CCK08: 69 Learning Adventures in 6 Galaxies

This week in CCK08 the discussions have revolved around aspects of knowledge. Some people have engaged in discussion around definition knowledge, others have tried to explore how knowledge is stored in the brain. Some have extended the discussion to the concept of understanding and there was a very interesting discussion on how knowledge or learning can take place in a ‘non-human appliance’ – be it social software or a robot! The topics that appeared made for quite a philosophical week in the course.

Now I’m not much of a philosopher – I’m a scientist. So I didn’t quite know what to contribute. I do know that knowledge, understanding and learning has been the cornerstone of my life as young adult all the way into adulthood. I’m a very inquisitive person always looking to learn new things. Consequently, I am a good “knowledge seeker” - a good researcher. So in the spirit of information gathering, I thought I would share with the readers of this blog a very nice resource.

69 Learning Adventures in 6 Galaxies.

Sounds like a bit of a gimmick title right? Well, it’s not. It’s a free eBook by Zaid Ali Alsagoff, the e-Learning Manager for The International Centre for Education in Islamic Finance (INCEIF) in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. He’s assembled a very easily readable eBook that covers six major topics (aka Galaxies!): Learning, Teaching, Stories, Free e-Learning Tools, Free Learning Content and Free EduGames. In conjunction with his blog called Zaidlearn, it provides a nice set of resources for the practitioner who is in "knowledge seeker" mode.

Enjoy.

Note: image attribution here.

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CCK08: Connectivism Concept Map

This week I read a few things circulating in the blogosphere about Connectivism. Most of it is interesting. The readings provoked me to give some thought to the concept of exactly how I am connected to the message pipelines and communication networks around me. I noticed that there are some message pipelines that I exclusively make a conscious effort to take from at a time point which is convenient to me. Such as television. I do not routinely watch television. In fact, I have not been in the presence of a television (turned on) in the last four days. So how does the message pipeline of a television influence me - well, I simply take from it once in awhile. On occasion I make a conscious choice to turn on a TV and watch it. I never give to that message pipeline - I only take from it.

In contrast, I gave some thought to how I use the phone. The phone pushes information to me automatically (i.e. phone calls come to me directly on a routine basis) and I routinely push information to the phone (i.e. I call people through the day). So clearly the way television keeps me connected is different than the way a phone keeps me connected. However, both are part of my 'Personal Connectivism' map.

I tried to visually represent this phenomenon of my 'Personal Connectivism Map' visually. I used CMAP Tools. If you are new to CMAP tools then you might find this post useful.

Take a look at my 'Personal Connectivism Map' and let me know what you think by leaving a comment below. Click the image below to go to Flickr where you will have the ability to choose from a variety of image sizes, if necessary (see the 'All Sizes' button).

Tremblay-ConnectivismMap-Sept2008
Originally uploaded by actionhamster

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Blogroll in Pageflakes

"Blogroll in Pageflakes" ... hmmm ... what the heck does that mean? It kind of gives me a visual of someone dunking a yummmy snack into a bowl of sugar-coated cereal! But I digress *hahaha!

Anyway, if you are a regular reader of this blog, you will enjoy what I have put together for you this morning. It's a pageflakes webpage that aggregates the blogroll found on this blog together into one spot. It's one stop browsing for eLearning stuff. Enjoy!

PS: If you are new to pageFlakes and want to learn more, then see this post.

Note: photo attribution to Darwin Bell.

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Free Books on e-Learning

Don't you just love the concept of sharing information for free? I sure do. So I wanted to quickly blog a link I would like to revisit in the future. Jane Hart from the Centre for Learning and Performance Technologies (aka C4LPT), has assembled a running list of websites that hold free content from e-Learning books. For example, some of the items on the list are sample chapters from publisher websites advertising print books. The list is very useful and shows that even a little bit of free sharing can go a long way when someone takes the time to assemble the sources into one place. Thanks Jane!

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CCK08-Connectivism is here!

