Posts Tagged ‘Second Life’

September 15th, 2008 By Jeremy Lundberg Comments Off

3-D Healthcare Learning Environments

I have written before on the vast potential of 3-D platforms as a natural extension of the Web for medical education and there is a wonderful new JMIR article by Margaret Hansen entitled, “Versatile, Immersive, Creative and Dynamic Virtual 3-D Healthcare Learning Environments: A Review of the Literature” that is worth checking out. The author provides an overview of the different environments, weighs their pros and cons, and calls for more research in this emerging area of elearning.

Here are some of my thoughts on three of the platforms discussed in the article:

  • Second Life: Probably the most well-known of the immersive platforms, Second Life (SL) enables authors to create their own content, supports various types of interactive media (eg, VoIP, audio, video), and can integrate with Web APIs and backend learning management systems, such as Moodle, for outcomes analysis and CME administration. Academic centers and government agencies, including the Centers for Disease Control have setup shop in SL with various projects and IBM has invested millions of dollars in SL development. The primary limitation I see hindering the broader use of SL in medical education is the requirement to download and install a separate client application to participate “in-world.” This practice is usually frowned upon or prohibited by network administrators (for legitimate reasons) at large organizations, such as medical centers and pharmaceutical companies, unless their is an internal commitment to SL as a training platform. The open source nature of the SL client application may lessen of those security concerns.
  • Lively by Google: This is Google’s much anticipated move into the 3-D Web. The newly released service lets authors create avatars and rooms from pre-canned templates and embed them into Web pages. Lively supports chat and YouTube video streaming into your room. I can see this app as a low cost way to conduct patient support groups or video presentations as you can restrict access to the room with usernames and passwords. However, the template and avatar design are clearly aimed at teens and, in the current version, there is no support for external LMS support or for Mac. But its Google and I am sure that they will have many new enhancements in the near future, including user-generated content, Mac support, and API integration.
  • ALIVE: ALIVE: Advanced Learning and Immersive Virtual Environments is an initiative by the University of Southern Queensland designed to create an easy-to-use, drag and drop tool for producing Web-based learning tools. Out of the gate, I will admit that I was unable to install the DXviewer (despite meeting the stated system requirements) required to view the learning objects. I did watch a number of YouTube tutorials the group has published and it looks interesting. I cannot comment anymore in this post without successfully installing their components and giving them a fair shake. I will say that any efforts to make 3-D publishing directly to the Web has my support!

Overall, I agree with the author on many of her conclusions and believe that 3-D immersive environments hold great promise for health education.

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Posted in 3-D Virtual Worlds, CME, health 2.0, learning management system, Moodle, Online Support Groups | Comments Off

July 19th, 2007 By Jeremy Lundberg Comments Off

Brand Building in Social Networks and Virtual Worlds

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCHoXnUOqsU&hl=en&rel=0]

An excellent presentation about how social networks and virtual worlds, such as Second Life, are “changing the paradigm” in how brands are and will be developed.

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Posted in 3-D Virtual Worlds, healthcare, marketing, social networking | Comments Off

December 19th, 2006 By Jeremy Lundberg Comments Off

3-D Environments: Web 3.D

The emergence of Second Life (SL) and its coverage in the popular media reminds me of Web 1.0 in the mid-1990’s. There was an amplified media focus about how the Web was going to IMMEDIATELY change the world even though the technology was under developed and plagued by barriers, such as bandwith, poor security, and less than optimal computing power. Back then, Web site traffic was measured by the nonsense metric, “hits”, instead of unique visitors, and the media consisted of reporters with widely varying degrees of knowledge or expertise in tech and the Web. This was further coupled with the Web being pumped up even further by “gold rush” fever within the business community. Doesn’t that sound remarkably similar to the current attention and state of SL?

However, looking back, we see that many of those predictions about the potential of the Web to change many facets of our civilization did become a reality…it just took 10 years for the technology to evolve to an acceptable level and cost and for Web sites to truely deliver services valuable enough to attracted a huge user base. I expect the same will happen with Second Life (or a competitor like Google) because of the broad potential benefits and diminishing learning curve for developing in a 3-D environment.

To focus on how many people are logged in now as a predictor of its future success is rather irrelevant because SL is in its infancy. Clearly, the bigger questions and challenges that will determine the broad adaptation of SL will be Linden Lab’s ability to: 1) develop a stable technology environment and infrastructure to support a broad userbase and their assets; 2) mainstream the user experience; and 3) validate the applications of the SL model (e.g., education, commerce, healthcare research) as feasible and cost-effective adjuncts, replacements, or alternatives to the Web.

The Second Life’s challenges and benefits today are a mirror image of the Web in the 1990’s…we should anticipate some similar successes with SL or a competitor. Ultimately, I believe the World Wide Web will naturally evolve from its current 2-d environment to 3-d…”Web 3.D”… and that will truely be exciting.

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Posted in 3-D Virtual Worlds | Comments Off