Monday, 29 November 2010

Times Higher Education - Should professors leave unruly classes?

Times Higher Education - Should professors leave unruly classes?

Social Media Use by Medical Students

 
 

Sent to you by David Andrew via Google Reader:

 
 

via Dr Shock MD PhD by Dr Shock on 28/11/10

Social software or the use of Internet (Web 2.0) for generating your own content, to connect with one another and to share and manage content with each other is used by young people. How do first year medical students use this social software? This could be important because these networks could become networks of learners as soon as we're able to create useful applications.

  • over 90% of med students use instant messaging, 94% of females aND 93% of males
  • 70% used social networking sites (facebook, twitter, myspace)
  • 20% read blogs
  • 8% write their own blog
  • 20% of male medical students contributed to wikis and used media sharing sites such as flickr and youtube
  • social bookmarking was hardly used (delicio.us, digg)

How was this study done?

all first year medical students (n=212) at the University of Leeds completed a paper based self-administered questionnaire at the time of their information skills (IT) assessment.

Overall males were more engaged in social media. The use of these media has increased over the years. In previous research in 1973 80% of students used instant messaging, 24% used social networks, 31% shared photos, blogs were read by 38% and 21% wrote a blog. A survey in 2006 at the University of Oxford showed the high use of instant messaging (82%) and social networking (60%), 58% read blogs, 38% wrote their own blog, 19% used flickr, 57% used YouTube and 19% used del.icio.us.

Students preferred the use of social software above the virtual learning environment provided by the institution.

Why is this important?
Educators are mostly digital immigrants whereas the student is a digital native. Educators should recognize the potential of social software without entering the networks of students. As the authors importantly state

The social networking sites have exciting potential for medical education but only if the educator can resist the temptation to meddle in what the students are doing.

Next the authors suggest some examples on how social networking could be used for education, but several examples are present on the net.

ResearchBlogging.org
Sandars, J., Homer, M., Pell, G., & Crocker, T. (2010). Web 2.0 and social software: the medical student way of e-learning Medical Teacher, 2147483647-5 DOI: 10.3109/01421590701798729

 

Related posts:

  1. Social Media in Health and Medicine: Medlibs Round 2.7
  2. The Risks of Online Social Networking for Students
  3. Disclosure of substance use on social media websites


 
 

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Saturday, 27 November 2010

Fwd: News release: Bristol University ChemLabS celebrated by JISC Times Higher Education Award



---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Maike Bohn <m.bohn@jisc.ac.uk>
Date: 26 November 2010 16:06
Subject: News release: Bristol University ChemLabS celebrated by JISC Times Higher Education Award
To: JISC-ANNOUNCE@jiscmail.ac.uk


18 universities across the UK are celebrating their achievements after they received this year's Times Higher Education Awards in London.

The awards ceremony, hosted by THE's editor Ann Mroz and Michael Portillo, with an opening address by David Willets, was attended by more than 1,000 people from universities and colleges across the UK.

The JISC sponsored Outstanding ICT Initiative Award went to Bristol University for their innovative Dynamic Laboratory Manual (DLM) developed by Bristol ChemLabS staff and Learning Science Ltd. ChemLabS is the UK's Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning in practical chemistry and has transformed the way that undergraduate practical work is carried out, in part through the creation of this sophisticated e-learning tool.

Initially the DLM was envisaged to be an online, web-based laboratory manual containing all the information the students would require to carry out a particular practical investigation.  But it quickly developed into a much more comprehensive student resource containing a complete video library of practical techniques, fully interactive simulations and virtual instruments, online pre-lab assessment and safety tests (both providing immediate feedback), online tutorial support, and a comprehensive marks database designed to track student progress.

An overview can be seen at http://dlm.chm.bris.ac.uk/demodlm/.

Sarah Porter, JISC's head of innovation and one of the judges for the awards said, "By focusing on innovative approaches to using technology to improve learning, the project has had measurable, demonstrable impact on the attainment of students of chemistry at the University of Bristol. However, what made the project a winner is that a lot of careful thought and effort has been put into extending the impact of ChemLabS so that it benefits school pupils, students, teachers and lecturers across the whole UK. ChemLabS is an excellent example of what can happen when innovative technology is used to dissolve the barrier between a university and the world around it, and it is particularly welcome that this has been achieved in a challenging and crucial discipline area."

