While it's true that Second Life doesn't receive anywhere near the outside major media coverage it once garnered during the hype wave of 2006-07, the stories that still run are generally more substantial. Case in point: Today, the Wall Street Journal has a feature story on the use of Second Life for training future health care professionals in simulated hospital/emergency scenarios. Below is the video accompanying the story -- nothing that will strike longtime NWN readers as news, but a pretty good overview of leading training projects in SL:
I say "pretty good", because while the Wall Street Journal's Stephanie Simon writes about the cost savings for running simulations in SL, she doesn't devote any attention to educational efficacy. It's definitely cheaper to, say, create a Second Life bot health mannequin than buy a real one for $65,000 (according to the WSJ, that's how much they cost!) However, is the Second Life simulation at least as effective as a real world simulation? The story doesn't say. So again I put the question out to Second Life-based educators reading this blog: When will we start to see rigorous efficacy studies around educational projects in SL?
God, really have to hope the students don't have to use viewer 2.0 to use this. I would really hate to be treated by someone someday that only got to see 60% of their training, because the UI blotted out the rest.
Posted by: Lili | Tuesday, April 13, 2010 at 02:05 PM
dont you know how to minimise the ui?
Posted by: shuk | Wednesday, April 14, 2010 at 02:46 AM