The response was encouraging, not least the expressions of interest in collaboration from as far afield as Australia,  which we hope to build on in near future. In the meantime a major focus is the completion of the student evaluation and tying up some technical loose ends.

This brief video (physio starts 40 secs in) captures the essence.

The polyclinic is publicly accessible though the physiotherapy ward is currently out of bounds while our students complete their induction. If you would like access contact me on r.heaney@uel.ac.uk or IM Maisy Carter in world.

For more background on this project and related SL activities see this earlier post.

Flash seems to be winning out as the preferred option for students but I won’t pre-empt the results of the detailed study currently being carried out by Dr Stephanie Henderson-Begg and Paula Booth.  To see the Flash version of PCR and electrophoresis experiments go to:

http://www.uelconnect.org.uk/hab/pcr_lab/

To see the same experiments in Second Life, create an avatar (if you haven’t already got one) from http://www.uelconnect.org.uk/secondlife/register4sl.php and go to UEL HABitat as per info on this post, enter the lab and follow the instructions.

An allied aspect of the virtual lab activities is to make what we do available to a wider audience and so contribute to other open resources in similar areas.  Both the Flash and SL experiments are now publicly available as is another Flash resource on general lab skills developed via LTARG funding earlier in the year:

http://www.uelconnect.org.uk/hab/

A bid for external funding to enable the development of more ‘open source’ experiments of this kind is in progress.

As some of you know, we’ve recently taken delivery of quite a few of these and several staff are using them actively.  Just a couple of pointers to avoid disappointment or embarrassment in front of a class:

1. Check before you use a lecture room whether Turning Point is installed – the University menu install option does not work on quite a few machines, so either use the supplied CD (inside the boxes) or install it from our supplier’s website:

https://www.leapfrogavit.com/support/index.php?_m=downloads&_a=viewdownload&downloaditemid=11&nav=0,8

N.B. You will need to register to do this but your details will not be passed on.

2. Some features such as 3D charts are only available with the latest version of Turning Point and this may well not be the version installed in the lecture room.  So either check in advance or avoid using 3D charts – the standard charts are just as effective.

For useful tips on using clickers see these web resources provided by Southampton University:

http://www.soton.ac.uk/lateu/resources_and_links/zappers/index.html

For further help, please contact your local LTA.

UEL HABitat polyclinic

Phase 1 is now complete thanks to sterling efforts by the whole team:

• Gemixin Ltd
• Academics from Herbal medicine and Physiotherapy
• Research assistant
• Learning (and other) technologists
• External evaluator
• Herbal medicine students

This video clip gives a brief glimpse of the various areas of the polyclinic in which two areas (herbal medicine and physiotherapy) now have prototype virtual patients for student use.

Physiotherapy students are presented with a series of patients with respiratory conditions and  interact with the patient, charts and other data to devise a treatment plan. They present the treatment plan via a quiz in the office adjoining the ward. Herbal medicine students are similarly presented with a range of patients in an outpatient clinic setting and come to working diagnsoses having talked to the patient, read their notes, looked at test results etc.

So far this sounds like many other ‘virtual patient’ and healthcare sims that are out there but a distinguishing feature of this one is that the patient cases can be added by academics via a web editor thus bypassing the need for non-SL literate staff to learn new skills. They can concentrate on developing the cases and facilitating students. It is still early days but we are hopeful that this model can be further developed for use in other healthcare areas as well as possibly for other subject areas that lend themselves to the same scenario or problem based approach.

Laboratory and Crime scene house

A further aspect of this phase of development, has been to move the molecular biology laboratory and CSI facilities from the main UEL island to their own buildings on UEL HABitat.

Following on from the initial HEA Bioscience paper ‘The Learning Gains and Student Perceptions of a Second Life Virtual Lab’, the PCR and electrophoresis experiments have been replicated in Flash and a study is currently underway to compare the relative merits of a 3D virtual world platform over a more conventional 2D one for this type of learning activity.

UEL HABitat is publicly accessible via http://slurl.com/secondlife/UEL%20HABitat/166/179/26

To use the polyclinic and the CSI house your avatar needs to join the relevant group. Please contact r.heaney@uel.ac.uk or IM Maisy Carter in world if you would like an invite.  We will also provide access to the web-based  Case editing system on request.

Links to additional presentations, publications:

Olivia Corcoran’s presentation at HEA Forensic subject centre June 2009

ALT-C Sept 2009 short paper: Bioscience and forensic science students get a Second Life®

Posted via email from HABitat’s posterous

This is where VLC Media Player comes into the picture. It is available for download for both Windows and Mac OS and the best thing is that it’s free! Although It’s not the playback solution to all, it is capable of reading and playing most audio and video formats out there. See link below to download a copy.

http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

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See and download the full gallery on posterous

Posted via email from HABitat’s posterous

Posted via email from HABitat’s posterous