Slideshare are now offering a free facility to hold webinars, or web meetings. It’s free and allows synchronous slide advancing + chat + video (or audio). For additional features (no ads, private, password protected meetings) there is a paid version.
Zipcast = slides + chat + video
A not insignificant amount of time ago, I ventured into the world of Second Life, to see what it had to offer for universities and medical education. Not only did I discover that I was hopeless at flying, but I also found that getting dressed was no easy matter and for some time I was close to wandering around starkers.
Notwithstanding the challenges I had a gander around the brave new world of avatars and found the Ann Myers Medical Centre. It was inspirational. At that time they provided lectures, events & training tools in areas of psychology, oncology, gastroenterology, general practice and surgery.
Today, I ventured back to have a look and it has to be said although second life has also progressed, the world of avatars is as wierd and wonderful as ever. On login I have no idea where I am. Some avatar called ‘Rhys’ wants a chat:
I decide me and Rhys have had enough of a chat and attempt to fly to get an idea of where I am but it seems I am geographically challenged even in second life, so I use the Ann Myers Medical Centre teleport link and Voila! I have arrived.
There are notices around the place you can click on if you need more information. Within the AMMC you receive a welcome message and guidance on navigating the building:
“On the floor you see a green line if you follow it you see a yellow and red line branching off it. The green line guides you from psychiatry, general practice, diabetes, leukemia, oncology to the women health centre. When you follow the green path and enter the clinics/departments you can find some pretty amazing creations.”
Clearly the centre has expanded and there is plenty to see and do, but the limitations are still much the same as they were two years ago – limitations of second life not the centre.
AMMC was created for the virtual training for First Life medical and nursing students. I cannot vouch for the quality or level of the medical education, but what I did want to look at were the possibilities second life has to offer for medical education today.
I would say, there are still significant difficulties – learning to move, interact and navigate with the equipment and information is still cumbersome, but as a virtual structure the AMMC has shown what can be done, not only in building the centre but also in collaborating with different educators in different languages across the globe.
The AMMC say they would like
To assist students to become more proficient in initial exam history and physicals.
It will be interesting to know how close the AMMC are to achieving their aims and student uptake. AMMC currently has a voluntary staff consisting of Psychologists, Hematologists, Oncologists, Radiologists, Cardiologists, Midwives, Emergency and Trauma Specialists, general physicians, interns, educators and several nurses.
Do you remember the doubt, uncertainty, ‘it will never take off’, ‘how do we know the content is good’, ‘Wikipedia is dodgy and students should avoid using it at all costs’ that was around when Wikipedia was first launched Jan 15th 2001? The whole concept that anyone could contribute anything and it still be quality information was revolutionary.
It now describes itself as the “multilingual, web-based, free-content encyclopedia project”, and as a resource (a good one in my opinion) it’s well an truly here. Take a look at this:
The percentage of all American adults who use Wikipedia to look for information has increased from 25% in February 2007 to 42% in May 2010. This translates to 53% of adult internet users who use Wikipedia
Education level continues to be the strongest predictor of Wikipedia use. The collaborative encyclopedia is most popular among internet users with at least a college degree, 69% of whom use the site.
Those are some nice stats on Wikipedia from PEW
Happy Birthday Wikipedia!
“How do you trust what you’re reading is quality?” “When does quality become quality?” These are recurring themes encountered with regard to some of the websites that offer free content. However, aggregator sites gather content of a certain standard or type which may offer an alternative to some of the more traditional ways of peer review or defining quality.
This is an excellent new educational resource which gathers video lectures from leading Universities such as MIT, Yale, Princeton, Harvard, Stanford, and Berkeley. Lectures are free to use and download and there is plan to include social features for users. As an example:
Private Equity and the Financial Crisis — Yale University lecture by Stephen Schwarzman Co-Founder of Blackstone Group
For a more detailed description on Academic Earth see also Life in the Fast lane’s Academic Earth Open Source Lecture Series.
This site features bloggers from a wide array of scientific disciplines and only includes those posts which have reached a high academic standard. Launched in January 2006, ScienceBlogs claims to have the largest online community dedicated to science.
Research Blogging automatically aggregates only blog posts about peer-reviewed research, many of which appear in Science Blogs and can be recognized by the green tick telling reader they are reading a blog on peer reviewed research. If you don’t know this site I can highly recommend having a look – topics covered range from Computer Science to Psychology.
Newly launched, YouTubeEdu collects all the educational content being uploaded on YouTube by Colleges and Universities. However, in this case there is no guarantee being made of educational quality and the standards will undoubtedly vary but it is another excellent resource.
Although not aggregator sites as such, it is probable that top Universities offering content on a variety of subjects will have reached a certain standard. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in addition to providing OpenCourseWare recently opted to publish their research articles free online (in addition to sending them to journals for publication) in order to give greater access to the university’s scholarship. Harvard University’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences have also decided on a similar policy. The Education Portal lists some of the best free online University courses available.
Overall, does content go through as rigorous a review process compared with more traditional routes – maybe, maybe not. There are new ideas like GPeerReview being developed, however, for sites such as Academic Earth, ScienceBlogs, or MIT to be able to continue to draw traffic by virtue of hosting only the best means they must ensure that content meets their standards – much in the same way as happens in the more traditional routes of peer review.
For more information on the role of blogs as institutional educational tools which also tackles the issue of quality control very well see an article published by PLoS Biol: Advancing Science through Conversations: Bridging the Gap between Blogs and the Academy.
