Yesterday’s seminar was a huge success! Very many thanks to our guest speaker Cory Silverberg (SL:SeeLee Markstein) and to all our audience for the very lively discussion that lasted more than two hours. More than 40 avatars visited the UOP Sexual Health SIM yesterday, including three Lindens (Pathfinder Linden, Phoenix Linden and Malbers Linden), and members of the GimpGirl Community and Virtual Ability. They spent more than 3040 visitor-minutes or >50 visitor-hours on the parcel (mostly during the seminar), as shown in the official Second Life traffic figure for the SIM today, 13 June 2008, which reflects yesterday’s usage (12 June 2008–second snapshot below).

Click the image below to launch the event’s video in HD (High Definition). This is a short 2-minute clip created by Maged 
(http://www.vimeo.com/1166607).

Click above image to launch the HD video clip
(http://www.vimeo.com/1166607).

Yesterday’s official Traffic figure (3047 min = >50 hrs). Click to enlarge.

Other news: New branch in Second Life and more outreach! Click to enlarge. Part of our content is now mirrored at http://slurl.com/secondlife/Upadhyaya/50/80/86 (you will be teleported nearby to the main hub and can then easily find us in The Arcade, a very short walk from the main hub). Very many thanks to the ‘Second Life HIV/AIDS Network Headquarters’ for donating the space at no charge.

Scientific discourse 2.0. Will your next poster session be in Second Life®?

Stephen T Huang¹, Maged N Kamel Boulos² & Robert P Dellavalle³

¹ Stephen T. Huang is at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, Illinois, USA
² Maged N. Kamel Boulos is at the University of Plymouth, UK
³ Robert P. Dellavalle is at the Denver Veteran’s Affairs Medical Center and the University of Colorado Denver, Denver, Colorado, USA.

Full-text PDF :
http://www.nature.com/embor/journal/v9/n6/pdf/embor200886.pdf

Full-text HTML :
http://www.nature.com/embor/journal/v9/n6/full/embor200886.html

When:
Thursday 12 June 2008 at noon SLT (= 8 PM BST)

Where/organized by:
University of Plymouth Sexual Health SIM in Second Life
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Education%20UK/33/63/22

About our guest speaker:
Cory Silverberg (SL:SeeLee Markstein) is an AASECT certified sexuality educator and one of the worker owners of Come As You Are, the world’s only democratically run, worker co-op sex store. For the past ten years Cory has worked as a sex educator, creating and facilitating workshops for organizations and groups on subjects including male sexuality, sexuality and disability, sexual communication, sex toys, and most recently sex and technology. He also works as a media consultant for US and Canadian television production companies (he was the long standing sex toy wrangler for Sue Johanson). Along with Dr. Miriam Kaufman and Fran Odette, Cory is the co-author of The Ultimate Guide to Sex and Disability. He writes about sexual health and pleasure for About.com (http://sexuality.about.com/), where he has been the Sexuality Guide since 2005 (About.com is part of The New York Times Company).

The Ultimate Guide to Sex and Disability is a complete sex guide for people who live with disabilities, pain, illness, or chronic conditions. Useful for absolutely everyone, regardless of age, gender, or sexual orientation, the book addresses a wide range of disabilities — from chronic fatigue, back pain, and asthma to spinal cord injury, hearing and visual impairment, multiple sclerosis, and more. Written by a medical doctor, a sex educator, and a disability activist, The Ultimate Guide provides readers with encouragement, support, and all the information they need to create a sex life that works for them. The authors cover all aspects of sex and disability, including building a positive sexual self-image; positions to minimize stress and maximize pleasure; dealing with fatigue or pain during sex; finding partners and talking with partners about sex and disability; adapting sex toys; and more.

Soj died on Sunday 25 May 2008 of heart failure after an extended struggle with her health.

I am sure we all send thoughts and prayers to her RL husband and son, and especially her beloved SL Dreams Community.

The Dreams group will be having a memorial, and I will keep our group informed, as we will want to support their group as much as we can.

Soj will be deeply missed. (Posted by SL:Gentle Heron.)

Related blog posts:
http://gwynethllewelyn.net/2008/05/26/the-sojourners-last-voyage/
http://lifetimestwo.blogspot.com/2008/05/sojourner-is-offline.html

A senior consultant at the company (McKinsey), which generally shies away from making public statements because its clients include major high street brands, said that any consumer-facing business “absolutely” had to be “experimenting in virtual worlds” if it wanted to get the attention of under 30s.

(…)

“What’s happening with Second Life right now is exactly what happened with the web in the early days,” Mr Rosedale (Linden Lab) said at an event in London this week. “People would say ‘the internet is a horrible place for brands, there’s all this stealing of property, and pornography’, and now what you find is that the web is used relentlessly for information-sharing purposes. We’re seeing exactly the same thing in Second Life.”

(…)

About $1.5 billion has been invested in companies developing technologies for virtual worlds in the past year and a half, according to a report published this week by Forrester, the analyst firm. Driven by the near complete penetration of broadband, an increasingly technology-friendly workforce, and cheap computing tools, the 3D web would be “the next major wave of the internet’s evolution,” the report said.

Read the full news article online at
http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/
tech_and_web/article3803056.ece

Machinima video date: 1-May-08 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHyXQBVU8ro

Related posts:
http://sl-sexualhealth.org.uk/?p=142
http://sl-sexualhealth.org.uk/?p=141
From the blogosphere: Christianity gets a Second Life stage to discuss Sexual Purity - itsReal

Click to enlarge.

We will also be posting in due course access statistics of this blog you are reading now. So far visitors from more than 75 countries around the world have accessed content on this blog! Thank you all of you who are following us in-world and/or out-world for your continuing support and interest!

Our three speakers will hold an open discussion along the lines of this video:
http://realserver.goarch.org/ram/en/sexual_pur.ram – we will be showing a short segment of it in-world at the start of the seminar. They will be responding live (in text and voice) to your questions in-world. Fr Johann Barak, Fr Joshua Tuchs, and Presbytera Anna Hirschel believe that Orthodox Christianity has a strong and very important and practical message for the whole world, especially these days with the very recent announcement of the US CDC that 1 in every 4 American teenage girls has a sexually-transmitted infection (HPV) that can lead later in life to cervical cancer
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7290088.stm).

Join us on Thursday, 1 May 2008, at 1:00 PM PDT/SLT = 9 PM BST (GMT+1) at
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Education%20UK/18/36/22

April 2008:
Why 3D?
Web conferencing: 2D vs. 3D (or both), or ‘Why conduct events and meetings in Second Life?’

Previous snippet–July 2007:
Comparing the 2D Web to 3D multi-user, immersive virtual worlds

Videos MPK20 Demo Quicktime, 4:58	Wonderland Phone Quicktime, 2:16	Interview MP4, 10:34	Tutorial Streaming video

Click to enlarge.

Other news: We are featured on p.16 of the latest March 2008 issue of SLang Life magazine -
http://www.slanglife.com/files/No3_table_of_contents.pdf

Click to enlarge.

Other news: MB will be talking about Sexual Health at the DREAMS Community Fair 2008 on Wed 16 Apr 08 @ 12:00 pm PDT/SLT.

“Intute’s search terminals continue to be popular. (…) There are 80+ distinct search terms captured in the database, the most popular of the user entered terms (ie, not just the default terms initially loaded into the terminal) are ‘STD’ and ’sexual health’ which come from the Plymouth University Sexual Health project in SL.“

 
Read more at http://www.intute.ac.uk/blog/2008/03/28/
dispatches-from-the-virtual-frontier/

Second Life is a trademark of Linden Research, Inc.

