Having been very quiet in the last couple of months on my blog, it’s not surprising I’ve also not had much time to keep exploring in Second Life either! But that’s about to change again as I join a meeting tonight (2100 New Zealand Time) of midwives and educators. Two midwives at Otago Polytechnic who are very inspirational in their drive to master Web 2.0 tools are Sarah Stewart and Carolyn McIntosh. Carolyn has organised tonights meeting on Koru Island and has happily agreed to my attendance (given I’m not a midwife or midwifery academic!). It will be interesting to see how it goes as our professions are both very quiet in Second Life!

There are two exceptions to this though – one is the Thomas Jefferson University where the School of Occupational Therapy has used space on Second Life for a number of events include Backpack Awareness Week led by Dr Susan Toth-Cohen The other is Dr Fran Babich who has been actively exploring Second Life. I know that Karen has also dipped her toe into Second Life but left relatively quickly when confronted with rather ‘interesting’ people.

It seems to me that if we are to understand this ‘virtual world’ and to explore it’s possibilities then maybe occupational therapists need to do what Carolyn is doing – finding a place to meet that is safe, teleporting in the newbies to the ’safe space’ so that they aren’t confronted with some of the ‘interesting people’.. and then using this space to discuss/explore and consider the possibilities. If I think too few OT’s are using blogs, wikis and other Web 2.0 tools… then there is even less of us (like 3 maybe).. who have a professional presence in Second Life (therefore not excluding those who have a personal presence separate to their professional roles!).

Will be interested to see what people think….. and I’ll be back with photos (if I can ever get the camera to pan properly) from tonight’s meeting. Oh.. check out here the photo of Carolyn and I as our personas (thats the top photo) Dacary Dumpling and Koru Bracken in Second Life.