The massively online open course on Connectivism has begun (see description here). Already there is so much material on the subject that some of the participants are very surprised and somewhat overwhelmed. In my view, I think the key is not to get stressed out with the large volume of material that will be channeled to participants in CCK08. Learning is supposed to be fun - so I am adopting the approach of simply 'going with the flow' for the next 13 weeks. I'm going to read a few things that interest me each day (mostly from 'the daily' email produced by the instructors and from the Pageflakes RSS aggregation page). And when I 'feel the urge' I will blog about something related to these materials in my regular blog here - I'll be sure to add the tag CCK08 to the postings. I have no specific goal (or expectation) in mind as to the number of readings I will complete each day nor the number of blog postings on CCK08 I will make each week; however, I will keep an open mind and see what happens. I am here to enjoy the ride with the least amount of stress as possible. I know I will learn
something on this journey - without giving myself a heart attack along the way (*haha*)

I hope the same for everyone else that is a participant in CCK08!

PS: If this posting intrigues you - it's not too late to join into CCK08. Give it a try!

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Free File Storage Online

I attended a presentation by a colleague of mine yesterday (Hi Louise!) where the topic of free file storage online came up. Often when working in a course development team, using some central repository of files is very convenient - free file storage services online can help.

Here's a review of 10 free online file storage services via The Smorgasbord dated Aug 19th, 2008.

Here's a review of 10 free online file storage services via Online Storage Services Review dated sometime in 2008.

Here's a review of 6 free online file storage services via Enfotainer dated August 13th, 2008.

Also, Helen Barret, the E-Portfolio Queen!, has recently been conducting some Online File Storage Research. Be sure to read the opinion she's posted on her blog on March 30th, 2008.

If you have any successes, or failures, to report about a free online storage service, please leave a comment below.

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Gas makes a splash in 3D worlds

I spent about 15 minutes this morning with Tim Allen, Head of Technology for Crompco Corporation. I wasn’t in his office, I wasn’t on the phone with him, our time together wasn't even a series of email exchanges – it was in a 3-dimensional virtual world: Second Life!



With about 150 staff members and 65 trucks in its fleet, Crompco services gas stations from Maine to Florida on the I-95 corridor. Tim and his staff identified a “learning gap” when they were training junior technicians on the underground layout of gas stations. This underground layout isn’t visible if you visit a local gas station… it is underneath the asphalt. Previously, technician trainees at Crompco learned about the underground layout by using illustrations on a white board or other 2-dimensional learning aids in a classroom setting. Learning about a 3-D construction layout in a 2-dimensional diagram wasn’t perfect for students so sometimes they were lucky enough to find a gas station in construction where they could do a site visit. Unfortunately, there were times when finding a gas station under construction wasn't possible. That’s when Tim and his staff had a great idea: let’s do the learning in a 3-D virtual environment!

Enter Second life. Tim and his staff have created a virtual gas station in Second Life. One where the asphalt can be removed and the major aspects of the underground layout can be observed directly. In Second life, with your avatar, you walk right beside the underground tanks. One is displayed in cross section showing the gasoline inside.



The pipes are all clearly marked showing those carrying different grades of gasoline to the pumps. The recovery ventilation system is also shown. In addition to this 3-D model that students can actually walk through and examine from several angles, some slide shows are also hosted at the station, which explain related training activities and safety procedures. Tim informed me that part of the training activities also involve the driving of a fuel tanker truck onto the virtual premises to simulate filling of the underground tanks.


Are you in Second Life? Do you want to go see this Virtual Gas Station yourself? If so, you can send a message to Tim’s avatar named ‘Crompco Mecanique’, who frequently staffs the station called directly in Second Life. Alternatively you can try to find it yourself. Search for ‘Peregrin Salon’ and teleport there. The Crompco Virtual Gas Station is about 600 meters in the air above the salon. Note that you need a Second life Flight Assist Add-On to flight that high. Yikes! (*smile*)

Overall I was quite impressed. Clearly, this virtual training space met a need for Crompco in the formation of their technicians. Kudos to Tim and his staff for taking the leap to Second Life in order to meet their specific training needs. A local NBC affiliate even featured them in a story they broadcast in March 2008.

If you know of any other examples of companies using Second Life for training purposes, feel free to share them with us by clicking the comments button below.

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Is YouTube changing how we live?

I learned through my twitter feeds that Micheal Wesch has another video (see posts on his previous videos here and here). This time it is a recording of an academic presentation he made to the Library of Congress on June 23rd, 2008. It's just under an hour long and it provides an excellent overview of the impact some Web 2.0 technologies from an Athropological perspective. In particular, the presentation examines in detail the concepts of YouTube and of user-generated media/filtering/commentary. I found the talk to be very interesting and despite the fact that I am in the field of educational technology, this talk opened my eyes to a few broad scope issues that I have never considered. There's something in this talk for everyone. Check it out and let me know what you think.

