Technology for Teaching and Learning

Taking handwritten notes on your tablet.

2012-02-05T04:13:00.000-08:00

Taking notes at lectures is one way we will be able to bring back ideas and concepts to enhance our medical practice. Using traditional pen and paper does not allow you to keep all your notes with you at all times.

Taking handwritten notes with an electronic device is as easy as using paper and pen, but allows you to keep your notes always with you and share them through email.

On today's post I will comment on devices that use Android as their operating system. On my next post I will comment on software that can be used on an Ipad.

Even though the following software is better suited for tablets, it can also be used on Android phones.

Genial Writing allows you to share memos with friends through email, other messages and facebook. You can customize your pen width and color and decide if you want to use portrait or landscape orientation. You can copy and paste between notes as well. There are 12 kinds of notebooks, you shake your phone to delete something and lastly you can insert pictures from your phone. You can do OK with the free version but the inexpensive paid version adds some features.

Bellow you can see a short demo. In the demo, a cursor is used for writing, but on you tablet or smartphone you can use your finger or a rubber pointed pen.

Customized Virtual Learning Meeting Points

2011-12-22T06:32:00.000-08:00

By Helena Filipe

Internet offers both learners and educators customized virtual meeting points. Today we will present software with such capability.

Drop box http://www.dropbox.com/ enables us to store our own multimedia files (photos, videos and other documents) and have them available in all devices (laptop, smartphone,…)where its app´s have been previously downloaded (offline working)

or in any computer with internet connectivity (online working).

We can store our files and have them instantly available on the move without the need of the classical pen drive avoiding its possible associated troubles such as simply forgetting it, spreading virus or losing our content for any other reason.

Documents will be securely saved in the virtual space, instantly available offline if we are working in a computer with this software or in any other device as long it has Internet connectivity. In this last case we must have a Drop Box account and once logged in, it will be as if we were working in our own computer: all our stored content is there ready to be worked on. This happens because whenever we store files using DropBox they are simultaneously saved in our computer and in Drop Box website.

Folders created to keep ophthalmic specific subjects can be shared within a group (learning community) with a common goal and same interests.

Once found a scientific article or a new surgical technique video focused on a specific ophthalmology subject and stored in a Drop Box shared folder, it will be instantly available for the whole group of people, previously invited to share that folder content.

Drop Box allows us to work together on the same projects and keeps track of what is happening concerning the evolution of those projects. This activity involves authorship at a certain extent, social tagging and collaboration falling under the umbrella of social bookmarking.

As examples of this software use we present: Ocular Surface Disease created to store scientific content related to be available among a group of colleagues sharing the same subspecialty.

Recently another shared folder was created to allocate and allow cooperation to build our monthly Portuguese Society of Ophthalmology newsletter. Since a group of three people is engaged in this task, whenever there is a change in the document it will easily tracked by the others which will optimize our work.

This software is downloadable from http://www.dropbox.com/ and a free use of a 2GB subscription can be used though it can be extended to 100GB. If we invite more “friends” to DropBox our subscription capacity can be extended. The Drop Box site offers a concise but complete explanation through a video clip of the concept at stake and how to make its best use.

Downloading Videos from YouTube: Can we? Should we?

2011-11-29T06:54:00.001-08:00

By Dr. Eduardo Mayorga.

When looking for videos to train our residents, YouTube becomes a great source for them. The videos can be watched on line during a class or you can send the residents a link for them to comment on the video or part of it. On occasion and for different reasons, you may want to have the video or part of it on your hard drive so, is there an easy way to do this? Are we allowed to do it? Let's answer each question at a time.

Is there an easy way to download videos from YouTube?: Yes, there is. YouTubeDownloader works very well and easily converts YouTube videos into several formats. As with any free software you should be aware that some of them can install spyware in your system. I have not found this to be true with YouTubeDownloader.

Are we allowed to download videos from YouTube?: A fast and safe answer would be: No, you are not allowed..., unless you have permission of the person that created the video. Please be aware that not always the creator (the owner of the rights) is the person who uploaded the video.

There are at least 2 ways to get permission: the first and faster is to look for the type of license the owner has assigned to the video. If it's a Creative Commons Licence, you may reuse and edit the video as far as you acknowledge the authorship to the real creator. The other way to get permission is to write to the owner of the rights. You can read more on Creative Commons Licences clicking here.

Evaluating computer skills

2011-10-31T06:01:00.000-07:00

Computer skills is a competency all residents must acquire. Electronic medical records, searching for evidence in literature databases, preparing presentations, are only a few examples where they will apply these skills.

There are at least two ways in which you can evaluate their competency: The first one would be looking at the final product, eg: the completed medical record, the search results, the final PowerPoint presentations. The second one is the process. Evaluating the process is very important because sometimes you can have a good final product through an inefficient process. For evaluating the process you would need to sit beside them while they complete it. Many times finding the time to meet with your residents to do this is not easy. This is when screen capturing software can help you.

