I found this Wired News article, ” Making a Living in Second Life” fascinating because of a tidbit within it about virtual training projects in Second Life. Second Life is a virtual world built entirely by the people who spend time online there with avatars represented by three dimensional graphics. I’m sure I’m not doing the experience justice, but that’s my take on it.
The interesting link to the real world is something I hadn’t realized before this article — people are building virtual training simulations that can be run in this virtual world. Here’s the quote from the article:
Just ask Rufer-Bach, known in Second Life as Kim Anubus, who works full time making virtual objects for real-life organizations. In a recent contract with the UC Davis Medical Center, Rufer-Bach created virtual clinics in Second Life to train emergency workers who might be called upon to rapidly set up medical facilities in a national crisis. The work is funded by the Centers for Disease Control. “In the event of a biological attack … the CDC have to set up emergency 12-hour push sites, to distribute antibiotics,” said Rufer-Bach.
To create the most realistic simulation possible, Rufer-Bach crafted about 80 distinct objects, “from chairs (to) a forklift, plumbing, wiring,” she said. The end result is a training environment that’s not only lifelike, but relatively inexpensive. “There are substantial advantages to doing this training in the virtual world,” said UC Davis professor Peter Yellowlees. For one thing, it’s “incredibly cheaper.”
Seems like it would be more interesting to be trained this way than in other forms of online training. This approach would break down barriers of geography as well as obtaining and physically manipulating the physical objects (anyone can be a fork-lift driver in a simulation). The Second Life website has this great set of selling points for experiential learning within Second Life’s environment, such as practicing skills safely, learn from mistakes, and so on.
For some reason, I’m also reminded of a visual website traffic analysis tool, I believe it’s VisitorVille, where you see the MSN or Yahoo search engine traffic represented by a bus bringing in visitors to your site, in real time. Now that is a cool visual representation that allows you to learn immediately and hopfeully spot patterns and trends right away.
I think that the visual representation of an airport and the gaming feel are both factors that make the BSM airport simulation class so effective for learning. What are some other examples of neat graphical or virtual representations of work you’re doing or training to do?