The video's YouTube page can be found here.

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Recording Virtual Field Trips

Two colleagues of mine, Susan and Christine, had a great idea! They wanted to do a virtual field trip in Second Life for students in a graduate course they are designing. However, they didn’t want students to have to get their own Second Life account in order to experience the field trip. So they wondered if they could ‘record’ the instructor experiencing the field trip and simply show the recording to the students.

Answer: YES!

We developed a proof of concept for this solution to show to the instructor. It is a short, less than a minute, video showing a virtual field trip in Second Life to the American Chemical Society. We've hosted on YouTube.

You might be wondering how I did it? Well, I used a four step process.

1. Capture the video in FRAPS while in Second Life. FRAPS does a full screen capture of what you see in Second Life. It even captures streaming video clips with audio that are playing in world. The full version of FRAPS is only $37. The free version allows you to make video capture clips up to 30 seconds in length.


2. I recorded some audio to overlay on top of the video capture. I used Audacity. It’s a free audio recording software.


3. I then used Windows Movie Maker to put the video, the audio and a couple of title slides together into the final movie. Windows movie Maker is free and is pre-installed with Windows XP and VISTA. Look for it under Start -> All Programs.


4. I uploaded the final movie to YouTube.

All told it took me about 2 hours to make this video and write this blog posting. Not bad for a proof of concept. Have you used these types of techniques successfully in your distance courses? If so, let us know about it.

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Connectivism is about you!

Are you in EdTech or the Online Education field? If so, this blog posting will interest you.

George Siemens and Stephen Downes will be co-facilitating a course this Fall hosted by the University of Manitoba on the topic of Connectivism. This Learning Theory is relatively new and is built on the central tenet that learning is the process of creating connections and developing a network. Clearly, recent advances in Web 2.0 technologies like social networking are major players in the development of this learning theory. For more information on the theory of Connectivism you can find a general resource on Wikipedia.

The best part of this course is you can have a choice to 1) take it for FREE in a non-credit fashion, or 2) take it for credit in a paid-for version. Regardless, all students are put together into one cohort to research the topic of Connectivism. There's going to be videos, blogs, rss feeds, discussions - everything that fits into the Connectivism model will be woven into this course.

The course wiki goes on to further describe the course as:

"Connectivism and Connective Knowledge is a twelve week course that will explore the concepts of connectivism and connective knowledge and explore their application as a framework for theories of teaching and learning. It will outline a connectivist understanding of educational systems of the future. George Siemens and Stephen Downes – the two leading figures on connectivism and connective knowledge - will co-facilitate this innovative and timely course.

This course will help participants make sense of the transformative impact of technology in teaching and learning over the last decade. The voices calling for reform do so from many perspectives, with some suggesting 'new learners' require different learning models, others suggesting reform is needed due to globalization and increased competition, and still others suggesting technology is the salvation for the shortfalls evident in the system today. While each of these views tell us about the need for change, they overlook the primary reasons why change is required."

Last Sunday night (July 27th, 2008), EdTechTalk did a talk show on this course with participation by Stephen Downes, George Siemens, Alec Couros and Leigh Blackall. It now has almost 1200 registrants! WOW - 1200! If you are interested in this course, you might want to have a listen to the audio recording of EdTechTalk #81.

It's going to be a very interesting experiment. I'll be there. Will you?

Note: photo attribution.

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Eureka! Jott is here!

Have you ever had that ‘eureka’ moment when you’ve stumbled upon a piece of technology that is so interesting and useful to you that you can’t believe it’s real or free? I experienced this feeling today when I tried Jott. I first learned about it this morning as I managed to catch a few minutes of a presentation by Michael Wesch entitled ‘A Portal to the Future of Education” where he showcased several Web 2.0 applications that together can serve as tools for education today and into tomorrow.

In a nutshell, what Jott does in allow you to call a phone number and leave a voicemail message and then Jott transcribes the voicemail message into a text message that can be sent to a recipient’s email address. Very nice! Let me give you some good scenarios for its use.

[Update on Jott - 08 January 2009. Six months after this original blog posting - I have learned about changes in the Jott plans. The Free plan only allows you to jott yourself. The scenarios below were originally written when the Free plan allowed you to Jott anyone. Keep that in mind when reading the rest of this blog post.]