Using screen capturing software you resident can record all the process he or she did to reach the final product. As it is recorded as a video, you can go through it fast forwarding so it may allow you to review the process in a shorter time that it would have taken if you sat beside the resident during the actual work.

There are many screen capturing software. One that you can try is Screencast-O-Matic.

Screencast-O-Matic is a cloud based software that can be used for free, for recording up to 15 minutes of continuous capture. You can see an example of how it works below

Learning is a social activity.

2011-09-29T07:17:00.001-07:00

By Helena Filipe

Twitter is a free social network consisting of a microblog allowing users to send and receive short (140 characters, maximum) messages designated as tweets.

The concept can be visualized as a flock of birds flying in the same direction, following a common interest or purpose. This can be brought to the context of ophthalmic education.

Suppose an ophthalmic subspecialty expert posting (tweeting) an innovative idea or concept clearly grounded on solid scientific medical evidence. Imagine that this scientific foundation relies on a recent scientific publication present in PubMed and the tweet contains its link.

The explained model is what Prof. Bertil Damato proposes in his Bertil Damato@eyemelanoma : Click here to view the page

A statement solidly grounded in a scientific article identified by its link in PubMed is an elegant invitation to learn and be current with the latest content, in this case on melanoma.

The educator is graciously sharing, facilitating updated knowledge coming from an unquestionable reliable source (both the person and the supportive didactic resource) to all of those interested in the topic. Prof. Damato´s tweets main aim is at his fellow’s medical education.

Certainly this methodology can be used in other ophthalmic subspecialties and applied to different levels of learning including continuous medical education/ continuous professional development (CME/CPD).

We will be leveraging previous online educators and learners skills and collaborative CME/CPD. Learning will be time and place independent and focused on following worldwide renowned experts in each one´s own specific ophthalmic field of interest. As a blogging activity it promotes reflection and interaction.

There is good explanation about the Twitter´s general concept as there are also directions on how to create a Twitter account in clicking here

The idea is to follow key thinkers in one´s own field of expertise and/or be followed as one ophthalmic expert. Receiving and sending tweets: small, concise and complete pieces of content scientifically grounded will present a window to collaboratively build ophthalmic knowledge learning from the best.

Learning can be seriously fun!

Improving Teaching in the Clinic with tablet devices.

2011-08-30T07:39:00.000-07:00

By Dr. Karl Golnik

Teaching in the outpatient clinic is one of the most effective ways to ensure learning
occurs. The resident is highly engaged in the process of evaluating patients and actively synthesizing information to achieve a differential diagnosis. However, it can be difficult to provide effective teaching because residents and teaching faculty tend to busy in their attempts to care for the many patients seen in one day. Thus, I always try and sit down at lunch and at the end of the day to discuss at least several
interesting patients seen throughout the course of the day. Additionally, I try and make important points throughout the day as patients are evaluated.

I find my tablet device to be a useful adjunct to my clinical teaching. I store all my clinical photographs (e.g. optic discs, MRIs) and videos (e.g. pupils, eye movements) on the tablet. As it is immediately ready, little time is spent demonstrating key findings and showing other examples of the entities encountered in clinic on any day.

Residents find it is valuable to see other examples of the same entity or photos/videos of conditions in the differential diagnosis of the clinical findings at hand. This approach could be accomplished with a laptop computer as well but the immediacy and portability of the tablet makes this an ideal technology for improving teaching and learning in the clinic.

Use of Technology tools for teaching in the Clinic! The EMR way

2011-06-21T06:13:00.000-07:00

by Dr. Anthony Vipin ,L V Prasad Eye Institute

Technology is evidently becoming an integral part of our personal lives today. As medical professionals we are increasingly expected to adapt to the latest forms of delivery of healthcare, especially documentation of patient care and clinical records.

Electronic Medical Record Systems, popularly abbreviated as EMR are at various stages of implentation around the world today. While we see a more refined approach in the developed nations, the sheer numbers in the developing nations is an uphill task for implementation.

Nevertheless, the variety and the sheer numbers add rich dividends in the long run for high quality research and statistical analysis in the developing countries. We have started implementing our Home grown EMR and wanted to share with you all how we have integrated Teaching into the EMR.

The following users interact with our EMR which enables teaching at various levels
- Consultants
- Fellows
- Residents
- Optometrists

1. The structured forms in various departments are crystallized from years of expertise of the practicing Ophthalmologists. This enables teaching opportunities to all users as they understand the correct format of Clinical Evaluation for various diseases.

Structured detailed forms

2. Ability to view various protocols of disease management serves as a great tool to update one’s knowledge. It also aids in clinical decision making in certain instances.

3. We have intelligently incorporated various PDFs and Flash Tools which serve as excellent educational resource. Ex: Color Vision Charts, Classification Systems, Drawing Tools with various canvases.

