The Virtual Astronaut: Serious Games For A Learning Environment

 These guys are having way too much fun.

Link to FUTURE-MAKING SERIOUS GAMES: The Virtual Astronaut: Serious Games For A Learning Environment

Fun to look at, I bet that this was fun to work with.  Sigh...jealousy...but what am I saying? We get to do fun stuff too. Next Friday, Dec 8th, we will be hosting our own VR Workshop.

This is to be multicast across 2 countries (might not be a good idea to get into the "nations" thing just now), 3 medical schools and 4 campuses. We have some virtual anatomy teaching classes, with ultra-high resolution 3D anatomy models, from Stanford University, some haptovisual models for remote instruction, and some immersive segmentation in 3D.

Check out the Events piece on the NOSM web site. Or if you are in the area (Sudbury or Thunder Bay), contact us to see if there is still space then come on down. (RSVP is required. Priority for staff & students at NOSM and LU).

Medical Simulator Goes More High-Tech with Virtual Reality

 Still in the vein of VR stuff...just priming the pump for our workshop on Dec 8th.

Link to Medical: Medical Simulator Goes More High-Tech with Virtual Reality | VRoot.org

Pretty impressive stuff...but megabucks. There is another trend, looking at what can usefully be done with low cost, low fidelity simulators. Watch this space!

Stereoscopic Displays: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow

 A rather dense and philosophical piece...so if you're not into 3D displays and their application, you might wanna give this one a bye.

Link to Discussion: Stereoscopic Displays: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow | VRoot.org

But with our upcoming 3D VR workshop on December 8th, this background piece will be of interest to some. Written by an expert with over 30 years of experience in the field.

Has some fascinating stuff towards the end about negative refractive index materials.

Communications-enabled business processes

 A wee bit esoteric...but quite important for a lot of what we do in terms of handling information in our daily lives.

Link to Jon Udell: A conversation with Mark Ericson about communications-enabled business processes

A thought provoking piece by Jon Udell - writes well and frequently has a different spin on common issues.

The Myth of the Knowledge Economy :: November :: 2006

Ipseity :: The Myth of the Knowledge Economy

A collection of interesting pieces and articles on the subject, some quite thought provoking.

Washington Post's political upheaval

Canadian Journalist :: WP's political upheaval

A small incident...or a huge sea change? Hard not to see a move like this as very significant.

We all know that the web is the increasingly dominant information source for many of us...but this kinda news sounds like a death knell for print journalism.

Wiiii ! - look at me, Mum!

You might wonder why the Nintendo Wii features on an eLearning web site.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wii

I just did some quick "research" on one of these systems for the benefit of our readers (both of them). This gaming system has generated quite the buzz. My son's friend queued for 16 hours to buy his system this past weekend. Nuts!

But, oh boy, is he happy that he did! This was an obvious hit with the kids when I dropped by the house to see how the "tests" were going. It might even help combat the ever increasing Body Mass Indices that these kids develop - it was very active and tiring for them.

So why might this be relevant to eLearning? I was hoping that these novel control systems might be useful for acquisition of certain procedural skills. There are some games already that seem to promise this - e.g. Triage Center (or something like that). Well, I was certainly impressed by the excellent 3D response to large vigorous movements. Tennis, boxing etc were very impressive.

But the sensors do seem to lack sensitivity for subtle movements, which would make it much less useful as a training aid in medicine. There are not too many activities that we pursue by means of large arm movements. Perhaps with some tweaking of the sensitivity settings, it might be worth exploring further...or maybe my imagination is just too limited.

The other component that is missing obviously is that of force feedback - there is no sensation of resistance when you "make contact" with other surfaces or objects. Of course, you would not expect that with a system that is free and untethered...but I think we sometimes forget how dependent we are on tactile feedback when acquiring new skills.

Googling for a Diagnosis--use of Google as a Diagnostic Aid

 This is not something that our search professionals and librarians might approve of...

Link to CanadianEMR: Allowing Canadian Physicians to Share Information about Electronic Medical Records: Googling for a Diagnosis--use of Google as a Diagnostic Aid

...but it is interesting nonetheless that Google can be a useful tool in areas where more dedicated tools have prevailed.

PSA Screening Overused in Elderly Infirm Men

 As always, think about this...before you test, what will you do with the answer?

Link to PSA Screening Overused in Elderly Infirm Men - Physician's First Watch

Oops, sorry - wrong blog. Should have been posted in our Continuing Professional Education blog, https://normedlive.lakeheadu.ca/cs/blogs/cophe/def....

Quintura Search Engine gets backing from early Skype investor

This is an interesting an different way to search. And now some interesting backers too. 

Link to Quintura Search Engine gets backing from early Skype investor

Take a look at Quintura - its interface uses the cloud technique which has also been used by other tools such as Digg Labs and The Brain. Easy to use and quite intuitive. I'll be interested to see if this makes Search more effective for the average user.

Conversation as Inquiry

 A conversation with Instructional Designers.

Link to Stephen's Web ~ by Stephen Downes ~

Found on Stephen's blog - always an interesting visit.

NOSM and Orion and Stanford

Virtual Reality comes to the anatomy classroom. NOSM, Stanford and ORION are collaborating to bring high fidelity anatomy teaching to the north. 

Link to welcome to orion

Check out this wee article from Orion news. This ties into an upcoming announcement and workshop at NOSM on December 8th. We'll keep ya posted.