Scenario #1: My wife is a clinical social worker. I can’t call her during the day to communicate a message because she’s usually in a counseling session with a client. So I usually pass a message to her by email which she receives between clients or at the end of her workday. With Jott, I can now do this on the road with my cell phone! I can leave a voicemail with Jott that will be transcribed into an email and sent to her inbox. Nice!

Scenario #2: I like to use Twitter and so when I am traveling, or away from my computer, I can send a text message from my cell phone to Twitter. I can use Jott to plug-into Twitter. So by calling a telephone number, I can update my Twitter status. No clumsy text messaging on my small phone keypad required. Nice!

Scenario #3: I’m a Blogger – as you know. I learned that Jott has a plug-in to Blogger! So now blog posts can be made by voice using Jott! Nice!

Scenario #4: I use my email inbox as my ‘things-to-do-list’. I often find myself sending myself an email to remind me of something I have to do. Well, now I can do this while I am away from the computer. A call to Jott and I can send myself an email reminding myself of something. Nice!

I definitely had the ‘eureka’ moment today after only using Jott for an hour. I will use it for a month and report back the pros and cons of Jott as a comment to this post. If you use Jott, let us know how you like it and how you use it by leaving a comment below.

Note to Canadian readers: Jott's 1-866 number will not work so long distance charges may apply. Major cities have a local number and you can find the list here.

[Note: phone image, originally uploaded by Liquid Lucidity. Usage licensed by Creative Commons.]

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iPhones are for the birds!

In 2006, I blogged about iPods as training aids in sports. Since 2006 there has been many examples about iPods being used as a just-in-time performance support aid for various training and educational contexts. I was recently at the Eastern Ontario Symposium for Educational Technology in Ottawa and a presenter from the University of Ontario Institute of Technology showed how the nursing school was using a PDA to help nursing students. These students on the floor had access to just-in-time resources on the PDA (textbook, drug guide, etc.). In addition, these students were able to log their training competencies as they complete them, instead of logging them once they arrive home for the evening. A lovely example of how a portable device can enhance a learning environment by both being a resources for information and by storing data for later use.

So by now you’re probably asking yourself, what does this story about nursing students have to do with the title of this posting? (i.e. having anything to do with and iPhone or with birds). Well, I’m sorry to report that it really has very little to do with it. However, I thought it was a nice little introductory story to what I want to describe next: BirdJam! Yuppers. No typo here - definitely BirdJam.

13May06-RoseBreastedGrosbeak-Pair, - photo by Eric Tremblay.

Bird watching is a popular hobby and many companies make resources for the avid birdwatcher. A myriad number of field guides and a long list of bird song CDs are available. I recently came across an application that uses an iPod, or an iPhone, as a performance support for birdwatchers. Paper-based field guides with photos have routinely been used at the time of a bird sighting for identification purposes; however, operating a series of birdsong CDs is much harder to manage when you are out in the field. That’s where BirdJam comes in. With what I consider to be a very elegant solution, BirdJam will transform your iPhone, or iPod, into a virtual field guide which integrates together both photos and the accompanying bird songs. BirdJam is a piece of software that converts data from the popular Stokes Field Guides for Birdsongs into a format that leverages the unique features of the iPhone and iPod (such as cover flow, and fast title searching, etc.). The result is a portable encyclopedia of photos and songs that is fast and easy to use. The technophilic bird watcher will salivate at the first sigh of BirdJam! If you don’t already have your own iPod or iPhone don’t worry. They will sell you a pre-loaded iPod ready for the field right out of the box. Several different add-ons are available, so not only can you obtain photos and audio of bird songs from eastern and western regions of North America, but you can also obtain data packs for birds native to Mexico and Costa Rica. I would bet that in coming months that BirdJam, and it’s partners, will continue to expand its available selection.

Much of our education and learning takes place outside the classroom. BirdJam is one example of a tool that creates a just-in-time performance supports for birdwatchers. Just another example of how people are thinking outside the box to make learning a lot easier for us all.

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Flickr images for YOU!

Flickr allows its users to grant Creative Commons licenses to their photos and as a result many of these images can be available for YOUR use! There are different types of Creative Commons licenses and Flickr breaks them down for you and categorizes its database of photos accordingly. One example of a licence type is “Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivitives License”. What this means is that you can use any image tagged with this license if you meet 3 conditions:

• Attribution: you must give credit to the photographer


• NonCommercial: you must not use the image for commercial purposes


• No Derivitives: you may not modify the image in any way

It turns out that at the time I am writing this posting there are over 23 million photos on Flickr that you can search and use with this license. WOW! It is a veritable Gold Mine for educators putting together course materials.