Our booth at DREAMS 3rd Annual Fair, 4-25 Apr 08 (click to enlarge).

There will be lots of entertainment opportunities; a like-real, fully interactive amusement park; great games, visuals and music; other interesting health-related projects to learn about in the exhibition; and an excellent scientific programme (see below – as at 3 Apr 08).

Dreams Community Fair 2008 Schedule
April 4-11, 2008 – Booth Set-up
April 11-25,  2008 – Fair Presentations and Events
April 26, 2008 – Booth Take-down

April
F11     – 3:30-4:00 pm PST – Opening Remarks
              4:00-5:00 pm PST – Ideaman Concert
              5:00-8:00 pm PST – Dance for Life and Health with DJ Ricken Flow
             
Sa12     -  12:00 – 1:00 pm PST -  Intro to Sculpted Prims – Vlad Bjornson
                 2:30-3:30 pm PST – Gemini Glitter – Ouchies
                 4:00-5:00 pm PST – Overview of Free Sculpty Tools – Vlad Bjornson
                 5:00-6:00 pm PST – Survivorship – Marymac Dougall
                    
Su13     – 12:00-1:00 pm PST – Spaceman Opus Concert
                 1:00-2:00 pm PST – Grace McDunnough Concert
                 4:00-5:00 pm PST – Alphabet Soup of the Arteries – Ren Stonecutter
                 5:00-6:00 pm PST – Mental Health – Avalon Birke
                
M14     – 12:00-1:00 pm PST – Disabled SL-Peoples Association Discussion – Arcadian Meili
                 3:00-5:00  pm PST – T1 Radio Rock Block
                 6:00-7:00 pm PST – Speed Build with Golda
                
T15     -   1:00-2:00  pm PST – Tringo with Soj
                2:00-3:00 pm PST – Understanding Depression and its Link to Suicide – Amaya Summers
                6:00-7:30 pm PST – TongRen Therapy w/Tong Ren Writer/Support for Healing
                7:30-8:30 pm PST – Improving Memory as we Age – Arwen Gadsby
                
W16     – 12:00 pm PDT/SLT – Sexual Health – MB Chevalier
               5:00-7:00 pm PST – AS Meeting with Ariel Miranda
               (5:00-6:00 pm PST) – The Role of a Neuropsychologist – Arwen Gadsby

Th17     -  1:00-2:00 pm PST – Art and Museums in SL – Arria Perreault- Confederation of Democratic Simulators
                 3:00-4:00 pm PST – Coming of Age in SL Discussion with Tom Bukowski
                 5:00-7:30 pm PST – T1 Radio Mady’s Music Marathon
              
F18     – 1:00-3:00 pm PST – Brainacs – Basic Scripting – Deevyde Maelstrom
               3:00-4:00 pm PST – Women and HIV – Lizzette Zenovka
               4:00-5:30 pm PST – Warbot Construction – Deevyde Maelstrom
               5:30-7:00 pm PST – Brainiacs – Warbots Competition
             
Sa19    -    12:00-1:00 pm PST – Blue Angel – Poetry Reading – Persephone Phoenix
                  1:00-2:00 pm PST – GimpGurl  Community Info Session  – Aleja Asturias
                  1:00-2:00 pm  PST – The Show Must Go On – Osprey Therian /Enjah Mysterio
                  2:00-4:00 pm PST – Motorability Dance – DJ Amanda Shinji
                  4:00-5:30 pm PST – Crohns & Colitis – KirstenAnn Beck

Su20      -    8:00-9:30 am PST – TongRen Therapy w/Tong Ren Writer/Support for Healing
                   12:00-1:00 pm PST – Fighting Spirit Discussion – Poppy Zabelin ACS/Relay
                   3:00-4:00 pm PST – ACS Caregivers Discussion – Marissa Goodliffe
                   4:00-5:00 pm PST – Stroke Prevention and Early Recognition – Ren Stonecutter
                  5:00-7:30 pm PST – T1 Radio Play Something

M21       – 6:00-7:00 pm PST – Speed Build with Golda

T22        – 1:00-2:00 pm PST – Tringo with Soj
                 5:00-7:30 pm PST – T1 Radio Play Something
                 6:00-7:30 pm PST – TongRen Therapy w/Tong Ren Writer/Support for Healing

W23     -  5:00-7:00 pm PST – AS Meeting with Ariel Miranda

Th24    -   6:00-7:00 pm PST – Micala Lumiere Concert

F25     -   12:00-1:00 pm PST – Medical Ethics – Avalon Birke
                1:00-4:00 pm PST – Linden Dunk – Mia Linden
               7:00-8:00 pm PST – Understanding Depression and its Link to Suicide – Amaya Summer

Second Life is a trademark of Linden Research, Inc.

HTML-on-a-prim experiment. Click to enlarge.

—————————————————————————
Schedule for SFEU Second Life Event: Monday March 17th 2008

10.45 – 11.00 Welcome and ‘Meet and Greet’ opportunity to network in world

11.00 – 11.05 Introduction to Second Life and focus of event from Annamarie Kelly

11.05 – 11.15 Presentation from Pauline Randal from Elmwood college – using Second Life within Scottish Colleges with Q&A opportunities

11.15 – 11.25 A YouTube presentation from Maged N Kamel Boulos from Plymouth University, on how they are using Second Life as part of their sexual health teaching with Q&A opportunities

11.25 – 11.35 Networking opportunities and exploration of spot-lighted resources (BlendED, SOLAR, TESEP, Subject Mentors)

11.35 – 11.55 Tour of Second Life teleporting to 2 locations of interest

11.55 – 12.10 Questions and Answers – “How can SL be used to support learning?”

12.15 Close
—————————————————————————

Many thanks, Annamarie, for organising and hosting this excellent event and offering us the opportunity to promote our work!

Also yesterday evening, Maged was invited to contribute to the initial closed discussions about populating (with suitable content) a new ‘AIDS and HIV CENTER’ that will soon open at Healthinfo Island.

Our blog is still the first hit in Google for the keywords “sexual health” + “Second Life”. Our in-world public Group launched on 10 August 2007 now has 128 Members as at 12 March 2008, up from 92 Members on 12 February 2008, 84 Members on 12 January 2008, and 80 Members on 14 December 2007 — figures include two admin members (the core project team).

Also as at 12 March 2008 (1:00 AM SLT time), our SIM received more than 2650 unique visitors/avatars (all time) since our initial launch on 12 July 2007, up from about 2170 unique vistors on 12 February 2008 (12 Jul 07 – 12 Feb 08), 1890 unique visitors on 12 January 2008 (12 Jul 07 – 12 Jan 08), and 1650 unique visitors on 13 December 2007 (12 Jul 07 – 13 Dec 07) — the corresponding figures with repeat visitors would be much higher. The highest peak concurrency figure was 24 avatars/visitors on 17 February 2008, followed by 14 visitors on both 12 September 2007 and 13 December 2007 (all figures not counting owner).

The total visitor-minutes spent on our land during the past 214 days (12 Aug 07 – 11 Mar 08, owner minutes excluded) was >25500 minutes — that is >425 hours, of them >95 hours were spent in the past month (12 Feb 08 – 11 Mar 08), (including >26 hours spent on 17 February 2008 alone), and >65 hours between 13 January 2008 and 11 February 2008.

