Virtual Learning Commons for Nurses - Recently Updated Pages

Virtual Learning Commons for Nurses wiki!

mputerba — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 10:23:37 CDT

The Commons is a place to learn and share. It is a classroom and a social place.

Part of a two year research project funded by the Medical Library Association's Dwight A. B. Reseach Fellowship the Virtual

Learning Commons for Nurses (VLCN) is in development to promote nursing students' learning confidence and foster professionalization through an global on-line community of nurses and those who support nursing education.

While primarily designed for Eastern University nursing faculty and student the virtual Commons and this wiki are open to all professional nurses. The VLCN in Second Life can be found at SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Teaching%2010/70/34/22.

Sign up for a free Second Life account and join a SL Nursing Group today.

Learning Commons for Nurses
Nurses @ Eastern University
Second Life Medical Association
Second Life Nurses Fellowship
Second Life Specialty Nurses

Say "Hello!" to Marky Proctor, Oxi Latte, and Research Assistants Cadaria Kiranvo and Jaylene Parken designers of the Second Life Commons.

Also see the Basic Research for Nurses Website. We have a series video guides in development. Check our Korean version! Check our English version!

We are planning to add a variety of resources to the wiki and in world, items from National Library of Medicine to Youtube videos. We hope you will contribute.

We are looking for volunteers to moderate discussion groups on the wiki, to build and plan activities in Second Life. Contact Mark Puterbaugh (Marky Proctor) mputerba@eastern.edu, 610-341-1461 for more information.

Announcements

mputerba — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 15:11:45 CDT

March 24th Learing Commons for Nurses - Informatics Class Orientation

Students from Eastern University's Department of Nursing will receive an orietation to the Learning Commons for Nurses site in SL.
Class is scheduled to meet on the St.Davids campus at 8AM (EST) . Hopefully we willl be in world by 8:30AM (EST).

We plan to tour Second Health Hospital and the Virtual Palomar West: Hospital of the Future.

More to follow.

Feb 11th NHS Healthcare Innovation Day - attend free in SL

Imperial College London and the NHS Confederation would like to invite you to take part in an exclusive event that on previous occasions has been closed to members of the public – an opportunity to learn about and debate the most effective ways of adopting new technologies and innovative services and overcoming barriers and challenges arising in the process.

The Embracing Healthcare Technology and Innovation Conference has been organised by the SDO Network and the NHS Technology Adoption Centre and will be broadcast to you live in SL directly from BMA House in London on Wednesday 11th February starting at 10.00 GMT (arrive at 09.30 for a video check). There will be keynote speakers who will share evidence based management practice from real world experiences and the latest research knowledge in this area as well as break-out groups for discussion and feedback.

Your questions will be posed to the speakers and panels in BMA House, and you are also invited to attend a break-out group in SL that will feed back into the RL conference.

If you would like to attend this event please register at http://healthcare-innovation.eventbrite.com

The event will be held at http://slurl.com/secondlife/National%20Health%20Service/133/113/26

Further details can be found at http://www.nhsconfed.org/specialist/specialist-4446.cfm and an agenda below:

AGENDA

9.30 GMT - Meet & Greet and Sound Check

10.00 - Welcome & Introduction - Nigel Edwards, Director of Policy, NHS Confederation

10.15 - Introduction to NTAC work - Colin Callow, Lead Associate
Introduction to SDO work - Ganesh Sathyamoorthy, Network Manager

10.45 - What are the management barriers to technology adoption in the NHS and how can they be overcome? Professor Trisha Greenhalgh

11.15 GMT Break

11.30 - Real World Case Studies from primary and secondary care
What are the key management challenges when implementing innovative medical technologies?

Brian Ibell, Assistant Chief Executive, Derby NHS Foundation Trust
Dr Stuart Gold, Consultant Anaesthetist, Derby NHS Foundation Trust
Sally Chisholm, Director, Lancashire and South Cumbria Cardiac Network

12.15 Panel Discussion - Interactive voting

12.45 GMT Discussion (in Second Life only)
Leading sustainable implementation of new technology through evidence based management practice
• Developing cross professional networks
• Stimulating an innovation culture

13.15 - Feedback from SL discussion

13.30 GMT Break

15.45 - Feedback from RL and SL discussion and closing panel

16.15 GMT Close

Please note: This programme may change due to unforeseen circumstances.
=================================================================
January Meeting Moved to Feb 4th, 2009

First VLCN Forum Event, Feb 4th (January Meeting has moved to February.)
Stephanie Stewart (Sloane Silverspar), Director of the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh College of Nursing's accelerated bachelor's degree to BSN nursing program is our Guest presenter. The College of Nursing has developed and is utilizing virtual patient simulations for their distance education programs and has agreed to provide us with a tour and demonstration of their SL facilities.

We will also begin a discussion on possible collaborations. What avenues can we pursue to promote nursing education in Second Life?

The meeting will take place at the virtual clinic on OshCON,
http://slurl.com/secondlife/OshCON/208/69/41

Date: Wed Feb 4th, 2009
Time: (12:30 PM EST) (9:30 AM PST SL Time)

January Meeting in Second Life's Learning Commons for Nurses

Greetings,

Over the last three months I and the Learning Commons for Nurses research team have been conducting a survey to assess the attitudes of nurses toward on-line education and the use of virtual social worlds. . The majority of the responders indicated an interest in the idea of nursing education in an immersive on-line environment. A significant number of those were Second Life users, their attitude was very positive. However a smaller, very articulate, group was against the idea of associating nursing education with gaming worlds.

The negative responders felt that the idea of nursing education in Second Life or other gaming environment was “silly.” One nursing student pleaded with the researchers not to make nursing look foolish and that it was already too hard for her to be accepted as a serious professional.

