Posted: 09 Sep 2009 08:35 AM PDT Michelle Everson has been teaching online for five years. Here, she shares the top 10 best practices she has learned about online teaching. |
Posted: 07 Sep 2009 01:51 PM PDT At this year's British Science Festival, Tracy Alloway, a psychologist from Stirling University, said the following: Some examples of what can hurt or harm working memory include things like Twitter. When you're receiving an endless stream of information when you're a 'tweeter', it's also very succinct, so there's no need to process or manipulate that information, it's not a dialogue unlike something like Facebook where you might be updating your status and so on.Fortunately, Mark Henderson at Times Online puts things in the right place: Most people I know who use Twitter see it as an interactive tool for conversing with wide groups, and for drawing like-minded people's attention to information that might interest them. It's interactive, full of links, and information-rich. It's a misconception that the 140-character limit makes depth impossible. In fact, to me, Twitter seems to build social networks just as effectively as Facebook, which Alloway thinks might improve working memory.Mark is right, and I have a few examples that can explain why I think so:
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Posted: 04 Sep 2009 10:18 AM PDT No matter how many useful web tools we have in medicine and healthcare as long as nobody teaches healthcare professionals how to use these. Mayo Clinic now informed doctors and medical librarians about how to get closer to social media through Twitter.  I also try to provide students and professionals with practical examples about medicine and health 2.0 during my credit course that runs at the University of Debrecen. The third semester will launch in 3 weeks.      |
Posted: 03 Sep 2009 09:00 PM PDT Background: Survivorship care plans have been recommended by the Institute of Medicine for all cancer survivors. We implemented an Internet-based tool for creation of individualized survivorship care plans. To our knowledge, this is the first tool of this type to be designed and made publicly accessible. Objective: To investigate patterns of use and satisfaction with an Internet-based tool for creation of survivorship care plans. Methods: OncoLife, an Internet-based program for creation of survivorship care plans, was designed by a team of dedicated oncology nurses and physicians at the University of Pennsylvania. The program was designed to provide individualized, comprehensive health care recommendations to users responding to queries regarding demographics, diagnosis, and cancer treatments. After being piloted to test populations, OncoLife was made publicly accessible via Oncolink, a cancer information website based at the University of Pennsylvania which averages 3.9 million page views and over 385,000 unique visits per month. Data entered by anonymous public users was maintained and analyzed. Results: From May 2007 to November 2008, 3343 individuals utilized this tool. Most (63%) identified themselves as survivors, but also health care providers (25%) and friends/family of survivors (12%). Median age at diagnosis was 48 years (18 - 100+), and median current age 51 (19 - 100+). Most users were Caucasian (87%), female (71%), and college-educated (82%). Breast cancer was the most common diagnosis (46%), followed by hematologic (12%), gastrointestinal (11%), gynecologic (9%), and genitourinary (8%). Of all users, 84% had undergone surgery, 80% chemotherapy, and 60% radiotherapy. Half of users (53%) reported receiving follow-up care from only an oncologist, 13% only a primary care provider (PCP), and 32% both; 12% reported having received survivorship information previously. Over 90% of users, both survivors and health care providers, reported satisfaction levels of "good" to "excellent" using this tool. Conclusions: Based on our experience with implementation of what is, to our knowledge, the first Web-based program for creation of survivorship care plans, survivors and health care providers appear both willing to use this type of tool and satisfied with the information provided. Most users have never before received survivorship information. Future iterations will focus on expanding accessibility and improving understanding of the needs of cancer survivors in the era of the Internet. |
Posted: 03 Sep 2009 04:02 AM PDT   Twitter Searches You Didn't Think Were Possible: Search By Profession http://is.gd/20GoNSearch By Profession on Twitter by using TweepSearch - example: http://bit.ly/129ATE
Find Out Who Follows Whom on Twitter http://whofollowswhom.com - For example, who do all cardiologists on Twitter follow? "Is Twitter necessary for physicians and other medical professionals?", asks KevinMD http://bit.ly/181vHF - It's not necessary but it may be useful. Related: Lists of Medical Bloggers and Twitters Categorized by Specialty Image source: OpenClipArt.org, public domain.    |
Posted: 31 Aug 2009 04:58 AM PDT From JS Online: Milwaukee-Journal Sentinel:Professors experiment with Twitter as teaching tool http://bit.ly/HP4RZ Facebook may be the social medium of choice for students, but Twitter has found adherents among professors. Twitter is helping them build community in their classes in a way that appeals to the Facebook generation. Some students are assigned to live tweeting: publishing the speaker's thoughts on Twitter during the presentation. Twitter helps students develop key skills: listening, information-gathering, multitasking and succinct writing. Twitter allows professors to post links to what they're reading - students "follow" them. Professors "listen" to conversations students have with each other on Twitter to gauge what questions they have.    |
Posted: 30 Aug 2009 04:47 AM PDT  Health News of the Day is a daily summary made from the selected links I post on Twitter. It is in a bullet points format with links to the original sources which include 350 RSS feeds that produce about 2,500 items per day.