Building on the success of this software, Bristol's Departments of Biochemistry, Physiology and Pharmacology have now introduced DLM-style software to support students in their teaching laboratories. The project has also had great impact on chemistry teaching and learning at Post 16 and a commercial version of the e-learning tool called LabSkills will soon be available in every (4000+) secondary school in the UK.

ChemLabS' Nick Norman who received the Award in London said, "The ChemLabS DLM has transformed the laboratory experience for chemistry undergraduates at Bristol and we are delighted with the recognition that this Award brings. We are all very proud of what we have achieved over the last few years and particularly pleased with how a project developed to support chemistry students is now having an impact in other disciplines and also in schools."

The judges for the award were Professor David Baker, deputy chair of JISC and former principal of University College Plymouth St Mark & St John; Sean Mackney, deputy chief executive,  The Higher Education Academy; and Sarah Porter, head of innovation at JISC.




David Andrew

My profiles: Twitter
Contact me: Skype/ david.andrew52

Friday, 26 November 2010

Explore the Chemical Education Digital Library

 
 

Sent to you by David Andrew via Google Reader:

 
 

via Free Technology for Teachers by noreply@blogger.com (Mr. Byrne) on 11/18/10

The Chemical Education Digital Library is a large collection of resources for teaching and learning chemistry. The ChemEd DL contains tutorials for students, 3D models, lesson plans, and more. The tutorials include 3D chemical models and explanations of what each part of the models does and how those parts work together. In the lesson plans section you will find downloadable lesson plans organized by subject. ChemEd DL also features a periodic table that links each element to data and explanations about that element.

Here are some related items that may be of interest to you:
Canvas Mol - 3D Models of Molecules
Science and Statistics Animations
5 Good Resources for Learning the Periodic Table


 
 

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Tuesday, 23 November 2010

Buzz from AJ Cann



 Link to this post:
 http://www.google.com/buzz/107962914038670635598/XRYET1cTkQR/Open-SOAR

09:22 AJ Cann: Open SOAR

David Andrew,
Head of Academic Practice
 



The Learning Institute at Queen Mary, University of London

Mile End, London E1 4NS

02078822803

02081446753





Fwd: Health Sciences and Practice Subject Centre e-bulletin November 2010



---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: kcl - info-hsap <info-hsap@kcl.ac.uk>
Date: 19 November 2010 17:06
Subject: Health Sciences and Practice Subject Centre e-bulletin November 2010
To:
Cc: kcl - info-hsap <info-hsap@kcl.ac.uk>


Dear Colleague,

 

Please find attached the November edition of the e-bulletin from the Health Sciences and Practice Subject Centre.

I would like to draw your attention to the following items:

 

1.     Practice Learning and Support: Monitoring the quality of learning environment through educational audit. 1st December 2010, King's College London. http://www.health.heacademy.ac.uk/news-events/eventsbox/events2010/plssig01122010/

 

2.     Public Health SIG meeting - The practice teacher: Innovations and Best Practice. 28th January 2011, King's College London. Call for contributions deadline: 26/11/2010. http://www.health.heacademy.ac.uk/news-events/eventsbox/events2011/ph28012011/

 

3.     Contemporary Issues in assessment in health sciences and practice education. 1st December 2010, Edinburgh Napier University. http://www.health.heacademy.ac.uk/news-events/eventsbox/events2010/assesswp01122010

 

4.     Health Sciences and Practice Departmental Workshop Call 2011. Deadline for applications: 14th December 2010. http://www.health.heacademy.ac.uk/news-events/newsbox/news-2010/deptworkshop2011/

 

If you would like to update your details, please login to the My Academy site: https://my.heacademy.ac.uk/login/login.asp to update any of your information.