Check it out Flickr's Creative Commons page here.

Take care

    -Eric

PS: The image above was found on Flickr with a Creative Commons license. Credit to Kevin Day. [http://www.flickr.com/photos/tanagerphotography/556740737/]

PSS: I've posted on this blog before about free image databases, add Flickr to the list now.

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Wikis in the Classroom - iGlobe

I attended the Eastern Ontario Symposium on Educational Technology (EOSET) hosted by the University of Ottawa last Thursday (May 29th). The format this year was different than in the past. It consisted of a series of short 10 minute presentations. One talk that I found interesting was by Mark Salter in the School of Political Studies at the University of Ottawa. He described his large introductory class in "Politics of Globalization" which he branded as ‘iGlobe’ to attract student attention on the materials and to convey that this course was different than other politics courses. It sure was. Mark mixed aspects of problem-based learning (PBL), wikis and pod-casting into the materials of his course. His course has two assignments (in which students had choice as to what deliverables they had to submit) and two exams. Mark reported that often in undergraduate politics courses, professors give feedback to students on their papers and students do not get the opportunity to integrate that feedback into future assignments. He felt that by using the wiki in the course that students could take advantage of professor (and peer) feedback to improve their work by incorporating feedback. I have written on the topic of using wikis as class assignments before, so it is clear to the readers of this blog that I am very pro-wikis. Mark mentioned a good point that I took away from this presentation: he felt that students need a significant amount of training on how to use a wiki in the context of education. In his experience, the concept of a wiki was new to some of his students and so basic training on how to operate it was necessary.


In addition, he felt it was important to emphasize to the students that the goal of using a wiki in this course is not to create as many pages as you can, but rather to create a few pages and edit them extensively and repeatedly. The cycle of ‘research-write-feedback-edit-repeat’ was the preferred activity here. Not simply a linear ‘write as much as you can’ scenario. It is this feedback integrating cycle that is the key in an educational context! The entire course is still a work in progress and you can check out the iGlobe wiki here.

If you use wikis in your undergraduate courses, let us know how they are working in your context by leaving a comment below.

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Audio Feedback on Student Assignments in Online Courses

I attended the inaugural Canadian Network for Innovation in Education (CNIE) annual conference earlier this month in Banff, Alberta (this was formerly the Canadian Association of Distance Education conference). It was both a spectacular location and a spectacular conference. One talk that I thought would be interesting to the readers of this blog was by Dr. Phil Ice (formerly of University of North Carolina Charlotte now of American Public University System).

Phil and his colleagues investigated the use of the audio commenting tool in Adobe Acrobat Pro to provide audio feedback on student assignments in an online course.

The experimental design and analysis was rigorous with aspects such as alternating between text-based and audio-based feedback types between assignments throughout the term, a question on the final course survey asking for student preference for audio versus text-based feedback, and 27 post-course interviews with students, etc.

The project started off on the right foot when 40% of students spontaneously emailed the instructor about the first occurrence of audio commenting with all of those emails expressing satisfaction with the technique.

On the end-of course survey, the results remained impressive. 26 students preferred audio to text, 4 students indicated no preference and one answer N/A (due to a defective sound card).

The transcript analysis of the 27 post-course interviews with students revealed four themes:

1. Ability to understand nuances in feedback (70% of students). Humor, tone, encouragements and emphasis were much easier to interpret using the audio feedback.


2. Feelings of increase involvement (56% of students). The connection between instructor and student seemed to be increased and consequently students were engaged in their online course.


3. Content retention (44% of students). Students reported that they retained the content of the audio feedback better that text-based feedback.


4. Instructor caring (30% of students). Students reported that audio feedback was more personal than text and they perceived the instructor as caring more when he left an audio message.

Phil and his colleagues actually did more analysis than I am describing here, but you get the idea. If you would like to see his PowerPoint presentation from Banff you will find it hosted at SlideShare and if you would like to see a recent article on this subject then this is a good one:

Ice, P., Curtis, R., Phillips, P. and Wells, J. (2007). Using Asynchronous Audio Feedback to Enhance Teaching Presence and Students’ Sense of Community. J. of Asynchronous Learning Networks. 11(2).