More than 170 avatars have so far taken our in-world survey as at 11 March 2008 (all instances/responses counted, including incomplete ones).

See also:
http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Media_on_a_parcel (more is in the pipe; this is just the start) and
http://ddmcollective.blogspot.com/2008/03/html-on-prim-sort-of.html and
http://www.sluniverse.com/pics/Default.aspx?Search=html%20on%20a%20prim and
http://sl-sexualhealth.org.uk/?p=131

[Update - 2 Apr 08] Now also supported in the latest official viewer: Second Life Release 1.19.1 (4).

We’d like to thank you once again for your participation in the Health Care Conference at SlangLife Library. We are happy to inform that the event will be featured in March issue of the SL’ang Life magazine. In order to get free copy, please fill in the subscription form at
http://www.slanglife.com

We will be very pleased if you consider joining us on the last weekend of March at the conference on mental health support. Please note that your presentation will be considered as a eventual article for April issue of our magazine. More info soon.

Please contact Uzi Boa or Morrigan Polanski with any suggestions or questions.

Best Regards,
Uzi Boa

This is part of a larger effort, study and Flickr picture set. The latest Eduserv Foundation-funded study into UK universities, colleges and academics developing “stuff” in Second Life, and using this for teaching and learning, is underway. Fuller details are blogged here: www.silversprite.com/?p=460

Other recent online mentionings of our project:
> http://midwiferyeducation.blogspot.com/2008/02/
birthing-centres-in-second-life.html
> http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/335/7630/1122

Well, our virtual condoms remain 100% free, and also come with a comprehensive information pack! Thanks, Kix, for stopping by our blog and joining our in-world group!

However, our audience is not fully represented by/in this Group. We don’t put much emphasis/attention on the number of its Members (but still take it as a positive sign/metric), since the largest majority of our daily and seminar visitors (>95%) are not Members of this Group and, in many cases, cannot be, as Linden imposes a limit on the number of Groups an avatar can join (25). Groups are needed for building and for other land permissions, and for many other in-world transactions that cannot be done without joining a corresponding Group. So with the limited quota of 25, people have difficult choices and priorities to make in this respect.

Snapshots of the event are available at
http://sl-sexualhealth.org.uk/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=3

We chose a starting time that would suit both people in North America and those in Europe (7pm GMT). The seminar went very well. It lasted about an hour and half (one hour for the formal seminar, followed by half an hour of informal audience chatting with Jenn), and involved lots of audience-speaker and audience-audience interactivity/chatting.

About 41 unique avatars visted our SIM on the day of the seminar (17 February 2008). They spent in total more than 1600 minutes on our parcel (that’s >26 hours). Peak concurrency was 24 avatars during the time of the event, excluding the project’s team. This is our highest ever peak concurrency since project launch in July 2007. The event had a solid attendance, with most of the peak concurrency maintained (>20 avatars present) throughout almost the whole formal seminar duration (7-8pm GMT).

Our Second Life official parcel Traffic figure on 18 February 2008 at 15:30 GMT, reflecting actual traffic/total visitors’ minutes on 17 February 2008, the day we had the ‘Opening Up – A Guide for Women’ event: 1687 visitor-minutes, the highest figure our SIM has ever achieved in any single day since project launch in July 2007! Also as at 17 February 2008, our in-world public Group now has 99 Members, up from 92 Members on 12 February 2008.

MNK Boulos replied: This is indeed one of the most important and challenging questions/tasks. Question: Why ‘in SL and not in “any” website’. Task: To identify the unique affordances/’raison(s) d’être’ of Second Life (and direct compatibles)*** in medical/health education, what it can do better or best (there are many things), and what it can’t do at all or well. Many simulations can still be designed and run more efficiently and effectively in Macromedia Flash, e.g., Edheads’ interactive Virtual Hip Replacement http://www.edheads.org/activities/hip/index.htm and Knee Surgery http://www.edheads.org/activities/knee/index.htm. Flash also allows multi-user interactive applications/chat (in fact Metaplace http://www.metaplace.com/ is based on Flash). Other more powerful platforms also exist, e.g., http://www.trusim.com/

MNK Boulos – 13 Feb 08
*** Like the new OpenLife Grid http://openlifegrid.com/ and the other OpenSim-based public grids, e.g., http://virtualworldgrid.com/ – http://deepgrid.com/ – http://centralgrid.com/ and http://osgrid.org/
(see this message)

[Update] Another reply: “The most interesting thing about SL is the communication with many different cultures, ages, and nationalities, people with different interests and goals. Having activities in a more sterile environment is less interesting, even though the game quality could be better.  Support groups are here also, a key aspect of learning.“

MNK Boulos‘ reply: I agree, but many social networking and communication sites are already doing exactly this, e.g., Sermo http://sermo.com/, Facebook, Paltalk http://www.paltalk.com/, YouTube, etc. and also feature embedded games and videos (not just links to them), both synchronous and asynchronous discussion/chat tools, as well as vibrant ’support groups’ for all sorts of topics/themes and communities.

More replies: [1], [2].

Access point for the new 3D virtual tour of the testis (touch in-world for info and landmark–thanks to SL:DrDoug Pennell from The Ohio State University for sharing his 3D tour with us).

Our blog is still the first hit in Google for the keywords “sexual health” + “Second Life”, and was also featured as a ‘rceommended resource’ in an article by Elisabeth Marrapodi (SL:Brielle Coronet) entitled ‘Get a Second Life’ that was published in the latest issue of National Network vol. 32 (3) January 2008 pp. 12-13.

Our in-world public Group launched on 10 August 2007 now has 92 Members as at 12 February 2008, up from 84 Members on 12 January 2008, 80 Members on 14 December 2007, and 66 Members on 13 November 2007 — figures include three admin members (the core project team).

Also as at 12 February 2008 (1:00 AM SLT time), our SIM received more than 2170 unique visitors/avatars (all time) since our initial launch on 12 July 2007, up from about 1890 unique visitors on 12 January 2008 (12 Jul 07 – 12 Jan 08), 1650 unique visitors on 13 December 2007 (12 Jul 07 – 13 Dec 07), and 1300 unique visitors on 13 November 2007 (12 Jul 07 – 13 Nov 07) — the corresponding figures with repeat visitors would be much higher. The highest peak concurrency figure was 14 visitors on both 12 September 2007 and 13 December 2007 (all figures not counting owner).

The total visitor-minutes spent on our land during the past 184 days (12 Aug 07 – 11 Feb 08, owner minutes excluded) was >19940 minutes — that is >330 hours, of them >65 hours were spent in the past month (13 Jan 08 – 11 Feb 08), and >50 hours between 14 December 2007 and 12 January 2008.

More than 150 avatars have so far taken our in-world survey as at 11 February 2008.

Event snapshots:
http://sl-sexualhealth.org.uk/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=2
See also:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/slml/2251734386/ and http://bloghud.com/id/18528/

This brief presentation

About the Presenter: Jenn Twin is an experienced Sexual Health Educator based in Canada in RL, with nearly 10 years experience in the field.  She has written a literature review on condom distribution programmes in schools, has worked to develop programming for Planned Parenthood, and is currently working on developing services for sexual assault victims.

