Marloes Schoonheim, research fellow of GFMER, for our VW pilot session. We selected “Population Control: Past Policies and Future Challenges,” taught by Dr. This article will describe our pilot’s instructional design, the event itself, the participants’ response to the event, and provide a summary of lessons learned for future virtual world learning developers. This pilot proposed to investigate the potential of using VWs in this course and to assess the event’s impact and the learners’ attitudes following the event. They are two-dimensional, not immersive, and limited in the way educational information can be designed. These communication tools, however, are limited. Distance learning is an important way to offer health care professionals in developing countries the opportunity to increase their clinical and research skills.Ĭourse staff use social media and discussion boards (Google+, Facebook, Twitter) to interact with learners and provide a platform for learners to communicate. Internet coverage in developing countries, however, has increased considerably over the past few years. In most low-income nations, access to conventional health care education is generally limited: professionals may lack financial resources and live and work in remote areas with poor infrastructure or in a conflict zone. Now in its third year, the online course is a very successful training package especially for those in developing countries where sexual and reproductive health challenges are considerable.
#SECOND LIFE 3D VIRTUAL WORLD PROFESSIONAL#
The professional background of the participants is diverse: many are physicians but the course also caters to nurses and other healthcare professionals. GFMER and WHO offer their annual online course “From Research to Practice: Training Course in Sexual and Reproductive Health Research” to hundreds of participants in more than forty, mainly developing, countries. The purpose of this pilot project was to explore the potential of VWs as an alternative medium for distance healthcare education in developing countries.
The authors collaborated to adapt one session of their online course, jointly organized by the Geneva Foundation for Medical Education and Research (GFMER) and the World Health Organization (WHO), for a pilot implementation in Second Life (SL). Immersive, realistic, and engaging online events can bring high quality medical education to healthcare workers in remote locations. VWs are experiential environments with tremendous potential for effective teaching and learning. With approximately 36 million registered users, it is among the most popular VW platforms. Second Life (SL) is a virtual world created (in 2003) and maintained by Linden Lab (San Francisco, California).
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