If you have any similar experiences with using audio feedback in online courses, please let us know by leaving a comment below.

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20,000 visits!

A big thank you to everyone who has ever visited e-Learning Acupuncture. Today the website reached 20,000 visits! Wow! Thank you, thank, you thank you!

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Invest 45 minutes in PowerPoint!

In the same vein as my ‘Life by Powerpoint’ blog post from last year, I have stumbled across another excellent demonstration of useful ways to make PowerPoint presentations less boring for students. Alvin Trusty, Director of Educational Technology at The University of Findlay in Ohio has provided his recorded presentation from the eTechOhio conference of 2008. It’s 45 minutes long. But wait… I know exactly what you’re going to say here.

Eric… I can’t waste 45 minutes watching a PowerPoint presentation on the web. BORING!

If you are a frequent user of PowerPoint in the classroom, then this will be the BEST 45 minutes you will ever spend watching a PowerPoint presentation. Alvin gives tons of tips and tricks and interweaves the topic of best practices in PowerPoint with some very useful concepts in Copyright Law (tailored to the US audience but useful in general to others.) He shares his personal blog and a bunch of links stored in del.icio.us. So instead of ‘wasting’ 45 minutes, I say ‘invest’ 45 minutes and watch this presentation from start to finish. Then leave me a comment below. In your opinion, did you just waste that 45 minutes or not? I want to know!

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Wikis as Assignments

I attended a very useful online presentation last week by Mike Orey of the University of Georgia (via the Wimba Distinguished Lecture Series). In one of his graduate courses in education, as an assessment activity, he asks students to contribute to a wiki-book that he and his colleagues have developed: Emerging perspectives on learning, teaching and technology. The reason I am making this posting is two-fold.

1. The concept of asking students to contribute to a wiki that will remain for future users is very interesting to me. Clearly an assignment of this nature fits into the highest levels of Bloom's Taxonomy and could even serve as a capstone assignment in some types of courses. In Mike's example, he created a privately owned wiki for this purpose; however, Wikipedia could be used as well.



2. Mike's eBook is excellent from a practitioner’s point of view! Have a look it. It has some interesting sections on topics such as Motivation, Adult Learning, Problem-based Instruction and Learning Communities as an Instructional Model. Chock full of case studies and well referenced with supporting literature. If applicable, Mike encourages you to adopt all or part of this eBook as a textbook in your course. He's so nice (*smile*).

Kudos to Mike & friends on more than one level!

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Project Management using Google Sites

My office has been playing around with the Google Sites wiki for the last few weeks (I’ve written about Google Sites before.) We’ve been using it to collaboratively author mini-reports as well as staff meeting agendas.

I would like to try to use a wiki site to track an online course development project. It would be a place where the project team could define goals, publish milestones, post files and monitor progress on project activities. I think Google Sites would be perfect for this and it is an easy to use and free online application. I am definately going to use it when I start my next project.

Today I came across someone else who has built a nice Google Sites template for project management activity. Check out the link and let me know what you think by leaving a comment below.

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Nursing Simulation in Second Life

If you want to be a nurse then you need to go to school. Many schools and registered nurse programs are using technological tools to delivery nursing education; especially in the area of nursing simulations. I came across one particularly interesting example of this just today. John Miller, a Nursing Professor, at Tacoma Community College in Washington is spearheading a nursing simulation hosted within Second Life. He’s also working in collaboration with the nursing school at nearby Centralia Community College. The simulator allows students to react to a situation, to choose what medications to administer, to chart their actions, to monitor the consequences, and to adjust their treatments accordingly. Scenarios can be simulated which reproduce life-threatening conditions in a safe ‘virtual’ environment. I've written about Second Life before and it seems to me with the work of simulation pioneers like John Miller, the potential of Second Life as a simulator are being slowly unveiled.

I contacted John Miller in Second Life (his avatar's name is JS Vavoom) and he let me view the simulator. Here's a screen shot of my avatar lying down on the operating table. Yikes!

Important Update: As of late 2008, John has removed his original 5 part series of YouTube videos (listed below) demonstrating his nursing simulation. He now has new videos. I will write about them in this blog here.

Do you want to check out John Miller's nursing simulator but you don't have a Second Life account? No worries! John has made a video tour of the simulator and posted the tour in a 5 part video series on YouTube (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, and Part 5). What do you think about it? Leave a comment below.

PS: Take the time to check out John Miller's blog too.

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