A month on Davis & Prophylaxis Islands: home of the original and updated Vitual Hallucinations

So I have been mad busy working with the MH214 class for the Health Informatics Certificate Program through the UC Davis Extension. The UC Davis Psychiatrists / researchers, Peter Yellowlees MD, James Cook MD, Martin Leamon MD and myself were the instructors for the new class: The Internet and the Future of Patient Care. Two of the Psychiatrists are the researchers behind the top 10 listed and the often cited Virtual Hallucinations build on Sedig in Second Life.
Most of the assignments and discussion have been shared using the UC Davis Extension's Online Learning Campus which uses the open source Moodle software. We also held 3 sessions in Second Life.

The virtual gatherings for the MH214 class have resulted in a lot of media from snapshots to machinima (which is video captured in a 3D real time game engine or virtual world such as Second Life®).

The following two articles available in full text via the National Library of Medicine's database, PubMed, describe two of the Second Life locations visited, Virtual Hallucinations & Bioterrorism Defense Training facilities, both on the private research islands of UC Davis faculty and fellow researchers: Peter Yellowlees MD, Martin Leamon MD and James Cook MD.


Documentation of the rich visual environment can be seen in the photos from the gatherings in Second Life®:
Sept. 3rd photos: visiting the builds on Davis Island (Virtual Hallucinations & Bioterrorism Defense Training Facility) and a tour of Imperial College London's Second Health Polyclinic
Sept. 10th photos: Include shots of discussions, building demo, tours of health related
Sites.
The Playlist for videos taken during the Sept. 2nd and Sept. 10th classes and assorted other instructional videos used for the online class Second Life® portions. Parts 1-5 introducing our avatar sides:
general introductions with MH214 students and Peter Yellowlees, Marty Leamon MD and Bernadette Daly Swanson MLIS, sharing of SL® experiences, troublshooting audio capture, building demonstration with James (Linden) Cook MD and tripping and touring around the metaverse looking at medical sites and health and medical research projects.

View the entire Playlist:
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=5333F5146C944E14

or a series of clips from Sept. 2nd and Sept. 10th tours of Davis Island... beginning on Virtual Ability Island:


Part 1 of 5: Troubleshooting audio and introductions all around...


Part 2 of 5: Building with James Linden! Health Informatics Professionals need a place and the skills to build it... our first introduction.


Part 3 of 5: More building with James and discussions on virtual worlds, avatar height and in world physics:


Part 4 of 5: Visiting CISCO's Virtual Palomar West Hospital & their RFID bracelets used by avatars to tour the facility. It is the 3D version of the hospital to be built in San Diego by 2011. Next stop, Virtual Ability Island, co-winner of the first Linden Prize, a contest Honoring Second Life projects that are Improving real lives; Studio Wikitecture and Virtual Ability were both awarded $10,000 USD


Part 5 of 5: (10 mins.) More on Virtual Ability Island and the sites visited during the Sept. 2nd and Sept 10th classes including Virtual Hallucinations and Bioterrorism Defense Training units on Davis and Prophylaxis Islands (private UC Davis locations for research projects) and the very cool Imperial College's Second Health London Polyclinic.


And our tour video from the Health Informatics 2009 Conference at the UC Davis Medical Center:


Take the Tours:

For anyone using the Firefox browser... or for anyone who wants a quick way to reach the MH214 class locations in Second Life... read on!
Download and install the toolbar with quick links to the Second Life locations visited during the last sessions, as well as additional links:
http://mhi214joinusinsecondlife.ourtoolbar.com/
Links include:

Davis Island (private - MH214 students & faculty only)
Virtual Palomar West Hospital
Second Health London Polyclinic
Virtual Hallucinations public location
Library Studios (my island in process)
UC Davis Extension Class site

Mozilla Firefox browser:
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/upgrade.html

Note: Second Life viewer must be installed on your computer to use the toolbar. When you click on the buttons on the toolbar, they will launch the SLurl site for Second Life and allow you to click through which launches your SL viewer so you can login to the site.

Oops... racetrack bits flying over ALA Island...

Oops...my racetrack flying outside the sim onto ALA Island..., originally uploaded by HVX Silverstar.

I have had considerable trouble trying to rez this racetrack... hoping to hear back from the creator. At this point I was hopping off my chair thinking of the real picture...
shooting 3D objects over the ALA island (American Library Association)... thanks for a high draw distance and a good eye in the early hours of the morning... dragging them back to my island now!