Integrated PDFs

Flash Tools

4. Allowing the User to be creative in documenting figures has made it more exciting for us. Standardized Canvases and Color Coding has helped train the students in correct representation of diagrams during clinical evaluation.

5. The use of Mandatory functions while saving the form has helped the user understand the importance of taking certain History. Ex: If Diabetes Mellitus is checked in the personal history, the documentation of Evidence of Diabetic Retinopathy in retinal examination becomes mandatory.

6. The ability of Media like Photos, Videos incorporated into the EMR system adds in a rich experience to the users while counseling patients and explaining plan of management.

Images and Video

7. Prompting the user during Refraction value entry serves as an effective way to correct mistakes during power entry of spectacles. Mentioning the correct signs and axis and automatically calculating the transpositions serves as a simple way of training the users.

8. As the Institute has patients coming from different parts of the Country and the world, the ability to communicate effectively with the patient during History Taking is crucial. Our EMR incorporates the common Language sentences to enable better communication.

Currently eyeSmart is managing a range of centers from a Tertiary Center of Excellence, Secondary Centers in rural areas to Urban City Centers of L V Prasad Eye Institute, India.

The ability to refine the system further to assist the caregiver in delivering cutting edge documentation is what drives us to build better functions and health management systems.

To make Learning and Teaching Ophthalmology in the Clinic more fun and enjoyable is our Goal using Technology!

Learning anywhere: Podcasts to the rescue.

2011-05-29T13:18:00.000-07:00

by Dr. Eduardo Mayorga

There are many situations in which you might have the feeling you are wasting your time, but at the same time you can't avoid them, such as when you're standing in a line, commuting to work by car or on public transportation, at the doctor's waiting room, at airports. There are also times where even if you do not feel you're wasting your time, as when you jog, workout or ride your bike, you might feel guilty because you have a lot of topics you need or want to update on, but still, you are using this time to exercise.

In all these situations, podcasts can help. If you are not familiar with podcasts you may want to watch the following video.

There are many programs that you can use to search for and organize your podcasts. As mentioned in the video, the one I like best is Itunes. If you don't have it already installed in you computer, you may download it clicking here.

Open Itunes. At the top click on "Podcasts"

At the top right search box type "ophthalmology"

Then, at the left menu, click on "Podcasts" again

You will be presented with a number of podcasts on ophthalmology.

If you click on the number of the podcast you will start listening to it. If you click on the third column, "Podcast", you will be taken to the page of the podcast's author.

One of my favorites is Dr. Joshua Young's "As seen from here". Joshua is a great interviewer. He makes the practical questions you would like to do.

When you get to the author's page, on the left, you will get the opportunity to subscribe to the author's podcasts.

If you do so, the most recent podcast will download and from then on, every time a new podcast is published, it will download to you computer. From there you will be able to copy it to any mobile device. Mobile devices with internet connection will many times allow you to download podcasts directly to your device.

If you know of any good ophthalmology podcasts, please use the comment form to let us know about them.

Finding images to enhance your presentations

2011-04-30T07:24:00.000-07:00

by Dr. Eduardo Mayorga

The brain has 2 kinds of memory: a long term memory where what we know is stored and a short term memory.

When we learn, information enters through visual and phonetic areas into the working area where it´s processed, related to previous knowledge and finally stored to long term memory.

There is a continuos enconding and retrival proccess going on all time, between working memory and long term memory.

Working memory has a very small capacity, it can only hold from 5 to 9 pieces of information at a time.

Working memory has also 2 substorage areas, one for visual information amd one for phonetic information. One way to strech working memory is to use both storage areas.

The practical application of this theory is that when making presentations you should use visuals (images, animations, videos) to facilitate the understanding, processing and final storage of the facts or concepts you want to transmit to the audience.

Most of us use PowerPoint to present and usually add text to the slides. Eventhough, limited short bulleted content can be of some help to learning, text goes into the memory using the phonetic channel so soon your speech and text on the slide overload the phonetic channel, but your visual channel is not fully used.

Every time we finish preparing a slide we should ask to ourselves at least 2 questions:

1) Which words in the text could be replaced or enhanced by a image.

2) What part of what I will be saying, can be enhanced with an image.

These questions will probably bring to your mind many images. So: How can we get the images we need?

Today it´s very easy to find images on the web using Google. The problem is we are usually not allowed to use these images without the permission of the author.

Following is a list of places where you can get images. Some free and some paid. (Many very inexpensive)
This list was originally posted by David Anderson at the "E-learning Heroes" blog.

Free stock image sites:

Pay-per-image, bundle or subscription:

Working together on Microsoft documents: PowerPoint, Excel, Word.

2011-03-29T03:38:00.000-07:00

by Eduardo Mayorga

On previous posts we have commented on ways of sharing documents on the web using Google Docs. This is convenient for many things but, on occasions, you may want to work on a Microsoft document such as PowerPoint, Word or Excel and at the same time have others edit it from distant places.
Google has now come up with a way of doing this. All you have to do is download "Google Cloud" from http://tools.google.com/dlpage/cloudconnect

Google Cloud will install as an add-on in your Microsoft programs, allowing you to share and synchronize with others, the documents you want to share.

