These Affinity Learning Virtual Simulation Scenarios are Free to Use!
Affinity Learning offers a number of healthcare simulation scenarios at no cost for an individual learner. Affinity Learning has many different categories of clinical simulation online scenarios available at no cost for a basic membership with many features. There are a number of different health professional groups which have categories available for learners to access. This article by Erin Carn-Bennett, RN, MSN will explore what scenarios are available through Affinity Learning and what their functionality is for those in the clinical simulation based education space.
Affinity Learning has Free Virtual Scenarios to a Very High Standard
Affinity Learning allows learners to be able to explore free and usable clinical simulation educational experiences. The experiences on offer are from institutions that are leaders in their field as well as instructors who are also world leaders. There is the ability to discover educational experiences which are impactful and relevant to the learners individual profession.
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These virtual simulations are freely available under Creative Commons. In order to track personal progress, there is a recommendation to track personal progress with the creation of an account under Affinity Learning. Categories on offer for learners include: Nurse, Paramedic, Med Lab, PSW, Sonography and Public Safety.
Affinity Learning has simulated real world experiences through interactive virtual simulations which are on offer freely through this virtual platform. There is also functionality for users to easily create interactive educational scenarios themselves which can engage learners and improve educational outcomes on individual topics of relevance. Affinity Learning gives users and learners the opportunity to expand past the experience of being a participant in virtual simulation for health professionals to become a faculty member who builds and provides the virtual simulation.
The interactive learning experiences on Affinity Learning are able to provide learners with the opportunity to practice and test their clinical knowledge acquisition, application, and clinical decisions. Virtual and technology based clinical simulation is well referenced and accepted as an effective and also safe educational modality of clinical simulation practice.
The Affinity Learning website has intuitive author features for those that move into the faculty role which builds the membership options. The website ensures that users have the ability to rapidly build virtual scenarios which use interaction types that are a best fit for the designed and specific education objectives. This means that the transition from learner to user who designs virtual simulation is seamless and intuitive for the user.
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All of the virtual simulation scenarios in Affinity Learning are accessible and also user friendly on mobile phone and other touch screen devices. Learners are able to access the Affinity Learning website with mobile phones, tablets, or computers with no need to have to install any additional software onto their devices. This means that Affinity Learning virtual simulations are more accessible to all learners all over the globe and are learner centric to consider many different educational environments.
In regards to visual interactions there is the ability to choose from Affinity Learning’s list of intuitive and visual interaction types for the virtual simulation scenarios that users design. The selection process is based on the specific educational objectives predefined by the user. There is the ability to make the existing educational content interactive by the use of this feature which integrates images, videos, and audio recordings into the virtual simulation scenarios as they are built.
View the LEARN CE/CME Platform Webinar A Free Open Access Virtual Patient Monitor from Columbia University Medical Center to learn more!
To Build Virtual Scenarios with Affinity Learning Comes with Many Extras
The Affinity Learning website is able to upload and also support 360° camera footage. The Affinity Learning website is able to upload a photo or video of a room which has been taken with a 360 degree camera. The 360 degree camera has gained popularity in more recent years by healthcare simulation staff and users as there is the ability to see an entire room and also click on objects of interest.
The healthcare virtual simulation environment allows learners opportunities to make decisions by practice in a safe virtual environment. This creates a divergent learning pathway with the use of decision branching. Branching is achieved through modules that can incorporate multiple learning paths which are created based on the learner’s decisions in the virtual simulation. Each decision made by the learner can be configured to take a bespoke learning path.
All interactions in the virtual simulation within Affinity Learning are captured and stored. Scores are applied to each inquiry and are used to evaluate learner performances and then identify any learner knowledge gaps. The LMS integration provides learners with easy access to Affinity scenarios with direct access through LMS accounts. Affinity is able to easily integrate with any LMS platform which supports LTI standards such as D2L Brightspace or Canvas.
There are options to sync completion status, scores, and a breakdown of learner results in an organization’s LMS. Learners are able to download results as a PDF when they complete an Affinity virtual simulation scenario. In the process to include existing educational materials into the virtual simulation such as images, videos, or audio files in the scenario is streamlined and easy to complete.
The Affinity community is a free and open collection of virtual scenarios which are created by domain experts and notable institutions. Creators of virtual simulation scenarios are always clearly credited for their educational contributions. Other features of note available on Affinity includes: Vimeo and YouTube integration, rich text editor, iframe Support, cross browser compatibility, mobile friendly scenarios, inline edit mode, the ability to send scenarios as links and LMS Integration via LTI.
There are Costs for Memberships with Additional Features
- Basic: 1 Author is $0 per month. In this membership up to 10 scenarios can be created, private workspace, basic authoring toolkit and access to community scenarios
- Teams: 2 Authors and 200 Monthly Active Learners $110 per month in USD. Other features include basic plus: create unlimited scenarios, pro authoring toolkit, learner reports and analytics, scenario review tools, send scenarios as links, landing page builder, proof of completion PDFs, custom branding and email support
- Classes: 5 Authors 500 Monthly Active Learners $230 per month USD. Includes everything in Teams as well as: LMS integration via LTI, LMS score and results sync, team access controls and natural language toolkit
- Faculties: 10 Authors 1000 Monthly Active Learners $340 per month USD. Includes everything in Classes as well as: priority Support and personal video training.
This article has discussed Affinity Learning virtual simulation scenarios. Affinity Learning is an incredibly generous platform which has a largely free library and useability on their website. This is an incredible resource for anyone who works in healthcare simulation to check out and make use of!
Looking for even more free scenarios? Check out our other article about Over 100 Free Virtual Simulation Experiences Now Hosted by Simulation Canada
Load Up Your Free Affinity Virtual Simulations Here!
Erin Carn-Bennett is a Simulation Nurse Educator for the Douglas Starship Simulation Programme in Auckland, New Zealand. Carn-Bennett has her Masters of Nursing and has an extensive nursing career within pediatric emergency and also nursing management. She is passionate about debriefing and all things simulation. Carn-Bennett is a member of the IPSS board of directors. Carn-Bennett is the lead host of the podcast Sim Nurse NZ.
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