Episode One: Health Info Island

Second Life (secondlife.com) is a 3D virtual world you enter via software on your computer. In Second Life you're represented by a virtual you, an avatar. Male or female, tramp, vixen, animal, average Joe or fashion plate, how your avatar looks is up to you. My avatar, named Medium Helvetic looks like a skinny bald old guy, because I'm too shy to make myself look like a cross between an extra from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and a pole dancer, a combination that is surprisingly popular. My avatar, under my mouse and keyboard command can walk, run and fly, yes, fly, through hundreds of square miles of terrain, shops, houses and nighclubs. There are lots of nightclubs. But, there are also dozens of educational and nonprofit institutions, that have created storefronts and campuses, 3D versions of real campuses in Second Life. Why? That's what this podcast is about. In each episode I'll be talking to a Second Life citizen from the education or nonprofit sector about the whys, hows and wheres of Second Life. My first guest on Who's On Second goes by the name of Carolina Keats in Second, Carol Perryman in the real world. Carol is a Phd candidate at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Information & Library Science, where she's focussing on evidence based medicine. Meanwhile, in Second Life, she's heading up the Health Info Island project a professional resource for citizens, real and virtual, who need help with vital life decisions.

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