 

Kind regards

 

Charles Kasule
Communications & Resources Officer

 

Health Sciences and Practice Subject Centre

3.12 Waterloo Bridge Wing, Franklin Wilkins Building, King's College London, 150 Stamford Street London, SE1 9NH

02078484266

www.health.heacademy.ac.uk  

 

10 years of enhancing Learning and Teaching

 

PHORUS Project http://phorus.health.heacademy.ac.uk/

 



David Andrew,
Head of Academic Practice
 



The Learning Institute at Queen Mary, University of London

Mile End, London E1 4NS

02078822803

02081446753





Sunday, 14 November 2010

The fall and rise of the webinar/web conference

 
 

Sent to you by David Andrew via Google Reader:

 
 

via JISC RSC MASHe by Martin Hawksey on 11/9/10

In the last couple of weeks my aggregation channels have been gently humming to the sound of webinars. It seems a number of institutions are rediscovering the possibilities of these tools to support flexible delivery (and no doubt cut costs allow the reallocation of staff time to enhance the learner experience). This post is designed to highlight some projects and technical developments that I've come across.

Projects/Events

Two projects, both funded by the Higher Education Academy, have found their way into my inbox. At Queen Margaret University the Higher Education Academy Subject Centre for Dance, Drama and Music (PALATINE) has funded "An exploration of learner and tutor experience in using online synchronous learning environments across disciplines within the School of Drama and Creative Industries".

The objectives of this 9 month study are:

    To conduct an in-depth, comparative study of tutor and student experiences of using an online synchronous learning environment (OSLE) in order to:

    • Build a rich picture of actual learner and tutor engagement with such technology across four drama programmes at undergraduate and postgraduate level;
    • Develop an understanding of the impact of using an OSLE in the learning experience;
    • Develop guidelines and case studies for educators to improve learner and tutor use of OSLEs.

As part of this project we are supporting QMU, PALATINE and the HEA Subject Centre for Medicine, Dentistry & Veterinary Medicine (MEDEV) in running the Crossing Virtual Boundaries – Teaching and Research with Online Synchronous Learning Environments (OSLEs) event to be held on the 10 June 2011 (click here for booking details). Here is a good starting point for find out more about the QMU project.

The second project is funded as of part of the HEA Discipline-focused Learning Technology Enhancement Academy Programme. The Collaboration for Excellence in a Distance Learning Environment (Excel-DL)  project is being led by the University of Salford. I haven't seen much detail about this project but do know their aim is to:

evaluate the use of 'Elluminate Live', a synchronous online collaboration delivery method for postgraduate distance learners within the School of the Built Environment, University of Salford (to inform the wider context of Construction & Built Environment Community)

The main reason for highlighting this project is because they are hosting a free online session on 'Synchronous Online Learning: Bridging the Divide' on the 10th November 2010 from 1m to 4:15pm. The aim of the event is to:

"is to explore the pros and cons and the pedagogical inspirations of this particular innovation with distinguished academics"

Sessions in the event include:

  • Practice and pedagogies of synchronous online learning – Tim Neumann
  • Synchronous vs asynchronous online learning – Stefan Hrastinski
  • Play time: an interactive demonstration of the possibilities of synchronicity – Peter Chatterton
  • The blended situated learner context for synchronous collaboration – Ian Mills & Georgina Evans
  • Anticipating the future learner – Simon Kear

Click here for more information and to book a place

Software developments

As well as renewed interest in the human side of webinars there are also a couple of software developments worth flagging:

Blackboard:  Wimba + Elluminate = Gemini

If you are a Blackboard user you might be interested in Collborate on Gemini post by Kevin Brace at Aston University. This post reviews a recent webinar he attended outlining Blackboard's roadmap for merging their recently acquired Wimba and Elluminate webinar platforms.

Adobe Connect Mobile for Android

Mobile technology is everywhere, quite literally, and if you are talking about flexible delivery it is inevitable that mobiles will come into the conversation. Looking at the disputed Wikipedia Comparison of web conferencing software you'll see very few products are declaring mobile device support. For institutions using or looking into Adobe Connect you might be interested to hear that Connect Mobile for Android is now available. This adds to their support for iPhone related devices (iPad, iPod Touch and iPhone).

Open source alternative: Big Blue Button

I was initially dismissive about the open source webinar tool 'Big Blue Button' not finding the interface very intuitive, but then I had session in Adobe Connect and concluded all webinar software is counterintuitive. Rather than going through the details of Big Blue Button I recommend you read Steve Boneham's blog post, which should have everything you need and more. The Moodle integration looks particularly interesting.   

So what have I missed in all of this? Very interested to hear about other projects or tools in this area. Please share using the comments


 
 

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