School of Health and Life Sciences - Virtual Worlds » evelyn mcelhinney

Recruiting for PhD: Health literacy skills of people who access health information in 3D virtual worlds and the influence on real life health behaviour

evelyn mcelhinney — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 13:17:44 +0000

Hi folks,

I am currently recruiting participants for my PhD. If you or someone you know has accessed health information in a 3D virtual world I would love to interview you or them for my study. This could be access to a sim with health information in the form of a game, quiz, slide show, interactive objects or a talk given by a healthcare practitioner/provider. The first phase pilot study is now complete. However, I am now recruting for the full full phase 1 study (if you have already agreed to take part and have not been interviewed I will be contacting you soon). This Phase 1 study will include being interviewed in Second Life in a private area of Glasgow Caledonian University Second Life Sim. I am particularly looking for people from UK or Europe as well as the rest of the world. If you want more information please IM me in Second Life (Kali Pizzaro) or pick up the information from
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Glasgow Caledonian/112/113/23
or email me at Evelyn.McElhinney@gcu.ac.uk

Cheers Evelyn/Kali

University of Richmond brings House of Usher to GCU

evelyn mcelhinney — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 10:04:38 +0000

GCU’s School of Health and Life Sciences has joined up with the University of Richmond’s Centre for Teaching, Learning, and Technology, in an exciting new collaboration which is set within GCUs land in the 3D virtual World Second Life. Dr Joe Essid Director of the Writing Centre explains his use of virtual worlds “The Virtual House of Usher began as a faculty-student partnership sponsored by the University of Richmond’s Center for Teaching, Learning, and Technology in the summer of 2009. The project uses virtual-world technology to create an interactive story, with faculty actors in the roles of Richmond native Edgar Allan Poe’s characters Roderick and Madeline Usher. Students, in the role of Poe’s narrator, try to avoid the dreadful fate that overcomes the Usher family in the original tale. Using the original story as both springboard for interactive learning and questions about the nature of literary narrative, four courses in literature or Rhetoric and Communications Studies have used the online House. The experience is that of improvisational acting in a game-like space where students must find clues, resolve conflicting stories, and pursue personal goals while staying as guests in a dreary mansion just off the Yorkshire coast in the year 1847. The explorations of Poe’s obsessions and obsessed characters, in the words of one recent participant, “was in my opinion the most privileged opportunity of the entire interactive experience because it allowed me to not only become a part of the story, but to resolve the characters’ problems in Edgar Allan Poe’s short story that traditionally remained unresolved.”

It is hoped that this will lead to further collaboration between GCU and University of Richmond in other disciplines. For further information or a tour of the House of Usher please email Evelyn.McElhinney@gcu.ac.uk , Lecturer in the Department of Health and Community Sciences or Instant Message her in Second Life – Kali Pizzaro.

Update

evelyn mcelhinney — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 11:45:33 +0000

Hi All,

I am reaching the end of my two year action research project. However, I will be presenting the findings at the 10th Annual International Nursing Simulation/Learning Resource Centers Conference in Orlando in June. Interestingly I just met the Lecturer last week in Second Life who is presenting after me. I will also be presenting a poster on the evaluation of volunteers’ experiences of allowing nurses to take their real life health history in SL.

Andy is still working with Jan on the x-ray project which is coming along nicely.

I have also started a VW HealthEd International Community of Practice. So if you are in the health field or a learning technologist working with health practitioners and wish to join please IM me in SL: Kali Pizzaro

Evelyn/Kali

Exploring nursing students’ assessment and decision-making while in a Second Life clinical simulation laboratory – Price et al.

evelyn mcelhinney — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 14:27:47 +0000

Below is a poster presentation from some of my fellow lecturers about research they did with 3rd year nursing students. If you have any questions about the study or the results don’t hesiate to leave us a wee reply with an email or your avatar name. Or IM me in SL – Kali Pizzaro.

Click the bottom tab to view on Slideshare if you wish.

Poster scsn 2010 (second life)

View more documents from healthblog.

New Semester

evelyn mcelhinney — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 21:45:40 +0000

Well the new semester starts soon. I will be doing more teaching in SL using Colin the virtual patient and his new heart and lung sounds which are embeded in his chest. This is controlled by the lecturer who can change the sounds – normal, aortic stenosis etc (great work Andy).

I will also be teaching history taking and look forward to welcoming new volunteers who let my students take their real life health history from the comfort of their homes.