Webstreaming – The Classroom in your Living Room!

2011-02-25T01:36:00.000-08:00

Dr. Anthony Vipin

(Note of the editor: In this post Dr. Vipin explains how L V Prasad Eye Institute shares its morning lectures with the world. There are many tools to share live lectures over the Internet. We have covered some of them in the past. If you would like to try a free streaming tool, go to http://www.ustream.tv/)

Access to media both video and audio in today’s world is scaling new heights. The ability of current technology to deliver information to the end user in various forms is getting better by the day. In the education front, the impact of Video is much greater as they say – A picture is worth a thousand words!

Web streaming is the process of delivering multimedia — usually audio or video — over the World Wide Web. Web streaming requires three things: a media source in a format that can be streamed; server software that can stream it; and a client, or player that can play it on a user's computer or other device such as a smart phone.

It can be either streamed in real time or can be made available as video-on-demand for the participants.

A novel concept that we have embarked on is to make our Morning Classes LIVE for the entire world. L V Prasad Eye Institute is a World Health Organization Collaborating Centre in Hyderabad, India in the fight against blindness. Training and Education are recognized as key factors that influence the reach, range and quality of eye health service delivery.

We have begun transmission of our classes held at 7 AM (Indian Standard Time) on the Internet. The registration is FREE for users around the world.

You can click on the following link or can visit www.lvpei.org to register for the Online Webcast for Free.

http://174.122.81.186/patodia/

Confirmation of registration is both by SMS (available only in India) and Email.

We also add in a small document titled “Webcast requirements” in the email to help the users have a better experience. We list all the necessary hardware and software required to view the stream. The most common problem that we encounter is Low bandwidth speed at the user end that causes the stream to buffer and load. A minimum of 512 kbps is recommended.

Access to high quality education and content forms an integral part in improving the standards of training among the residents and fellows alike. Bringing the classroom to the living room truly gives the student the freedom to attend lectures and access world class content at the click of a button.

We believe that this initiative will open up many collaborations between academic institutes for the benefit of Ophthalmic Education in India and also the world.

Searching for evidence with Google Scholar.

2011-01-31T03:20:00.000-08:00

By Dr. Eduardo Mayorga

One of the most important competencies residents must acquire during their training is the ability for searching and evaluating scientific literature.

The search tool we have always recommended, as the first source for searching, is Pubmed, that comprises more than 20 million citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books.

Being Google the most popular tool for searching, many residents did their searches with it. These searches brought back enormous amount of citations, many of them from dubious sources.

Google Scholar, even though launched in 2004, is not still well known and used for searching scientific articles.

Google Scholar provides a simple way to broadly search for scholarly literature. From one place, you can search across many disciplines and sources: articles, theses, books, and abstracts, from academic publishers, professional societies, online repositories, universities and other web sites. Google Scholar helps you find relevant work across the world of scholarly research.

Google Scholar should not replace Pubmed for our searches but rather complement them. For those interested in learning more about Google Scholar and how it compares to Pubmed, please click on this link.

Adding surgical videos to the residents' portfolio

2010-12-29T06:51:00.000-08:00

By Dr. Eduardo Mayorga

In a past blog we talked about how we use Google Docs for enhancing reflective learning.
Today we will see how we take this reflective learning to the operating room.

At our residency, residents must record on video all their surgery. Every week they must choose 2 segments: the one they feel was their best performance and the one they think was their worst. They must upload these segments to Youtube.

On a Google Docs spreadsheet they record the date, instructor, link to the video and reflection on their performance.

This is not only useful for the resident that reflects on his or her performance, but it also helps build a video collection for training other residents.

Adequate sharing settings are setup up to assure privacy.

Irfanview - Working with Images with ease

2010-11-27T02:59:00.000-08:00

Dr. Anthony Vipin

As Teachers and Students presenting Powerpoints regularly, working with different Image types and sizes can be demanding and confusing. I have found this Freeware viewer called IRFANVIEW of great help and thought I should share some aspects of this tool with you.

IrfanView is a freeware/shareware image viewer for Microsoft Windows that can view, edit, and convert image files and play video/audio files. It is noted for its small size, speed, ease of use, and ability to handle a wide variety of graphic file formats, and has some image creation and painting capabilities. The software was first released in 1996. IrfanView is free for non-commercial use; commercial use requires paid registration.

The program is named after its creator, Irfan Skiljan from Bosnia and Herzegovina, living in Vienna. IrfanView works under Windows 95 through Windows 7. It supports numerous file types including: image formats such as BMP, GIF, JPEG, PNG (includes the optimizer PNGOUT), TIFF, camera RAW, non-image media files such as Flash, Ogg Vorbis, MPEG, MP3, MIDI, and text files.