Medical news tweets are not research articles - they are 140-character messages - please always go to the original source, links, etc. The inclusion of a Twitter update (tweet) is not an endorsement or agreement of any kind. Tweets and links do not represent endorsement, approval or support. Image source: OpenClipArt.org, public domain. Follow me on Twitter:    |
Posted: 29 Aug 2009 10:52 PM PDT  "The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education." – Albert Einstein Firstly, you might get annoyed with the term 'World Class' and I would perhaps, too. But at least it got you to this sentence, so it is working. Think of 'World Class' in this context as delivering exceptional or inspiring lectures, talks or presentations (how you may word it!). Secondly, you might argue that we should get rid of lecturing all together to revive University learning to be relevant to the world beyond again, as this is being questioned all over the world. With that I totally disagree! If you argue that lectures do not facilitate effective learning, I can to a certain degree listen. But, that is if the criteria for lectures is only to disseminate knowledge. But if you ask me, I would argue that lectures is much more than simply vomiting out facts, concepts and ideas. Besides that vomiting stuff, it is also about tickling and inspiring the students' to discover a learning interest and domain. It is about discovering the joy for learning. It is about creating a connection and bond. It is about an exploration with the students, and telling them a story that means something. It is about presence and being a role model, letting them experience a way of how ideas and knowledge can be articulated, and so on. In short, the lecture is the place where we should be inspired and triggered into a learning journey that is full of joy and obstacles. If we can inspire and nurture that learning passion into the students' mind, the rest is reasonably easy today, as they can basically access all the knowledge and tools (in many cases) they want with a few searches and clicks. Increasingly most of the amazing learning resources are becoming free (democratizing the access to knowledge), which you might discover even more so, after reading the rest of this article. But the sad fact based on years of learning experience, and listening to all the noise around the world, education is increasingly becoming just a business, and students increasingly all over the world are experiencing crappy lecturers, lectures and education in general. Let's just tackle the lecture for now. If we get the lecture right, students will be inspired to learn on their own... NEW SCHOOL Five simple learning steps/phases, which can of course overlap anyway you like
This learning cycle can happen within minutes using your mental reflection and visualization, or perhaps days, weeks, months in the real world, depending upon how you apply. Actually, these steps are just indicators and do not need to be followed step-by-step. Just use them how you feel like it, or what works best for you. I am still learning, so these steps or phases might change even by the time I really finish this article. Alright, let's move on! 1. EXPLORE Besides all the other methods, content and junk, here is your new learning curriculum (No, ABC just have fun exploring and learning):
Oh man! Where to start? Alright, since I have been exploring such lectures for a few years now, I will share with you some of my favorites to get you started. Below is basically a cocktail of educators (variety!), inspiring all sorts of knowledge in their own way. Please click on their names below for more of their videos or resources. For your convenience (to access real juice!) I have selected one lecture (or short talk/presentation) from each of the amazing educators below, which is worth exploring and reflecting. Hopefully, you can pick up a few tricks on the way that will over time transform you into...WOW! Here we go (Not ranking, just numbering): Fav. 25
Interestingly, after reading tons of articles about becoming great educators, I have noticed again and again that all the great ones, have in their own student days experienced great teaching themselves. In short, for us to become great educators (or to know what that really means!), we need to experience great educators and lectures ourselves. 3. INNOVATEHowever, now that we have free online access to hundreds if not thousands of amazing lectures (a few shared above), I believe we all have the opportunity to experience them at least virtually. It is not exactly the same, but we have access to more. I can live with that! And by doing so, we can try (let's ignore our struggling ego here!) to benchmark ourselves with these giants. The trick here, is not to look first for their weaknesses, but to be open and immerse ourselves with all the positive little things they do to inspire us. After digesting all the juice and picking up a few tricks here and there, we should also explore possible weaknesses in their presentations, which we should perhaps try to avoid in ours. But, please remember not to get too preoccupied initially with looking for weakness in their lectures (so that we can make our ego feel good!), and then miss out on all those little things that really matter. It is difficult, but let's try! No one has ever become a great footballer by simply watching and reflecting videos of great footballers. The same goes for lecturing, so besides watching and reflecting, you need to explore, experiment, and continuously practice new things with your students to find the right algorithm(s) that makes them tick into action and learning joy. I am not going to tell you what to try, instead just enjoy exploring great lectures, note down mentally or physically all the little positive things they do. And most importantly always have the guts to try them out in your learning sessions. Some might go horrible wrong, and some might go the opposite way, or some might have no impact at all, but that is a risk you have to take to really improve. Though, if you really try, trust me, students will eventually appreciate all your efforts. Especially, the Y and Z generation I believe will love it. In Y and Z shell, they love people that have guts, try the unexpected, and engage them to learn. 