When/where: Sunday,  17 February 2008 @ 11:00 AM SLT/7:00 PM UK/GMT at http://slurl.com/secondlife/Education%20UK/33/63/22

Have you tried the new WindLight viewer? The snapshot below shows our new sky and sea as rendered in WindLight (click to enlarge).

Warning: Requires beefy graphics card to cope with ‘Ultra’ quality settings (in SL ‘Preferences’)!

See also:
http://artfossett.blogspot.com/2008/01/thinking-about-learning-impact-of.html
and http://dis.shef.ac.uk/sheila/evaluating-notecard.pdf

Our in-world public Group launched on 10 August 2007 now has 87 Members as at 21 January 2008. We regularly send information Notices and updates to our members (some of our latest Notices are shown above – Notices are archived for 30 days).

These galleries explore these questions and provide some starting points for you as you design your own exhibits:”
http://slurl.com/secondlife/The%20Tech/128/128/30

“Give people facts and you feed their minds for an hour. Awaken curiosity and they feed their own minds for a lifetime.” –Ian Russell

A PDF copy is also available here.

Our Technorati blog authority is now 26 (up from 21 on 14 November 2007, 16 on 14 September 2007 and 5 at the beginning of August 2007). Our in-world public Group launched on 10 August 2007 now has 80 Members as at 14 December 2007, up from 66 Members on 13 November 2007 and 25 Members on 12 August 2007 — figures include three admin members (the core project team). Also as at 13 December 2007 (end of the day, SLT time), our SIM received more than 1650 unique visitors/avatars (all time) since our initial launch on 12 July 2007, up from about 1300 unique visitors on 13 November 2007 (12 Jul 07 – 13 Nov 07), 940 unique visitors on 13 October 2007 (12 Jul 07 – 13 Oct 07), 590 unique visitors on 13 September 2007 (12 Jul 07 – 13 Sep 07), and 210 unique visitors on 11 August 2007 (12 Jul 07 – 11 Aug 07) — the corresponding figures with repeat visitors would be much higher. The highest peak concurrency figure was 14 visitors (not counting owner) on 12 September 2007 and 13 December 2007, followed by 12 visitors on 6 December 2007, 11 visitors on 29 November 2007, and 7 visitors on 2 November 2007 (again, all figures not counting owner). The total visitor-minutes spent on our land during the past 124 days (12 Aug 07 – 13 Dec 07, owner minutes excluded) was >12900 minutes — that is >215 hours, of them >95 hours were spent in the past 30 days (14 Nov 07 – 13 Dec 07, including >20 hours on 13 Dec 07 alone)! More than 130 avatars have so far taken our in-world survey as at 13 December 2007. Our project has been presented at various in-world and out-world/local and international events and conferences, and even briefly featured in the sBMJ issue of Dec 07.

Click to enlarge.
Snapshots taken during the ‘Family planning and contraceptives’ seminar on 13 December 2007, 8-10pm GMT.

We tried a time that would suit both people in North America and those in Europe (8-10pm GMT). The seminar went well. It lasted about two hours and involved lots of audience-speaker and audience-audience interactivity: discussions, questions/answers, and even an avatar from the audience relating their personal experience with one of the contraceptive methods! We also had a quiz (a copy of the questions and answers is now available via the Notecard giver ball beside our PowerPoint display unit by the ocean).

About 33 unique avatars visted our SIM on the day of the seminar (13 December 2007). They spent in total more than 1200 minutes on our parcel (that’s >20 hours). Peak concurrency was 14 avatars during the time of the event.

Our Second Life official parcel Traffic figure on 14 December 2007, reflecting actual traffic/total visitors’ minutes on 13 December 2007, the day we had the ‘Family planning and contraceptives’ event: 1276 up from 304 the day before.

One of our visitors sent us a message saying “Isn’t it an oxymoron to have a Christmas tree (the celebration of a birth) during the Contraception Seminar….?  Not judging… just find this humorous….“.

Our reply was “Not at all. Our position is neutral; please read this: http://sl-sexualhealth.org.uk/?p=49  Plus there are natural methods and very valid reasons for family planning approved by the Eastern Orthodox Church http://orthodoxwiki.org/Contraception“.

Below is a snapshot of a very ‘quick-and-dirty’ AIDS-related Kaposi Sarcoma “skin” for use in-world (it’s actually a transparent undershirt with the lesions). People wearing it are able to see and experience on their own avatar how Kaposi Sarcoma looks/feels in AIDS patients. Of course the same principle can be expanded, refined and used to role-play patients with various skin conditions/presentations and at various stages of their disease (to show progress, worsening or healing). Such “patients” (driven by real humans behind the PCs, who should also have full patient knowledge about the conditions they are role-playing) can be used to train clinicians in-world (esp. on rare conditions and for undergraduate teaching). A kind of a virtual clinical round, you may call it, where trainee clinicians can also ask these virtual patients questions (history taking) and get intelligent answers by the patients in real time (using voice or text or both), conduct clinical examination in the usual way (avatars can take off clothes :-), ask for investigations, receive feedback, and have additional sensorial inputs in-world like streaming audio/videos (live or on-demand), photos and text, as well as links to flat Web pages and resources.

One can easily zoom into the lesions, and high-resolution is possible. One can wear a skin and take it off/wear another one in almost no time (but it takes considerable skill and time to develop these skins–thanks to SL:Bailey Yifu for the AIDS-related Kaposi Sarcoma one). This can help demonstrating the progress of a lesion/response to treatment (e.g., depending on trainee clinician’s answers in-world, the person role-playing the patient can switch to/show the appropriate corresponding or matching skin, so that the trainee doctor is also able to see the effect of their diagnosis and treatment).

See also: IBM uses 3D imaging to visualise patient records (E-Health Insider – 27 September 2007)
http://www.e-health-insider.com/news/3066/ibm_uses_3d_imaging_to_visualise_patient_records

–M.N.K. Boulos – 30 Nov 07

The paper covers is the convergence potentials of mirror worlds and virtual worlds, which together with lifelogging and augmented reality, will create the full 3-D Internet/Metaverse in a decade or so from now.

1 December 2007 is World AIDS Day.

Click to enlarge. ‘Learning to prevent AIDS‘ interview/article display and link to 20 YouTube videos (blue HTTP cube) contributed to the UOP Sexual Health SIM by Barbara Hastings-Asatourian (inset bottom right).

I recently received the following query via e-mail:

How can (if it can) the “impact” of using SL for educational purposes such as an in-world seminar or tutorial, over not using SL, be “measured” or quantified?