Irfan View
Version 4.27
Basic Install - 1.6 MB, Full Install with Plugins - 10 MB

Note - During installation, when prompted to select type of files to be associated, click IMAGES ONLY. (This is not required if you want to keep your actual association)

If you associated images to IrfanView you will see all images with a Irfanview cat Icon! According to Skiljan, the IrfanView logo and mascot is a "road cat" (there is a tire track across the smallest icon)

File Support -
A wide range of files can be opened. They can be converted into a wider range of Image types. Most commonly I work between BMP, PNG, TIFF and JPEG and I find using this much easier. The option to be used is Save As -

Resize -
This is the BEST option that allows us to conveniently resize Images to any size to enable embedding into presentations or to upload as thumbnails on websites. Hotkey to be used is Ctrl + R

Rotate -
Another simple effective function. Press L for Left and R for Right. Its that Simple!

Paint Tool -
After a selection is made, Paint tool can be used to further add to the picture like color coding, labeling. Hotkey - F12

Crop Selection -
The detail and precision of this tool is amazing. By default when you open an image, you get a cross hair which enables you to conveniently select your area of interest to crop. Once selected, all the four corners and lines can be moved independently to further refine the selection. I have found this tool of great help to work parallely between Powerpoint and Irfanview.

Photo enhancement options -
In Image, there are a wide variety of Color filters, Convert to Grayscale, Negative, Red Eye reductions, Effects to add to the images or selections. The functions are endless.

Viewing ease -
Hitting ENTER automatically makes the Image full screen, and hitting Esc key while open closes the application. Minute attention to detail like this makes it more user friendly.

Irfanview is a small sized software that packs a Big Punch. As a freeware application, it has gained wide spread popularity around the Globe. I have mentioned only a FEW functions that I use regularly to edit images crisply and efficiently. You can use the help option to explore the other functions as well.

I would highly recommend you all to try it out and you'll see the difference! It is FREEWARE! :)

Homepage ( Download )
www.irfanview.com

FAQs
http://www.irfanview.net/faq.htm

Managing Content in the Web 3.0 era

2010-10-29T02:34:00.000-07:00

How to keep current using RSS feeds
By Helena Filipe

The latest response of technology to our needs to find and organize information is the so called semantic, data Web or Web 3.0.

This kind of artificial intelligence extracts meaning from the way people interact with the web and contextualize information search according to one’s goals and interests.

iGoogle (www.google.pt/ig) and Netvibes (www.netvibes.com) derive from web 3.0 concept.

A great number of blogs, journals and other online applications are now producing RSS (Really Simple Syndication ou Rich Site Summary) and Web Feeds.

Every blog or other online application with RSS icon in its page can be listed and aggregated.

Clicking the correspondent icon enables us to subscribe the ones of our preference and list them as favourite sites.

The following screenshots show the sequence of steps required to add the blog “elearnspace” to your list of favorites.

http://www.elearnspace.org/blog/

After clicking the icon in the box, a dialog box will appear inviting us to add our feed to our iGoogle homepage (first option) or using Google Reader (www.google.com/reader) (second option) as an aggregator to list it in our group of favourites that we can check with Internet Explorer.

Choosing iGoogle page will help up us personalising our homepage, and a miniaplication will immediately appear in our homepage. To create our own iGoogle page we must have created an account and it will be accessed by our username and password which can be the same ones that we use to open our Gmail.

If we decide ourselves for storing the feed in our personalized iGoogle page it will automatically appear whenever we enter the page and immediately announces if there is something new to capture our attention.

If we choose Google Reader as an aggregator, we must create an account (again, possibly maintaining our Gmail username and password) and after logging in, the following screen will be displayed.

We can check the list of postings of our newly added site as well as consult the others we have previously added.

We will just focus on what we really need and we will be easily updated on new content of the sites of our preference.

You can also subscribe this feed and add it to the Central Feed Centre.

As such we will be creating our own list of favourites that can be checked with Internet Explorer.

New content of other added sites are at a click’s distance. We can add as many we need. They can then be selected from the list of our left.

The next screen shows an example of us checking new content of sites we already had in our list.

http://icotechnology.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

New content of our previously chosen sources will be pulled to us instead our going to look for it.

This information sharing structure allows both learners and educators to manage content, avoiding a paralysing sea of information as well as to create one’s personal enriching learning environment.

Following up residents' assignments

2010-09-29T08:05:00.000-07:00

Haven't you found yourself giving assignments to residents or coworkers through email and realize weeks or months latter that these assignments were not carried out? If so, how do you deal with them?
I used to do it with my "To do" list but, on one hand, this made my "To do" list very long and on the other one, running down every day your "To do" list is not only time consuming, but many times you don't do it at all.

How can we keep an uncluttered "To do" list and at the same time, be reminded timely about the tasks you must follow up?

