I am listening to John Wiecha, a physician an professor at Boston University Medical Center, talk about teaching continuing Medical education (CME) using Second Life. Second Life’s value was recently debated by Roger Schank and his the people commenting in Must e-Learning be “Cool”. What I was struck by in Wiecha’s talk was the opportunities for serendipitous encounters like the virtual patient who walks in needing help.
With all education and training there can be a problem with the application of what is learned in the classroom, virtual or otherwise, in real life. Second Life, which is clearly not real life (for most people), offers this type of opportunity in a way that is often not possible. Imagine disaster planning. Imagine the irate customer. Imagine the opportunities for expert feedback.
I am blogging live from Medicine 2.0 in Toronto. There is also a Twitter stream (#med2) but it’s hard to say much about a talk in 140 characters!