4. FEEDBACK Innovating your lectures is not enough! You also need to continuously try to seek feedback from every single corner you can imagine, whether it is fellow-educators, students or strangers on the web (that have perhaps watched one of the lectures you shared on the web). There is no harm is telling the students that we stink (perhaps in a gentler manner), and would surely love some feedback posted in the course online forum (if you have one). Or perhaps ask them at the end of the class to write on a piece of paper the things they learned, or like about the lecture, or things they didn't understand, or areas that could be improved. If you make them feel safe about being honest, it is amazing how much constructive feedback you can receive by simply asking the people that really matter in the learning process. 5. REFLECTDon't take yourself too seriously, and have fun being criticized, including receiving those little negative feedback nuggets that really hurt your crumbling little ego. These negative feedback nuggets are actually the seeds to improve fastest. Finally, seeking feedback is not enough to improve the way we lecture. We also need to reflect upon the feedback acquired, and then again explore better ways of doing it, and then learn (practice) and innovate continuously until we practically die, or leave lecturing all together. How can I:
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Posted: 29 Aug 2009 02:34 AM PDT  I am often asked about mindmapping by people who have never tried it. Why would they want to do it, etc? I've just found come across this great article from Mind Map Inspiration, called 100 reasons to mind map, so this is a useful place to look for ideas about how it can be used. And, if you are looking for some mind mapping tools to get started, then Bubbl.us, a free collaborative online mind mapping tool is currently the highest ranking mind mapping tool on our op 100 Tools for Learning list. But you will find a further 30+ mind mapping and brainstorming tools here |
Posted: 14 Aug 2009 01:36 AM PDT  Want to learn how to touch type? Here are 5 free sites that I've collected over time.
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Posted: 03 Aug 2009 12:52 PM PDT I'm a real fan of the Journal of Virtual Worlds Research and they came up with something really innovative again. The newest issue focuses on how virtual worlds can be used in medicine and healthcare.  I've been working in this field for years and it's vibrating to see so many interesting projects in the virtual worlds.
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Posted: 31 Jul 2009 05:00 PM PDT Designing online learning material is a difficult task for novice teachers who lack experience in their design. Patterns have emerged as means to capture design knowledge in context and offer solutions to designers. Cog-Learn is a pattern language aimed at supporting the design of learning material for e-learning systems. Here, we describe Co-Learn and discuss the patterns' identification and formalization processes through two case studies in which a set of cognitive strategies was applied with the goal of better organizing the content seen by the student. The purpose is to facilitate the student's interaction with the material's interface and, consequently, improve the learning process. |
Posted: 31 Jul 2009 05:00 PM PDT Many organizations are struggling with social media, trying to determine exactly how to use it in a formalized way. But while they strategize about how to push messages or disseminate information, they're being preempted by rogue individuals who, in the true spirit of social media, stake a claim and represent their organization with nothing more than permission. |
Posted: 22 Jul 2009 08:36 AM PDT I've been creating free medical Web 2.0 Guidance Packages on Webicina.com for patients and for doctors as well. Such a package contains all the quality selected web 2.0 tools from blogs and communities to online slideshows and wikis that focus on one medical condition or medical specialty. The next package will be dedicated to Autism, so if you know a good blog, resource, Youtube channel, wiki, community or Twitter user writing focusing on autism, please let me know so I can include your suggestions. Thank you! That's what we have so far:
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Posted: 21 Jul 2009 10:15 PM PDT I've come across a very interesting slideshow on the Open Medicine Blog. It's good to see Cochrane Library is open to the new tools of the web.       |
Posted: 21 Jul 2009 02:02 PM PDT I've found personal benefit to moving more and more of my information into "the cloud". Web-based tools like Google Docs, Twitter, wordpress, delicious, etc. provide the freedom to access my resources regardless of device. The development of smart phones over the last several years makes this model of data creation/access particularly valuable. With MobileMe and LiveMesh, we get the additional value of being able to store resources - via the cloud - across multiple devices. Good ol' redundancy. All is not well, however. Jonathan Zittrain states: But the most difficult challenge — both to grasp and to solve — of the cloud is its effect on our freedom to innovate. The crucial legacy of the personal computer is that anyone can write code for it and give or sell that code to you — and the vendors of the PC and its operating system have no more to say about it than your phone company does about which answering machine you decide to buy…This freedom is at risk in the cloud, where the vendor of a platform has much more control over whether and how to let others write new software.An API is at best a pacifier to sedate the majority, but it is a far cry from open source. To paraphrase Mark Pilgrim: open enough works for running programs now, but it is a long term sacrifice of freedom. |
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