I have found "Deferred Sender" at http://www.deferredsender.com/ a very useful tool. Deferred Sender is a free service that allows you to schedule emails from any email application or website to be sent in the future.

The way I make it work for me is that every time I send out a task through my email, I just copy it to "deferred@deferredsender.com" with my email and the date on which I want to be reminded about the task. On that date, it will enter my email box and sit at the top of the unread mail to remind me about the task.

You can find more information at http://deferredsender.com/help

“Making your lectures interactive using the cell phones of attendants”

2010-08-30T07:53:00.001-07:00

By Dr. Eduardo Mayorga

One of the drawbacks of lectures, from the pedagogical standpoint of view, is that they may lack interactivity. If present, you can only have it with a very small portion of the audience.

When working with your residents in small groups, interactivity can be maintained, but once you have asked an open question and one resident answers, you will never know if the rest had the answer in mind.

To overcome these two drawbacks, you may want to add an 'interactive answering system' to your teaching tools,.

An interactive answering system is usually composed by some kind of hardware that allows participants in a meeting answer to a multiple choice question that the presenter has posted on the screen. Through special software that receives the answers, the presenter can show the results on the screen. The following images show an example of answering hardware and the results of the answer.

These answering systems have the disadvantage that you have to purchase all the answering devices.

At our residency we use a system that allows using the cell phones as answering devices. In this way we had to purchase only the software that can connect to a cellphone or a modem of a cellphone communications provider. In our case we use the modem.

With this method we can receive interactions from any size of audience. The results shown on the previous image come from the system we use.

One advantage is that you can also receive complete text messages for open questions. Following is an example from a small group of residents that were asked to define the acronym: LASEK.

As you can see, you get all kind of versions. The nice thing about the system is that you can display the results as they enter, or show them all at a time, once the last answer entered.

You can read more about SMS Studio, the software we use, clicking here.

We have no financial interest in this software.

Electronic Portfolio using Google Docs Folders

2010-07-30T02:20:00.000-07:00

By Eduardo Mayorga

A learning portfolio is a collection of products (learning experiences), prepared by the resident, that provides evidence of learning and achievement, related to a learning plan.
So the key aspects that are generally recorded in the portfolio are:

The evidence: a demonstration of how the learning is being applied in an appropriate context;
the learning: the discovery that what was has been recalled has significance in the future;
the evidence: a demonstration of how the learning is being applied in an appropriate context;
the learning needs: an identification of where it would be appropriate to go next;
the learning opportunities: an educational plan identifying ways in which learning needs might be met.

Redman 1994: Portfolios for development

Some concrete examples of the components that ay be included in a portfolio are, among others:

•Curriculum Vitae (CV)
• Publications
• Research literature review when selecting a treatment option
• Log of clinical and surgical procedures
• Ethical dilemmas faced (and how they were handled)
• Faculty evaluations
• 360-degree evaluations
• Copies of written instructions for patients and families
• Case presentations, lectures, logs of medical students mentored

By the end of his or her third year, paper portfolios can get very bulky. Besides this, residents start forgetting their paper folder at home. Reviewing residents' portfolios can be an impossible task if one wants to take home the work.
One way of avoiding all these shortcomings is using an electronic portfolio.
Goggle Docs http://docs.google.com/ is an excellent tool where residents can store their activities and share them with faculty. Any document that is not originally electronic is scanned and kept as a PDF document.
In our residency, each resident keeps 2 folders one with the results of exams, shared only with faculty, and one with the rest of the portfolio, shared with faculty and rest of the residents.
To be kept in order, each resident folder starts with the year the resident entered the residency program, as seen in this image:

The shared folder contains the rest of the sub-folders mentioned above:

You can learn more about folders at
http://docs.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=158074

Using Googledocs Spreadsheets for Developing Reflective Learning Narrations

2010-06-28T15:55:00.000-07:00

Reflective narrations serve many purposes in residents’ education. Firstly, by reflecting on what has been learned and how this learning is being applied to practice, residents and their tutors can identify knowledge gaps and other learning needs, and develop a learning plan that could help meet those needs.

Secondly, self-reflection and critical incident reports allow residents realize how these events are influencing their present and future practice.

Finally, by reading residents’ narrations teachers are able to better understand the resident’s thinking process, and how he/she arrived to a conclusion or made a mistake.

Every day, after they have finished their rotation shift, residents in our department reflect on and write a brief narration describing the 2 or 3 most important concepts they consider they have learned that day at the clinic or in the operating room. We have recently migrated from a paper form to a Google docs Spreadsheet, which has the advantage that residents can write as much as they need, and we teachers can read narrations from home at our convenience. The document includes columns for date, rotation, teacher or book where they got the information, teacher’s or program director’s comments and resident’s response, and it is included in the resident’s learning portfolio.

We have found this online “Daily Learning Form” (as we call it) user-friendly and very convenient for all participants involved, for it combines the benefits of mental reflection and web-based teaching.