This wil be the second round of my action research project. Data will be collected using student and lecturer diaries. Hope to present the results later in the year at a conference in the USA.

We are also working on a web interface which will allow us to add to the case based histories which will speak to our AIML bots and add any missing questions to the answers. This will help create and refine cases.

Well that’s me at the moment, catch you later, Kali/Evelyn

Hi Folks – Poster Higher Education Academy Conference

evelyn mcelhinney — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 13:44:07 +0000

Hi All,

This poster was presented at the Higher Education Academy Conference 22nd-23rd June 2010

An Evaluation of the use of Virtual Worlds for Learning and Teaching in Healthcare and its impact on practice – An action research project

View more documents from healthblog.

This is round one of an action reserach project I am undertaking. The poster has some of the the conclusions drawn from the students diaries and self -assessment of group work. I have still to collate the data from their presence and immersion questionnaire. What fun SPSS!

We are continuing to work on the patient chat-bots and recruiting more volunteers over the summer.

regards Evelyn and all the team

Update

evelyn mcelhinney — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 14:03:54 +0000

Hi all,

The first round results of my action research project on teaching healthcare students in virtual worlds will be up within the next month. Some very positve data and a great amount of work done by the students. Also I will update you soon on my work with real people who have volunteered to allow my students to take their medical history via Second Life. Early days with this project but hoping to recruit more people over the summer.

Theresa Price has just returned from a succesful NETNEP conference in Australia (just got back due to the ash).

regards Kali/Evelyn

New Projects – Keep an eye out for further projects

evelyn mcelhinney — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 20:55:00 +0000

We are building on and developing a few new projects. An action research project is ongoing and will be evaluated soon. We will share our initial results on the blog. Do please keep an eye out.
Please feel free to comment on any of our work so far. Also if you are interested in any collaboration, please contact us.

Check out the video below for our work so far.

Regards Kali/ Evelyn.McElhinney@gcal.ac.uk on behalf of the team at the School of Health

Radiographic exposure manipulation in the virtual environment.

evelyn mcelhinney — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 14:24:42 +0000

Accurate selection of exposure factors when x-raying patients is of vital importance to ensure repeat exposures are not required. Due to the use of ionising radiation it is not possible for students to currently practice giving people a range of exposures to see what effect manipulation of exposure factors would have. Experience is currently gained by working alongside clinicians in the clinical environment. Feedback from students currently suggests that selection of exposure factors is an area where they feel they have insufficient practical experience. Giving students a tool where they can practice cause and effect on images dependant on exposure factor selection would enable students to develop necessary practical skills in a safe way.

A virtual x-ray environment is currently under development on Second Life, the aim of which is to enable undergraduate diagnostic imaging students to manipulate exposure factors for a chosen patient and body part. The resultant image will be displayed thereby enabling the student to gain skills in choosing accurate exposure factors. The student will be able to visualise whether their selected exposure factors, variables being kV, mA, time and distance, would have resulted in the image being under-,correctly or over-exposed. It is hoped that over time students will be able to select from a range of options e.g. gender, age, body build, body part.

For more info leave a comment for Jan little aka Bod Mavendorf

Exploring nursing students’ decision-making while in a Second Life clinical simulation laboratory. Dr. Jacqueline McCallum, Val Ness, Theresa Price, Andy Whiteford

evelyn mcelhinney — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 18:24:12 +0000

This was a small scale qualitative evaluation of the lecturers’ (researchers’) and students’ experience of using Second Life in order to learn decision-making. Students assumed Avatars (a student nurse image in Second Life) and accessed the Clinical Simulation Laboratory within Second Life following changing into nursing uniform. They then worked through a scenario based activity. Over a six week period each student carried out a communication and visual assessment of six patients in one ward based area (one session for each student). At the end of the session the student was asked to prioritise the care for these patients and explain their decisions. The students then recorded their experiences during a one-to-one semi-structured interview and focus group.

The research team acted as the students’ mentors via their individual Avatars and provided feedback and guidance to the student Avatar.
A pragmatic approach was taken that included elements of:
• Case based learning: six realistic, interactive scenarios were developed at the appropriate level for the students
• Discovery learning: students interacted with others within the clinical simulation environment providing opportunities for incidental learning
• Reflective Learning: students used interview to record activities and reflect on their relevance to nursing theory and practice