Midwifery Educators in Second Life

Midwifery Educators are a busy bunch! In real life we are all busy with curriculum development, maintaining professional standards, research, publishing, delivery of courses and programmes etc etc Recently we have also been busy in second life! Two meetings (2nd March, 9th March 2008) have taken place in NewZealand on the Kiwi educators island (Koru). Current Interest of midwife educators looks like UK 3, Nz3, USA 2. I am hoping to hear loud cries of that's not right! Just how many midwife educators are busy in second life? What are we busy doing?

Art and Midwifery Education

How many midwife educators use art in their teaching? What sort of art?
Davies L (ed)(2007) in The Art and Soul of Midwifery makes a very strong case for using Art and suggests that "The arts can also contribute in acquiring ...interpersonal skills, emotional literacy, team skills, problem solving, lateral thinking, flexibility and adaptability" all essential skills and attributes for midwifery practice! I am interested to hear how Midwife educators are using art in their teaching. I am going to be hosting an art exhibition in Second Life outside the Birthing room in the CIPeL (Centre for Interporfessional e-learning) building. If you have or know of art relevant to midwifery or childbirth which is suitable to hang in the corrider please let me know and I will endeavour to get it displayed.
Elinor (I have no artistic tallent at all!)

Birthing Centres in Second Life

There is a huge ammount of work going on in second life within the education community. Many UK universities are purchasing Islands and creating virtual learning spaces. For example Plymouth University have an excellent resourse around sexual health. At Coventry University we have an Island with problem based learning and Interprofessional learning(IPL) In the CIPeL (Centre for Interprofessional e-learning) we have worked with our student interns to build a CIPel Building or centre which has a number of mutli functional rooms and health care training area, birthing room and ER (we have a lovely helicopter pad on the roof for your convenience!)
I wonder how many other birthing rooms there are in second life? I know that there are some hospitals but that is not the same thing!

Welcome

Welcome to the Midwifery Education blog. I am looking forward to hearing about your thoughts and ideas about midwifery. In order to kick start some views, oppinions and thoughts what do you think about virtual midwifery? Would you like to be able to learn about midwifery in MUVE's (muli user virtual environments) for example second life? Anyone interested?