This is an excellent example, it's exactly the sort of thing that I believe Second Life in these instances is being used for. You've hit the nail on the head, thank you for your insightful reply.

I find it curious that the reactions to this idea are both so sceptical and so negative. I'm not unbiased in my point of view but I do think I have a bit of objectivity gifted to me from being able to see both sides of the story here. Allow me to explain.

I'm not a nursing student nor am I a nurse, doctor or in fact anyone in the medical profession. I am, however, a third year computing student. Presently myself and my team are creating just one such environment like this, at the University of Tasmania, Australia. We've been working for quite a long time on this project, and we've faced considerable difficulties getting such a project off of the ground, not least because of a mixture of sceptics, confused requirements and because of people who had their heads in the sky thinking we can work wonders with Second Life.

Now I agree with the previous comment titled 'Creates barriers, doesn't knock them down' by CorporalKlinger, but only insofar as that face-to-face and real life training experiences cannot be replaced by Second Life training environments. There is a lot to be said from this comment - and the real experiences are indeed the most valuable of teaching methods for students in this field.

The point that is missed in this comment and many others is that the Second Life training environment is not supposed to be taken as a replacement - what is being created here, in both the instance of my own project, as well as (I assume the majority of) other projects of such a nature is a complement to existing training methods.

Before I continue I want to define what I am talking about when I henceforth use the term 'Simulation': I refer to something attempting to mimic real life in such a way as that it could be practically used in actual real life circumstances. Something taken to be as reality such that training with it would be sufficient to replace training in actuality.

The bottom line with training in Second Life, from my point of view at the very least, is that it is not a simulation and it is not meant to ever replace face-to-face learning. Anyone who claims that it is supposed to be at the simulation level and anyone who claims it will one day replace existing face-to-face methods of training is either entirely delusional or severely misinformed.

Any person who spends any amount of time in Second Life will be able to quickly assess that the environment is not one suitable for simulation level training. The controls are fiddly and odd, the world is not always easy to navigate in, there are other people around, unexpected interruptions, lag preventing any sort of decent real-time training and also any simulation level tool worth its weight should not require learning in its own right first, before the simulation can begin. That's a critical design flaw in its own right that prevents Second Life ever reaching into true simulative areas and this is unlikely to be something that ever changes. Short of the most incredible virtual reality programs, 'true' simulation that will replace real life training is at our present state of technology a practical impossibility.

That ordinary users can identify how problematic Second Life would be as a simulation should already be indicative that developers have taken this into account.

On the flipside, there are a lot of people out there, people who stand to profit or genuinely interested nurses and doctors, who might try and sell the Second Life hospitals and training environments as simulations of reality. These are dangerous waters, because developers willingly working under people who would sell their Second Life environment as a simulation are producing a dangerous tool that could stand to one day misinform people who hold the lives of others in their hands. This is a powerful point against using Second Life and is probably the underlying point in most negative criticism that I've read.

Despite the risks and scepticism involved, the benefits of using Second Life in this way (when the way it is to be used is very clearly defined and controlled) cannot be ignored and simply denied. As a complementary tool to help studies in reality, Second Life can offer ways for remotely isolated students to gain a better understanding of topic material. It also allows students to potentially meet with other students in an environment more stimulating than bulletin boards and to participate in virtual 'classes' (a term I use loosely) where geographically distributed staff may attend.

Additionally, there is the point proposed in this article itself; students may manipulate machines, values and patients without risk of harm to anyone in reality. Think of how if carefully controlled this could be used. We're not talking about doing surgery in Second Life, but manipulating values and putting into some sort of virtual practise things learnt from books can help solidify knowledge. Students get to feel a sort of interaction, not the sort they will feel in reality, but something better than simple paper based systems, lectures and reading materials. They are engaging with the material - and let's face it, everyone is human. People screw up. This gives students a chance and a place to screw up while learning their theory before ever putting it into practise in the vicinity of an actually sick person.

I can personally assure anyone dubious of the knowledge underlying systems built in Second Life that accurate, real data is programmed into any such environment; I have to do this myself, and not being in the medical profession, my programming of the environment is done slowly and in very strong collaboration with nurses and the heads of our University's school of nursing and midwifery. The creation of any such system is no simple task, because the weight of what students are learning, even at the complementary level, is heavily heaped upon those developing the system. To have it dismissed on a whim and called stupid is frankly an insult to all of our team's work.

My own view, finally, is that when used, specified and controlled very carefully, a training environment in Second Life is neither a distracting thing nor a "blinder", a barrier.

It does, however, have the potential to be such a barrier, and if not both developed and used with care, then every negative criticism the approach has garnered so far will be unfortunately validated. I think a wider knowledge of very precisely what these Second Life environments are and more importantly what they are not needs to be spread - then, perhaps, we can have a proper discussion about its merits and misgivings.