Following is my quick reply (copied from two separate e-mail replies of mine):

e-mail 1: SL has its parcel traffic metrics/user tracking tools like any other more conventional Web-based system. You would measure the impact (depending on specific contexts/subject matters) like you would do for any more conventional Web-based or digital (e.g., CD/DVD-ROM) system; surveys, focus groups and interviews are among the tools + the more quantitative automatic usage metrics (see my second e-mail below).

e-mail 2: “Measuring” the “impact” is very tied to the subject you are using SL for, AND the way you are using SL to serve this subject, plus other factors like audience profiles, etc. Hence I would avoid saying that one would be measuring the impact of SL in education in general, or comparing SL with the flat Web. A bad production or movie should not be taken as an evidence that the motion picture/cinema has no impact or is all bad, just because some producer doesn’t know how to use it properly. Also in addition to the points mentioned in my first reply to you concerning this question, I would also include analysis of chat logs/session recordings, course outcomes/exam results and effect on drop-out rates (esp. in distance learning courses) among the evaluation tools/metrics. But everything should be interpreted with a grain of salt (you might be measuring ‘production quality’ or ‘fitness for purpose’ of the specific instance at hand, rather than SL (or the flat Web) as a tool). And quantitative metrics alone are not a very useful measure; a popular site is not necessarily one that users have found (later, after visiting) useful, or one that has resulted (again, later after the visits have been counted) in a positive change in their knowledge, attitude and behaviour! (Behaviour is the most difficult of the three, (knowledge, attitude and behaviour–in this order), to change/measure.) For some SL metrics tools, check out:
http://www.second-labs.com/
http://www.mayarealities.com/
http://www.code4software.com/VTracker.aspx
http://www.slmetrics.com/

[N.B.: In SL, users can frequently zoom into some object and even fully interact with it at a distance (Client menu > untick 'Limit Select Distance' and tick 'Disable Camera Constraints'). In such cases a parcel's visitor counter/sensor would be useless, as it would fail to count this type of usage/interaction with content on the parcel. But individual objects on the parcel can be designed to have their own scripts for logging such interactions that involve touching or clicking the object at a distance (but still not simple 'zooms into' the object).]

–M.N.K. Boulos – 13, 18 Nov 07

Volume 24, Issue 4, Pages 233-245, Cover Date December 2007

Journal Name: Health Information and Libraries Journal

Click here to go to the abstract of this article in Blackwell Synergy:
http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1471-1842.2007.00733.x  [PubMed/MEDLINE]

Our Technorati blog authority is now 21 (up from 16 on 14 September 2007 and 5 at the beginning of August 2007). Our in-world public Group launched on 10 August 2007 now has 66 Members as at 13 November 2007, up from 25 Members on 12 August 2007 — figures include three admin members (the core project team). Also as at 13 November 2007 (end of the day, SLT time), our SIM received more than 1300 unique visitors/avatars (all time) since our initial launch on 12 July 2007, up from about 940 unique visitors on 13 October 2007 (12 Jul 07 – 13 Oct 07), 590 unique visitors on 13 September 2007 (12 Jul 07 – 13 Sep 07), and 210 unique visitors on 11 August 2007 (12 Jul 07 – 11 Aug 07) — the corresponding figures with repeat visitors would be much higher. The highest peak concurrency figure was 14 visitors (not counting owner) on 12 September 2007, followed by 7 visitors on 2 November 2007 (again, not counting owner). The total visitor-minutes spent on our land during the past 94 days (12 Aug 07 – 13 Nov 07, owner minutes excluded) was >7300 minutes (that is >120 hours!). More than 110 avatars have so far taken our in-world survey as at 13 November 2007.

UOP Sexual Health SIM on CNN SL I-Reports (click to enlarge).

 
 Click thumbnails to enlarge.

Maged also delivered a short presentation and LIVE tour of the Sexual Health SIM in Second Life on 31 October 2007, 11am-12pm, to a mixed audience of staff and students from various faculties, schools and departments across the University of Plymouth. The session took place in room 011 in the recently-opened Roland Lewinsky Building at the main Plymouth campus, and was very well attended and received by the audience.

We also carried out several dissemination activities over the past weeks, including presenting ‘A quick tour of the University of Plymouth’s Sexual Health Project in Second Life’ at the Rethinking Interprofessional Education and Development Conference, Plymouth, UK, on 8 October 2007 — Maged did a short PowerPoint about the 3-D Internet, plus a 15-minute LIVE tour of our SIM in Second Life, which was extremely well received by the audience (from all over the UK and also Canada). More dissemination activities are planned in the near future, so stay tuned.

Our new interactive 3-D globe for accessing STIs/HIV/AIDS statistics and information for Europe.
Where: Look for the 3-D globe beside the giant yellow-red flowers outside the glass building.
Use is very simple: In the public chat box, type:
/8 where is country-name
to find country-name in a list of 53 European region countries and plot it on the globe as red marker. Once plotted, touch the marker to access the latest STIs/HIV/AIDS statistics and information for that country.

The underlying technology from Daden.co.uk can also be used to geographically map and access live news stories in-world, as well as all sorts of real-time Google Earth (KML) feeds and Geo/RSS data by plotting points on the globe (in-world), and further linking those points to images and Web URLs. One can have more than one function/target info item associated all at the same time with a plotted location (Landmarks, Notecards, other Inventory items, and/or Web URLs). Users can also do the reverse: put pins on a map in-world, and then view the data points on the Web in Google Maps or Google Earth.

Related: See ‘Second Life GIS’ section at
http://healthcybermap.org/sl.htm (regularly updated).

Thanks to SL:Ziolla Magpie, we now also have a new interactive ‘Silent Witness‘ display about domestic violence and its victims, just beside our CDC podcast player by the sea.

Aerial view of the University of Plymouth Sexual Health SIM in Second Life. The land is 1760 m2, with a 402 prim quota, of which 344 prims were used as at 1 October 2007 when this screenshot was made.

For multimedia information about HPV, please visit our interactive STDs info kiosk/atlas in-world (located near the fountain).

P.S. We have updated the video stream in our SIM, so that the AIDS programme loads faster and plays smoothly (it now points to an .mp4 file specifically hinted for streaming).

The ‘Broken Wing’ Event on 12 September 2007 was a real success! Many thanks to our guest speaker SL:Beacon Becloud, and to all those who have attended and contributed to the discussions during and after the seminar (about 20 avatars — peak was 14, and more than 10 stayed from start to end: 8-9 pm BST). (On the day of the event, 12 September 2007, our SIM received more than 40 unique visitors/avatars (peak unique visitors was 14), who spent >850 minutes on our land.)

To view clearer snapshots of the ‘Broken Wing’ Event held at the UOP Sexual Health SIM on 12 September 07 at 12:00 noon SLT/PDT (08:00 PM UK Time), please visit our Image Gallery Search page http://www.sl-sexualhealth.org.uk/gallery/search.php and search for: BrokenWing (type it as one word). Maged uploaded 20 full-screen snapshots he took during the event.

Our Second Life official parcel Traffic on 13 September 2007 (reflecting actual traffic on 12 September 2007, the day we had the ‘Broken Wing’ event): 855, up from 95 on the day before!

Our PR Newswire press release of 12 September 2007 (see: http://www.sluniverse.com/aw/Story.aspx?StoryID=96) was also displayed on all in-world PR Newswire kiosks around the Second Life Grid, including kiosks at the central plaza in Midnight City, Aqua, Kula 1, Hawthorne, Lukanida, Slackstreet, Isles of Intrigue2, Fusion Bay, Text 100 Island, Ruby–Ivanova, and many other locations.

Promoting our SIM: A copy of our historical STDs posters kiosk and SIM landmark/URL giver is now on permanent display at Healthinfo Island (95, 152, 21). Many thanks to SL:Carolina Keats.

Latest stats: Our Technorati blog authority is now 16 (up from 5 at the beginning of August 2007). Our in-world public Group launched on 10 August 2007 now has 57 Members as at 13 September 2007, up from 25 Members on 12 August 2007 — figures include three admin members (the core project team), and, as at 13 September 2007 (end of the day, SLT time), our SIM received more than 590 unique visitors/avatars (all time) since our initial launch on 12 July 2007, up from about 210 unique visitors on 11 August 2007 (12 Jul 07 – 11 Aug 07) — the corresponding figures with repeat visitors would be much higher. The total visitor-minutes spent on our land during the past 33 days (12 Aug 07 – 13 Sep 07, owner minutes excluded) was >3000 minutes (that is >50 hours!), including >850 minutes on 12 September 2007 alone (the day we had the ‘Broken Wing’ Event).

