THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 2008
NEWS
3A
SECOND LIFE (CONTINUED FROM 1A)
Contributed screenshot
Student nurses in the department of teaching and learning technology virtually practice surgery prep, handicapping houses and using EKG machines using Second Life. The department purchased a Second Life island in August 2007.
In August 2007, the health center decided to buy a virtual island from Second Life for $980. It pays a $150 monthly leasing fee. Antonacci said the prices were reduced for educators.
Antonacci's department built a virtual health clinic on the island, complete with fully equipped exam rooms, furnished lobbies and realistic operating equipment. It also designed houses for students to practice conducting home assessments for handicapped patients.
To give the environment an authentic look, a technologist took digital photos of cabinets, furniture and medical equipment, and superimposed them onto objects and structures in the environment.
"Students and professors were amazed at how realistic it all looked." Antonacci said.
Stephanie Gerald, an education support technologist who works on the project, said students begin the simulation by logging into the virtual world and walking into the hospital. They click on different objects, such as blood pressure cuffs, oxygen masks and laryngoscopes, and attach the appropriate objects to patients.
"Some objects require more choices from the user, like choosing where to attach the EKG leads to the patient, and which color will go to a particular spot on a patient's chest," Gerald said. "There are some parts of the simulation where students will have to click on a button on the touch screen or click on the syringes and choose how much of some drugs are given to the patient."
She said the simulation records every step of the process and sends the results to the instructor.
She said the procedure was awkward and not taken seriously.
Sheila Miller, Manhattan senior, said she hadn't used Second Life in the classroom yet, but she said the concept sounded a lot better than the simulations she was used to. Instead of virtual simulations, she said students practiced on mannequins, which professors talked through.
"Our generation is a computer generation so it just seems natural that they'd teach us through that kind of venue," Miller said.
Antonacci said his department was trying to educate more KU administrators about the possibilities of Second Life and how it could be expanded to more programs at the University.
using the program to allow KU students to communicate with students in other countries. He said some professors have asked him to create virtual-world offices for faculty members to meet with students online. He said his department has also considered building a virtual, walk-in heart for students to explore.
Some foreign language departments, he said, have considered
"There's a very active group working on ways the University could benefit from Second Life," Antonacci said.
The University of Kansas isn't the only institution using Second Life. Architecture students at the University of Colorado use the program to design buildings. Bradley University uses Second Life to train its students in the field of qualitative research methodology.
The National Oceanography Air and Space Museum even owns an island in Second Life, which it uses to simulate tsunamis, exhibit realtime weather patterns and demonstrate geological plate tectonics.
PROFILE
Antonacci said his department would continue to explore new possibilities for Second Life, and welcomed any suggestions from students or faculty.
—Edited by Ramsey Cox
Change in career plans eventually leads Hall to KU
Ryan McGeeney/KANSAN
Crystal Hall, assistant professor of Italian, grades students in an Italian language course during an exercise in which groups of students conduct rehearsed conversations in the language.
BY RYAN MCGEENEY
rmcgeeney@kansan.com
When Crystal Hall, assistant professor of Italian, began her undergraduate studies at Cornell University nearly a decade ago, she had already decided what she was going to do with her life — and it didn't have much to do with the Renaissance.
"It turned out that I really didn't enjoy the classes so much," Hall said.
There was just one problem.
"I was either going to be a cardiologist or an oncologist," Hall said. "I arrived thinking that what I just had to do, that it was what I was going to do, that I would enjoy it and that it would be fantastic."
When Hall began studying biological sciences her freshman year, she also took an Italian language course,continuing an interest that began in high school. At the end
Hall's decision to study biological sciences wasn't random — by her sophomore year at Cornell, she had already dedicated two summers to internships researching protein interaction with blood vessels and tumor growth and had contributed to at least one published scholarly article. The decision to abandon the field wasn't made lightly, either.
the classes so later, Hall said.
Hall started college as a biological sciences major, but by the third of her nine years in higher education, she had made the drastic switch to Italian language and literature. Large universities like Kansas don't typically hire newly minted Ph.D.s, but when Hall applied to the University's French and Italian department, she was welcomed with open arms, and Hall began teaching this fall.
"After the two summers doing research, I realized that that kind of work would burn me out pretty quickly," Hall said. "I wasn't giving me the satisfaction I wanted. It was really hard to look cancer patients in the eye and try to help them understand what was going on. I realized it wasn't for me, and this, instead, is."
of two years, Hall found that her parallel path in language was outshining her original major, as she achieved both higher proficiency and greater satisfaction in Italian than in the sciences.
"I'd fallen in love with Italian in high school, and it just struck me," Hall said. "Organic chemistry did me in, and the same semester, I took an Italian literature course, loved it, and decided to go abroad. When I came back, I changed majors, changed schools, and that was it."
Because Hall had progressed well in the language even while pursuing a biological sciences degree, she managed not only to graduate in four years, but also to obtain a graduate teaching assistantship from the University of Pennsylvania's Benjamin Franklin Fellowship, a five-year fellowship that provided doctoral students tuition and an opportunity to begin a teaching career.
In an era when an increasing number of liberal arts majors fail to graduate in four years, Hall went from undergraduate freshman to Ph.D. recipient in nine. Even if she started her undergraduate career focused on a language degree, it would have been nearly impossible to complete the coursework any faster. Almost as astonishing is Hall's appointment to the University
of Kansas immediately after graduate school. Most new Ph.Ds do not begin their teaching career at a school the size of the University.
There is no indication that Hall is slowing down. While managing the normal schedule of a tenure-track professor by teaching two courses each semester, Hall is currently expanding her doctoral dissertation — which studied the influence of literary classics on the scientific and philosophical treatises of Galileo — into a larger book. Hall traveled to Chicago during fall break on a grant from the Newbury Consortium to complete a paper on a 17th century poet who described Galileo in a fictional work, and she is laying the groundwork to attend a Mediterranean studies conference in the summer.
"A lot of people say that youre lucky if you start writing by the second semester," Hall said. "But I really want to stay on track. I love my projects, and that helps. I don't want to let things sit and grow dusty, then go back to them after I've come up with other ideas. I'm already starting folders for new projects and new ideas. To be fair to what I've already done, I need to get it out. Whether that's unusual or not, I don't know."
Edited by Rachel Burchfield
Congratulations to the following student leaders and student organizations!
Ex.C.E.L. Finalists
Rachel Burchfield, Female Winner
Nathan Mack, Male Winner
John Babcock
Elizabeth Bartkoski
Kaleigh Braun
Todd Crawford
Alex Rock
Mandy Shriwise
Bill Walberg
Kimberly Westphall
Overall 2008 Homecoming Winners Greek Life:Alpha Delta Pi and Theta Chi Student Life:Student Alumni Association
For a complete listing of award winners from all Homecoming Week events, go to www.homecoming.ku.edu