I've just come across two interesting news items - one about the use of Web2.0 in the Health sector and another about using online games to encourage children to respond to a consultation about play spaces.

Although the full text is not available without paying a hefty sum, the Executive Summary of the E-health 2.0 report is available. The report offers an overview of twenty "leading e-health 2.0 providers", and discusses a number of themes that emerge from this overview, including: Transparency in the health system; Rebalancing the doctor-patient relationship; Consumer empowerment; Empowerment through connectivity; and Mobilisation of data. According to Public Technology.net "The profiles provide a snapshot of innovation across healthcare: from organisations providing online communities for patients with specific conditions, tools for chronic disease management, sites that enable patients to rate the quality of care they receive, together with tools to enable clinicians to better search for and share research data."

The second story I saw came from the Department for Children, Schools and Families. The Playspace consultation tool is a neat online tool which is aimed at 8-13 year olds to try and get them involved with a national consultation on the development of play spaces. In a Sims type game it allows kids to create their ideal playspace, and they earn credits to buy cool things (like skate ramps, swings, etc) for their playspace by answering child-friendly questions based around the consultation.

I suppose what struck me most about these is the way in which technology is changing the relationship between organisations and their 'clients'. Whether that's through finding interesting and fun ways to engage children and therefore enable them to contribute to developments in their world, or encouraging greater interaction, support and freedom of choice through the use of social networking in the health sector.

It's encouraging engagement, interaction, involvement and ownership of these issues and with increasing familiarity and access to technology it seems likely to become more prevalent in every part of our lives.

Labels: consultation, digitalnatives, education, engagement, freedom, games, health, IT, online gaming, open, socialnetworking, web2.0

I've just come across an interesting post from Rowin Young of CETIS about using World of Warcraft (WoW) for online conferencing. It is an interesting idea and follows on from work looking at using virtual worlds in an education context (for example see the video Rowin points out about the use of WoW, or check out a recent article in Escalate news by Sian Bayne and Fiona Littleton about the use of Virtual worlds (specifically Second Life) in Education).

It's great to see these innovative approaches being investigated (a recent Elearning Alliance event to discuss the use of Second Life held at Edinburgh University demonstrated the high level of interest), but beyond the draw of "intrigue" as Hamish Macleod (Ed University) put it, the added value - if any - still needs to be assessed in more depth. Further discussion of the possibilities of Second Life, and some reflections from the team at Edinburgh can also be found in this recent Guardian article, and current uses on the Second Life in Education wiki (which I came across thanks to ScotFEICT).

Labels: elearning, online conference, online gaming, second life, virtual worlds, world of warcraft