Our public Group in Second Life: 57 Members as at 13 September 2007.

For the latest news and resources about Second Life in Medicine and Health, please visit http://healthcybermap.org/sl.htm

Aerial view of the University of Plymouth Sexual Health SIM in Second Life. The land is 1760 m2, with a 402 prim quota, of which 341 prims were used as at 10 September 2007 when this screenshot was made.

Next Wednesday, 12 September 2007, at 12:00 noon SLT/PDT (= 08:00 PM UK Time), SL:Beacon Becloud, will be delivering a live seminar at the University of Plymouth Sexual Health SIM about their new ‘Broken Wing, Learning to Fly’ project in Second Life. The project provides in-world services for all RL victims of sexual abuse and domestic violence, with two certified counsellors, support groups, and even free in-world housing for those victims (housing is offered at the Narnia SIM).

The project is unique of its kind in SL, as the previous SL project/ display entitled ‘Silent Witness/Broken Silence’ and targeting victims of domestic violence is no longer active -
http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=8641115756819649936

Landmarks:
University of Plymouth Sexual Health SIM
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Education%20UK/33/63/22
(the event will take place in our open-air seminar area)

Broken Wing – Narnia
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Narnia/160/220/23

Watch two related videos…

More Sexual Health/Sex Education videos from teachers.tv:

26 August 2007:

Condom Tac Toe!

Other additions: There are free sexual health pamphlets below the laptop in the glass building. Please help yourself! We have also added new links, including ‘DIPEx Sexual Health of Young People Module’ and more, to the blue http cube, which is now also animated. The voice-enabled STDs info kiosk/atlas beside the cube also has an additional slide/link to an ‘Interactive Map of STDs in London PCTs, 1997-2003′.* And lastly, we have some new giant flowers beside the fountain. Enjoy!

 
Pamphlets, new links, map and flowers!  (Inset: The new pamphlets rack; touch to get a pamphlet.)

Historical STDs posters stand.

*The map is described in Boulos et al. Int J Health Geogr. 2005 Jan 18;4:4.
P.S. A Notice entitled ‘UK: Rise in sex infections continues’ (with a Notecard attachment about the latest UK STIs stats from HPA has been sent today to members of our in-world public group.

M.N.K. Boulos‘ comment on above slide from IBM (click to enlarge): A 3-D virtual world offers a shared virtual space, enabling students and tutors to feel more naturally, closely and strongly together because of the shared spatial dimension, which can also have other educational uses during a voice conferencing session, including scenarios involving avatars and various in-world objects. You don’t get the same shared pseudo-physical spatial dimension in conventional flat text (and emoticons) / voice / video conferencing and chatting over the Web.
(To see the above slide in-world, visit Info Island (54, 95, 36).)

Intute is a free UK online service providing access to the very best Web resources for education and research. All material in the Intute database is evaluated and selected by a network of subject specialists from a consortium of seven UK universities. ‘Intute: Health and Life Sciences’ is led by the University of Nottingham.

Our custom Intute search engine retrieves quality search results from http://www.intute.ac.uk/ and displays them in-world.

Latest stats: Our Technorati blog authority is now 14 (up from 5 at the beginning of August 2007). Also our overview machinima clip has been watched 5,679 times during the first month after its posting on YouTube (25 Jul 07 - 24 Aug 07 noon BST). Our in-world public group launched on 10 August 2007 now has 42 members as at 24 August 2007 @ 13:00 BST (up from 25 members on 12 August 2007), and as at 23 August 2007, our SIM received more than 340 unique visitors/avatars since our initial launch on 12 July 2007, up from about 210 unique visitors on 11 August 2007 (12 Jul 07 - 11 Aug 07) — the corresponding figures with repeat visitors would be much higher. The total visitor-minutes spent on our land during the past 12 days (12 Aug 07 – 23 Aug 07, owner minutes excluded) was >850 minutes.

She also uploaded a nice Flickr collection of snapshots that she took during her visit to our SIM:
http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=Sexual%20Health&w=21548501%40N00

Vanessa works at the Health Promotion Board of Singapore, handling the new media aspects of their HIV/AIDS campaigns. Welcome Vanessa!

Guus van den Brekel (SL:Namro Orman), who oversees HealthInfo Island with Carol Perryman (SL:Carolina Keats), also visited our SIM this week and blogged about it:
Sexual Health Info Station! (14 August 2007) -
http://bloghud.com/id/12343/

Our new interactive STDs info kiosk/atlas with voice narration. The pre-recorded voice files are stored on the Web outside Second Life to ensure faster access, and also to avoid playing them in-world, (which may annoy other visitors in our SIM), and give our visitors more individual control over voice clip playback without interference by others.

Other news: Our public group launched on 10 August 2007 now has 25 members as at 12 August 2007 @ 20:30 BST, including three admin members (the core project team). We have also installed a new advanced traffic monitor that can track repeat, as well as unique/new visitors, and provide us with useful statistics, including visitors per day, peak visitors and total time visiting (owner’s visits are not counted/monitored). The latter statistic (‘total time visiting’) can serve as a rough measure of visitors’ interest in/perceived utility of our SIM (see this related news item: [1]).

Key resources that we have consulted and are currently using to guide the development of this content include the UK’s Independent Advisory Group on Sexual Health and HIV/AIDs publications and selected peer reviewed articles on interventions targeting sexual health. For an excellent perspective on the social and contextual factors contributing to HIV/AIDS, see Logan, Cole, & Leukefeld’s (2002) meta-analysis in the latter.

Hand-picked Web resources that our SIM visitors currently have access to via in-world links include:

• Information from NHS Direct Online; 
• Material from the World Health Organization (all in-world broken links are now fixed); 
• Material from sexualityandu.ca, a portal of the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada (SOGC);
• Material from the Family Planning Association, a UK sexual health charity;
• Podcasts from the US-based Centers for Disease Control (include sexual health topics);
• Material from RESOLVE, the National Infertility Association: in-world display offering Preserving Fertility information; and
• A sexual health video library from VideoJug featuring interviews with Dr Christian Jessen and others.

Second Life is a unique and rich 3-D social networking experience. It allows people from all over the world to meet, share objects and collaborate in many novel ways, using a comprehensive and well-integrated suite of asynchronous and synchronous multimodal communication tools. One of these powerful social networking/ communication tools is the ‘Groups’ functionality in Second Life.

Our public in-world ‘Sexual Health SIM’ group. Joining this group is FREE (L$0) and open to anyone in Second Life. Note our new ‘Touch to join our Group’ ball inside our glass building.

We have now created a new in-world public ’Sexual Health SIM’ group (pictured above) for young adults and health educators interested in our subject. (Creating a new group in Second Life costs L$100. This is our second group; we have another private/closed group limited to the project’s core team and tied to our land, which we created at the start of the project to enable us to collaboratively create and edit objects on our parcel.)

It is hoped that our new public group and communication channel, and the material/info and forthcoming event notifications that will be exchanged through it, will grow to attract and accommodate dozens or even hundreds of users and supporters over the course of the project. The group has been set so that all members can:

• Invite others/friends to join the group;
• Join Calls/Send group IMs (Instant Messages/group chat that can reach all group members, irrespective of their locations in-world, with a single click — we will be closely monitoring this functionality for any abuse/spam and will eject abusers from the group);
• Receive Notices and view past Notices; and
• Vote on Proposals.