Finding what you want, when you need it.

2010-05-28T15:15:00.000-07:00

By Eduardo Mayorga

Teaching and learning in the digital age makes you store hundreds of documents and presentations on your computer. No matter how well you organize your folders, many times you can't find what you are looking for. When this happens, finding what you need is made very easy using "Google Desktop".

Google Desktop makes searching your computer as easy as searching the web with Google. It's a desktop search application that provides full text search over your email, files, music, photos, chats, Gmail, web pages that you've viewed, and more. By making your computer searchable, Desktop puts your information easily within your reach and frees you from having to manually organize your files, emails and bookmarks.

You can find more on Google Desktop features clicking here

You can download Google Desktop clicking here.

"VUE" a tool for helping learning happen.

2010-04-29T02:05:00.000-07:00

By Dr. Eduardo Mayorga

(Note: This post has many links. When you go to one of them, remember to use the "Back" arrow of your browser to get back here.)

Today we will present a tool that will help your residents move faster on their way on becoming experts. This tool will help them build the concept maps we talked about in our first post and develop schemes and flow diagrams that will aid them to store and retrieve knowledge faster and better.

Following are the definition of schemes (or "schemata") and flow diagrams you can find in Wikipedia:
"The concept of schemata was initially introduced into psychology and education through the work of the British psychologist, Sir Frederic Bartlett (1886–1969). This learning theory views organized knowledge as an elaborate network of abstract mental structures which represent one's understanding of the world."
"A flow diagram is a diagram representing some kind of flow. The most known is the flowchart, but there are more kind of flow diagrams."
Cognitive psychology teaches us that one of the ways that novice doctors start turning into experts is because they start building schemes that help them reach a diagnosis.
Following is a flow chart that represents a scheme on differential diagnosis of anisocoria presented by Eric R Eggenberger.

Click to enlarge

Conceptual maps and flow charts are very easy to build using tools such as "VUE", an acronym for "Visual Understanding Environment".

"VUE" is a free tool and is a concept and content mapping application, developed to support teaching, learning and research, and for anyone who needs to organize, contextualize, and access digital information. Using a simple set of tools and a basic visual grammar consisting of nodes and links, faculty and students can map relationships between concepts, ideas and digital content.

"VUE" can be downloaded clicking here.

A Rubric for a Lecture’s Peer Review and Survey Software

2010-03-31T02:28:00.000-07:00

By Helena Felipe

On today’s blog we will be directing you to explore the power of online surveys and share with you a rubric for peer review evaluation of lectures.

A rubric is a scoring tool for subjective assessment of a chosen piece of work.

It consists of a summary of criteria and standards related to learning objectives with the purpose of grading someone’s performance.

A rubric contains a set of relevant dimensions critical to assess a piece of work. Each dimension offer several levels of potential achievement and excellency.

Rubrics produce more detailed, objective and reproducible assessments than a single, holistic grade.

They are usually the result of a collaborative effort of a group of people interested in gathering feedback from a certain educational paper or event. Thus work can be graded in a more objective, independent, accurate and less time consuming way consistently helping in continuous improvement and refinement.

In summary a “Rubric is an assessment tool to save grading time, convey effective feedback and promote student learning”. (D.Stevens, A. J. Levi)

We built a Four Level Rubric Framework for Peer review of a Lecture presentation (Lecture Design and Lecturer’s attributes assessment)

If building an effective, reliable and valid rubric can be a very challenging task ideally brainstormed by an interested group of people sharing common goals, rubric’s presentation, data collection and subsequent analysis can be extremely easy.

A rating scale can then be created, making use of the free and friendly user “Survey Monkey”. http://www.surveymonkey.com

Using this web tool you can, in a very simple way, create your own questionnaires, collect data and analyze final results.

The following series of screens show the systematic steps to proceed.

First you must make your own account, and create your survey.

The next image shows how you can chose different types of questions.

An online questionnaire is inexpensive to administer and provides a fast way of collecting results, draw conclusions and redesign attitudes to meet excellence.

You can test it before you officially administer it, which is the case of the screens here presented.

The following screen shows the example of our rubric being uploaded.

Finally, we can follow the evolution of participation and analyze results since statistical analysis is automatically performed as you can see on the next screen (at this time all in 0 because the screen capture was done before the survey started)

Our example can be reached at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/Z5BZR9R or http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=2jhw91P0lJLBbay4OAqnCQ_3d_3d

You may download our rubric at: http://www.oftalmohi.com/EM/ico/PresentationRubric.pdf

We thank Dr. Karl Golnik for reviewing our rubric and making very helpful suggestions.

