindered their development and use of SL, and if they had assessed its impact on students and learning. Here are their stories. Tacoma Community College John Miller, an instructor at Tacoma Community College, Washington, has been using SL since 2007 to teach his students. His immersive virtual world uses avatar robots as simulated patients and an interface that interacts with hospital equipment, medicine, vitals, patient charts, and much more while recording student or team decision-making. It has a presentation version for group viewing and a teaching version for synchronous instruction. The Immersive Learning System (ILS), built by MUVErs, LLC (of which Miller is a co-founder), can be customized for any medical scenario. Nursing education simulations in the 3D virtual world of SL are used to train RNs in a college program at Evergreen Island, Second Life (http://slurl.com/secondlife/Evergreen% 20Island/ 104/97/26). Simulation videos are online at www. youtube.com/jsmillerRN. Students also apply theory by creating and manipulating 3D objects. Planned meetings with numerous suppuri groups in this virtual world are used to increase students' awareness and empathy for those with health issues and allow students to experience real people with different cultures, nationalities, and languages. Interested individuals, programs, and institutions may contact Miller (telephone 253-820-7115/email [email protected]). University of Kansas School of Nursing Faculty members Judith Warren and Juliana Brixey use SL to teach graduate nursing students about informatics. SL is also used to provide these online students with opportunities to interact with each other and faculty in real-time meetings. In-class SL experiences allow students and faculty to meet, much the same as in a real-world classroom. For example, students give live PowerPoint presentations as they would at a conference; they are allotted 15 minutes for delivery of the topic and five minutes for QA students view the posters and critique them at their convenience. Students have also constructed a long-term care (LTC) facility where they interact as teams and work with personnel to create a database management system on patient falls. Teams interact with faculty, who role-play as the LTC administrator and staff nurse, in real time. Students ask questions of the administrator and staff nurse to gather information to create the database. …