The new group charter reads as follows:

An open group/communication forum dedicated to ‘Sexual Health’ public education and outreach in Second Life.

Web: http://sl-sexualhealth.org.uk/
SLurl: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Education%20UK/33/63/22

The group covers Sexual Health topics like Sexually Transmitted Infections and Contraception. Joining this group is FREE!

The group is branded with the University of Plymouth logo. You can find the group and join it in-world, if you search for Groups and type in ‘Sexual Health SIM’. Visitors to our SIM can also request to join the group by simply touching the ‘white ball with the University of Plymouth logo’ inside our glass building (the new ball is also pictured above).

Our latest in-world visitor statistics show that we have had more than 210 unique visitors/avatars in the first four weeks after our initial launch, between 12 July 2007 and 10 August 2007, up from about 160 unique visitors on 4 August 2007 (12 Jul 07 – 4 Aug 07) — the corresponding figures with repeat visitors would be much higher.  

Ask Alice (our pseudo-intelligent chatbot) a question about contraception or STIs! Alice can be found 24/7 inside our glass building. Click her to hear a warm ‘Welcome’ in a female voice and then start chatting with her! Inset: Human help is also available using our new ‘online tracker’ gadget, which visitors can use to send us instant messages when we are in-world but not in our SIM.

Our ‘Alice chatterbot’ is intended to present some simple facts about contraception and STIs in a fun way, but cannot replace consultation with a real human expert. For best results, try including common keywords like ‘condom’ or ‘herpes’ in your questions, and only ask her simple questions, e.g., ‘What is…’ or ‘Tell me some info about…’ type of questions. (Her answers may sound silly or out of context sometimes, but at least will never harm you or offer you incorrect facts/info.)

Maged built this gadget using only one prim (plus L$20 to upload Alice’s picture and voice), and powered it by creating a modified version of SL:Dedric Mauriac’s public domain Eliza Chatbot script. (A second script is also included to play Alice’s sound when a user clicks the gadget.)

We have also uploaded a few useful slides about the prevention of STIs into our in-world PowerPoint Viewer, which is located by the sea in our open-air seminar area. (Our 3-prim Slide Viewer object is a creation of SL:Eloise Pasteur and can be obtained from her in-world vendor at the ICT Library Shop.)

Our latest in-world visitor statistics show that we have had more than 160 unique visitors/avatars in the first three weeks after our initial launch, between 12 July 2007 and 4 August 2007 (the figure with repeat visitors would be much higher for the same period – the corresponding SL traffic figures for our SIM fluctuated up and down between 10 and >300 over the same three-week period; SL traffic calculation takes into account the length of visits), but our YouTube video has been viewed more than 1500 times between 25 July 2007 and 4 August 2007! Also during the same short period of about three weeks our blog’s Technorati Authority jumped from 0 to 5! (This blog entry describes a similar observation: “a SL presence has a ‘long tail of impact’ (including on the Web, outside SL) that’s measured in more than the number of avatars in any one place at any one point in time”.)

Automatic tracking of visitors’ interest in, and interaction details with, specific individual objects in our SIM would be more useful, though also technically much trickier to implement and sometimes not feasible, reliably or at all, with some object types/scenarios. But thanks to our in-world questionnaire tool we are still able to gain some insight about (some) users’ preferences/interest in, or dislike of, partcular objects or aspects of our SIM.

Voice at last!

Our podPlayer (powered by podcastpickle.com) allows our SIM visitors to access and listen to the latest podcasts from the US CDC.

Latest news media coverage of our project:

• Island SLife (31 July 2007) -
  http://steve-wheeler.blogspot.com/2007/07/island-slife.html 
• Sex Ed Comes to Online Game ‘Second Life’ (Switched, NY – 31 July 2007) -
  http://www.switched.com/2007/07/31/sex-ed-come-to-online-game-second-life/
• Sex ed in Second Life (Salon, USA - 31 July 2007) -
  http://www.salon.com/mwt/broadsheet/2007/07/31/sex_in_
  second_life/index.html
• Free (Virtual) Condoms in Second Life (30 July 2007) -
  http://www.campusprogress.org/page/community/post/ksteiger/C24Q

Also Rod Ward posted an entry about our project in Informaticopia (27 July 2007):
http://www.rodspace.co.uk/blog/2007/07/sexual-health-sim-project-in-second.html

Learning can and should be fun! Our giant and colourful, butterfly-emitting flowers are a good example of how we designed our SIM to be a truly immersive world in which reality (RL) and fantasy are seamlessly mixed in a carefully balanced way that is warmly-inviting, youthful, cheerful, enjoyable, practical and functional, and aesthetically pleasing, all at the same time (apologies for the long list of adjectives :-). We avoided the replication of a boring and often intimidating RL institutional or classroom environment in SL, but at the same time maintained solid and familiar links with RL.

Our in-world objects are not too abstract, thus reducing learners’ cognitive load – even if over-sized or presented on purpose in some other “odd” way, they remain in essence familiar RL objects that visitors can easily relate to, without being at the same time boring exact replicas of the RL objects they represent. (But faithful replicas of RL objects and buildings in SL are sometimes necessary and to be encouraged depending on context/application, e.g., virtual tourism/history and architectural modelling of RL buildings in SL for various RL planning/testing, simulation, training and marketing purposes. On the other hand, very abstract creations also have a place as forms of art in SL.) Realistic sound effects can also greatly enhance the ambience and immersiveness of educational SIMs.

But too much fun and fantasy (‘bells and whistles’ not directly reinforcing the educational message) might also negatively affect the learning process by acting as distractors. So again a good balance is needed.

We hope this approach will positively effect our young visitors’ learning experience and retention, and also encourage longer visits and more exploration of, and interaction with, our SIM’s educational objects, as well as more repeat visits and ‘teleport offers’ to friends.

These beautiful flying butterflies (pictured above) are continuously emitted by a hidden scripted object that is only one prim (bought for L$100). Catch them with your mouse if you can! (The giant flowers were created by SL:Troy McLuhan and were free to ‘Take Copy’ at another SIM, and that’s how we acquired them, a good example of how (prefab) objects can be reused unchanged or modified, remixed and repurposed in many creative ways in the immersive, vast 3D wiki that is SL, much à la Web 2.0 (subject to the object having its SL DRM properties set to allow reuse/modification).)

Related food for thought:

• Kemp J. Designing in Second Life (The SLED Picayune – 2 June 2007) -
  http://sledpicayune.blogspot.com/2007/06/designing-in-second-life.html
• Mosely B. Keynote session at Second Life Best Practices in Education Conference 2007 (25 May 2007) -
  http://healthcybermap.org/MNKB_slbp2007.pdf
• ‘The copying of RL into SL is rather silly’–multiple with and against opinions/messages with this subject line (SL Educators List – July 2007) -
  https://lists.secondlife.com/pipermail/educators/2007-July/subject.html

 –M.N.K. Boulos – 28 July 2007

Our in-world questionnaire now features three new open-ended questions (including ‘What did you like the most?’ and ‘What did you like the least?’), which respondents can answer in free text by typing in the chat box, in addition to the original six close-ended/fixed-choice questions. (The script then e-mails all answers to the project team.)