The point is well taken. It may be that people are not aware of the many serious gaming projects used in medical and health education. If a virtual world project is approached with less than the most serious intent, it can appear silly.

The Virtual Learning Commons for Nurses in Second Life is a tool to “bolster professionalization and diminish learning quality barriers encountered by faculty, distance learners, commuting students and working professionals” through the serious exploration of an immersive environment supporting on-line education for nurses. We wish to create a community of nurses and those of us who support nursing education. We hope to have a dialogue about the short-comings of on-line education as reported in the literature on the subject.

Sometime in January (2009), the research team hopes to convene the first of a series of forums. We will meet to share our experiences and support the use Second Life for nursing and other health and medical education. There are currently many projects developing the Second Life technology for education. It is with hope that we can help each other reduce costly redundancy and address the issues of serious game playing.

We would like you to join us. First, we must find a date and time. The place will be the Virtual Learning Commons on Teaching 10 Island.

This message will be sent to relevant groups in Second Life. Please excuse our redundancy.

Mark D. Puterbaugh
Information Services Librarian
Warner Memorial Library
Eastern University
1300 Eagle Rd.
St. Davids, PA 19087
Phone:(610)341-1461
mputerba@eastern.edu

See also: The Syllabus | Assignments | Study Guides

Schedule

mputerba — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 09:25:29 CST

Schedule of Second Life Events.

[Click EasyEdit to type here, or attach a document to this page.]

Have a question about the event? Ask it here.

Activity	Location	Date and Time
The VLCN Pre-meeting Gathering	Teaching 10 Island	Feb 4th 12 Noon EST

Nursing Informatics

mputerba — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 13:40:48 CST

Resources

mputerba — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 08:38:50 CST

Resources on the Web

About the VLCN Project

mputerba — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 14:08:49 CDT

Virtual Learning Commons for Nurses: A Computer-Mediated Communications Environment for Nurse Professional Development, Education, Distance Learning, and Information Support

The following working document outlines the vision of the VLCN.

Objectives:
The project evaluates a computer-mediated communications environment as a tool to enhance nursing students’ confidence, develop professionalization and facilitate access to nursing, medical and health care information. In addition the project will demonstrate that Library instruction and virtual reference services to the Department of Nursing’s faculty, distance learners, and commuting students will be greatly enhanced by opening access to nurse professionals worldwide.

The Specific Aims of the project will be to:

Identify, organize and customize access to important informational and professional resources . We will streamline access to educational materials along with other nursing and health care information.
Develop a space in a 3-dimensional chat environment to support the nurses needs for information, professional development and other resources.
Evaluate the 3-dimensional chat environment as a tool to enhance learner confidence bolster professionalization and diminish learning quality barriers encountered by faculty, distance learners, commuting students working professionals.
Create a methodology to analyze the use of the environment.

We will determine that a virtual 3-dimensional environment can be utilized to improve the quality of the distance learners', commuters' and working nurses' learning experience.

Background and Significance:

It is our belief that this research project is one of the first attempts to analyze the use of a virtual 3-dimensional chat environment to support the efforts of distance learning programs and the academic needs of students enrolled in a professional level of nursing and related healthcare education. This research project will demonstrate that a virtual 3-dimensional chat environment can be utilized to enhance information access, instruction and provide research information for greater support to the Department of Nursing’s faculty, distance learners, commuting students and the larger professional nursing community. It is anticipated that the findings of the project will demonstrate that this environment can foster a greater awareness of educational and informational resources by promoting socialization and professionalization for in our local nursing community and worldwide. We hope the project will facilitate greater communication between nursing professionals, faculty, students and librarians. The researchers anticipate that enhanced learner confidence and professionalization will be achieved through the additional support offered within the virtual world.

Furthermore, We believe that the outcomes from the project will provide a realistic understanding of the virtual environment's future use as an instructional delivery platform for nursing and related health care information and education. It will be used to reach out to Eastern University distance learners, commuters and the extended nursing and health care community. We expect to find indications that the weaknesses disclosed by other studies concerning distance learning and distance reference can be addressed by the creation of an immersive virtual social environment, a learning commons for nurses.

In creating the environment, we will integrate digital resources that come from a variety of services to create tailored views and customized access to a variety of resources. For example; a cardiac care unit in a planned virtual hospital environment would include streaming video of surgery or resuscitation procedures along with links to relevant information resources. In addition, a virtual nursing home environment would contain access to relevant journal and research articles and other materials on geriatric or long term care. Furthermore, a librarian facilitator, faculty member, student or other professional would be available to render real time assistance to the learner through text chat or using voice of the internet protocol (VOIP) as they work within a contextualized virtual world.

We also see the construction of a virtual medical library as a place where nurses can browse and communicate with others, including librarians, on the use of its resources. We hope to reduce the barriers of time and distance in order to support the professional nursing community’s informational needs.

Finally, the nursing community will be involved in every phase in building this resource. They will contribute their expertise toward the creation of information buildings and centers. Nurses worldwide along with Eastern University faculty, librarians, staff, students and alumnae will be invited to help create the Virtual Learning Commons.

See also: Announcements | Assignments | Study Guides

Group FAQ

mputerba — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 11:13:36 CDT

Suggestions:

We encourage members to post questions and answers to questions related to particular topics.

Help Us Create the VLCN

mputerba — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 11:12:33 CDT

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Member Spotlight

mputerba — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 12:56:54 CDT

This is how a spotlight page could look: Use it "as is," modify it, or delete all the text and start over with your own idea. It's a wiki page, so you can change it any time you want.

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See also: Announcements | The Syllabus | Assignments | Study Guides