It is also worth noting that we are already using Eloise’s scripts elsewhere in our SIM, e.g., the slide/PPT viewer in our open-air seminar area and the script powering our blue obelisk quiz game, both of which (and many more) can be bought from her in-world vendor at the ICT Library Shop. Eloise also wrote a nice article about our project for Second Life Insider (see link below). Thanks Eloise!

Latest blog entries about our project:

• Sex in SL -
  http://www.secondlifeinsider.com/2007/07/27/sex-in-sl/ (Eloise’s article mentioned above - don’t miss the readers’ comments below her article)
• Virtual condoms anyone? -
  http://steve-wheeler.blogspot.com/2007/07/virtual-condoms.html

Left: Eloise Pasteur during her visit to our SIM on 27 July 2007 – Right: Our in-world questionnaire tool.

This video provides an introduction to some of the resources currently available at the Sexual Health SIM, a snapshot of our “work in progress.”

We need to especially identify and focus/capitalise on what 3D virtual worlds are best at–those (useful) things/scenarios that can only be effectively carried out in virtual worlds and not via any other ‘e’ medium (as effectively), and also determine the optimal formulae for blended approaches that combine 2D and 3D media.

Online leaflets and static information materials have no social component–even those materials offering single-user interactivity or asynchronous, multi-user (predominantly textual) interactivity remain seriously lacking in this respect. Second Life, on the other hand, is about 3D social networking par excellence; it has this unique ‘human touch’ and is instantaneous, something not found (in a similar way) in 2D social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook or in instant messaging/voice chatting services like Paltalk. Second Life is closer in many respects to face-to-face/social encounters, but also adds to them many exciting new dimensions, fantasy, and virtually endless possibilities–you name it. And let’s not forget that Second Life is a collaborative 3D wiki and an immersive audio-visual spatial experience that users can edit, experiment with, and see the changes in real time!

People also have different tastes/preferences and currently the audiences of the 2D Web and the 3D Web/Second Life are overlapping but still different (read the US CDC arguments about this: “going where people are… yet another opportunity to learn and teach about public health”). Furthermore, and in support of the above mentioned potential complementarity and synergy between both media, we are starting to see the 2D and 3D Webs gradually converge and merge; see, for example, the Flux project, this blog article and this application.

So 3D virtual worlds are here to stay and eventually become one with/tightly and seamlessly integrated with the 2D Web over the coming months and years (rather than replace the 2D Web). Indeed, a recent futuristic/visionary American report entitled VISIONS 2020–Transforming Education and Training Through Advanced Technologies suggests that by 2020 (or before) we will see new jobs like “simulation and virtual environments engineers who build and maintain the components for synthetic environments, including specialised scientific software, e.g., a digital human that can be used for a variety of learning situations; specialists in building the components of simulated towns, instruments, landscapes, biological systems, or physical phenomena”.

–M.N.K. Boulos – 24 July 2007

Click the image above to listen to a sample of our new ambient sounds.

Related SL function: http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/LlLoopSound

We have also added a virtual bookshelf (beside the mock laptop, again inside the glass building), which visitors can interact with to browse a collection of 22 PowerPoint FLIPCHARTS and other documents from the World Health Organization that together make an excellent decision-making and how-to tool for family planning and sexual health.

Finally, we have contacted the UK Family Planning Association (fpa) for possible collaboration with them, and added an in-world link to their homepage to our blue Web URL Cycler/Launcher cube by the fountain.

Our Free (virtual) Condom Dispenser: dispenses two 3D male condom objects to user’s inventory, plus an information notecard on how to use a (real) male condom. Maged built the dispenser using only one prim, and textured it using two uploaded images (at L$10 each), one for the front of the machine and the other for the remaining sides. The virtual condom objects (do not count as simulator prims) and information notecard are stored inside the dispenser object (as ‘Content’), together with a script to offer (copies of) them to the user upon clicking on the machine (try it now in-world).

Some have argued that you cannot use an SL virtual condom in RL sex, but you also cannot drink a Coca-Cola radio! It is the message that matters in both cases (‘remember to use a condom’; ‘drink Coca-Cola’)!

Our new Resolve.org multi-slide information display about ‘Preserving Fertility’ (slides used by permission).

[...]

If you are reading this, then you sent me a good reply to the request for information about your Second Life development. To which: thanks very much. The report is finished, and online at:

http://www.eduserv.org.uk/foundation/sl/uksnapshot072007

[...]

Thanks John!

Other updates:

• Added new/more questions to our in-world survey tool;
• Added new right/wrong textures and an additional prize (prizes are given by the game at random) to our Big Quiz Game; and
• Increased size of our video screen (inside the glass building).

The Big Quiz Game – an interactive graphical ’Contraception and STDs’ quiz with a prize to win if your answer is correct (the prize is delivered to your inventory in-world). The four photo tiles change position randomly each time the game is played.

We also have another new gadget to show you today:

Our new Web URL Cycler/Launcher featuring a hand-picked collection of Online Sexual Health Resources from NHS Direct and Mayo Clinic.

Our newsstand displaying the latest Sexual Health news from Yahoo! News.

Our new open-air seminar area.

ChaCha Biedermann visiting our Sexual Health SIM land (14 July 2007).

Open-air seminar area with presentation/video screen (still under construction)

Our glass building entrance – Video screen playing/streaming a programme about AIDS/HIV Note our new water fountain (to the right)!

Nice flowers!

Laptop displaying a page from Contraception Education – clicking the laptop in-world will launch the corresponding Web page

Taking a visitor survey in-world – user feedback is then sent via e-mail to the project team

Teleport station to the new AIDS/HIV/STD display at HealthInfo Island – click cube (in-world) for teleport landmark (night view)

Our new in-world noticeboard – click in-world to visit sl-sexualhealth.org.uk

Our new interactive EZ-Note Message Board (bought for L$100) - visitors can click in-world to leave a note. We also have a ‘visitor counter’ installed beside it to monitor land traffic.

Another view of the glass building – when the video is playing it makes nice reflections on the glass walls.

Elizabeth Grigg, Senior Lecturer in Adult Nursing at the University of Plymouth (Taunton site), is an expert in sexual health and might also help us in this project–maybe as one of our invited speakers in future in-world events. Another potential speaker is Barbara Hastings-Asatourian from Salford University; she is the inventor of the very successful Contraception Board Game.

Our Sexual Health SIM is now listed in Second Life Search (costs L$30/week).

The University of Plymouth team (in collaboration with Thomas Jefferson University, USA) will design and implement a sexual health education programme targeting young adults in Second Life that focuses on:

• Prevention of sexually transmitted infections (STI’s);
• Prevention of unintended pregnancy;
• Promotion of equitable sexual relationships;
• Developing methods for systematic data gathering on users’sexual health concerns and response to programming in Mutli-User Virtual Environments (MUVEs); 
• Identifying best practices for delivery of health education programmes in Second Life and other MUVEs; and
• Developing recommendations for ways that MUVEs can contribute to comprehensive health education programmes that include multiple educational venues.

You can learn about our project in detail and what we are planning to do over the coming year by downloading and reading our winning proposal: A ‘Sexual Health’ Public Education and Outreach SIM in Second Life.

Maged N Kamel Boulos, Faculty of Health and Social Work, University of Plymouth, UK
Susan Toth-Cohen, Jefferson College of Health Professions, Thomas Jefferson University, USA

Our new presence in Second Life! Nothing built yet (10-Jul-07).