References:

Introduction to Rubrics, Dannelle. Stevens & Antonia J. Levi – 2005, Stylus Publishing. http://Styluspub.com
Barbara Walvoord and Virginia Anderson, Effective Grading: A Tool for Learning and Assessment (Jossey-Bass, 1998)
The, What, How & Why of Rubrics, Health Sciences Summer Teaching Institute.August 19, 2009. Temple University Teaching and Learning Center. Retrieved 20^th March 2010 at http://www.temple.edu/tlc/events/health_science/hssi.htm
James Bardi: Developing A Rubric. May 11, 2009 Schreyer Institute for Teaching Excellence: Measuring Student Outcomes. Retrieved 20^th March 2010 at http://www.schreyerinstitute.psu.edu/pdf/Rubric_Schreyer_5_11_09.

Using your cell phone as your notebook's modem.

2010-02-28T07:12:00.000-08:00

by Dr. Eduardo Mayorga

The digital era has changed the way we handle information. In the the digital era knowing where to find the information is as, or even more, important than having the information. Why? Because the amount of information we can store in our long term memory is minimal if we compare it with what is stored in the Internet, which is also easily retrievable.

Internet access is available almost everywhere, but sometimes it can happen that your home Internet connection is down or you are at an airport with no access point, or at a convention where you have no access and need to connect to Internet using your computer. At these times is where using your cell phone as a modem can be very useful.

To connect to the Internet with your notebook and a cell phone you will need software to make the connection.
One place to look for this software is "Junes Fabrics" where you will be able to find the software that suits your phone.

Once you have it working, never again you will be "disconnected" from information.

Blogging Software

2010-01-30T12:47:00.000-08:00

In a previous blog we showed how you could publish your presentations to the web. But, what happens when you want to organize your presentations in one site? Of course, you can get someone to build you a web page to put all your videos and presentations in, but this will cost you not only money but also you will depend on a webmaster to update your content.

If you don't want to depend on webmasters you can put up and update your site using blogging software.
The two best known are Blogger and WordPress. Both are not only free but you also get free hosting.

WordPress also has a free downloadable version that you may install in a server. In this case you will need to pay for installing and hosting, but once installed you will be able to update your site without depending on a webmaster.

For a start you may use one of the two previously mentioned hosted blogs. Should you need more power, you can move to the WordPress self hosted version.

This "Technology for Teaching and Learning" blog uses Blogger. Our new "Video and Lecture Center" uses the self hosted version of WordPress. Click on the image to visit the site.

Communicating with Google Wave

2009-12-28T06:47:00.000-08:00

Communication Software: Google Wave

Communication software is a very important tool when using asynchronic e-learning. It is also critical when building collaborative teaching projects.

There are many types of software you can use to communicate, such as email, wikis, forums and chat.

Each of them has a distinct and unique set of main features.

E-mail is used by almost everybody. Conversations can be kept together and tracked. Wikis are documents that can be edited by more than one person. Forums keep messages and discussions together and allow editing by a coordinator. Chats allow real time discussion of two or more people.

Google has developed now a new tool that combines all of these in one application: Google Wave.

Every time you want to start a discussion you start a Wave. As with e-mail, you can add people you want to participate in the discussion. As in a wiki, everybody can edit the main post, as in a forum you may respond to the main post or individually to an answer. As in a chat, if two or more people are connected to the Wave, everybody can watch what the other persons are writing.

See below a Wave started by me:

Following is Gaby's answer:

Now I have added (edited as a wiki) inside my first post something Gaby will want to comment on: “Gaby: Tomorrow we are leaving at 6,30 am because I must arrive early to the hospital. “

So she adds her comment directly inside my post : “Can we leave at 7,30”

Something very useful about inserting comments is that you can collapse them clicking on the blue balloon where the comment was inserted. See the collapsed comment in the next image:

You may find more information on Google Wave at http://google.wave.com/

You may find the help files at: http://www.google.com/support/wave/bin/topic.py?topic=25155

You may also watch an introductory video at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6pgxLaDdQw

You may find examples on uses for Wave at:http://wave.google.com/help/wave/using-wave.html

Good luck surfing the Wave!

Digital Books

2009-11-28T05:10:00.000-08:00

By Eduardo Mayorga.

Keeping up to date on knowledge has many pathways such as meetings, courses, journals, and books. Living in the digital era, digital books are one more option we have.

Digital books have 2 main advantages over paper books: 1) you can carry a whole library on your notebook or reading device, and 2) they are usually less expensive than their counter part on paper. More important, for those of us that live in countries that have to pay for shipping, electronic books usually save us from 30 to 50% percent of the complete cost of the purchase.

One place to search for these books is the well known Amazon store and specially the Kindle edition.

Kindle is a reading device from Amazon that you can use to buy, download, store and read all the digital books you buy at Amazon. Until recently, you could only buy from the US, but know you can buy from abroad.

You can watch a video on Kindle here.

If you don't want to use a special reading device, you can also manage your Kindle account from your notebook or computer using a Kindle's PC software that you can download form here.

Posting Powerpoint Presentations to the Web

2009-10-29T07:21:00.000-07:00

By Dr. Eduardo Mayorga
In past blogs, we have showed you ways to give a lecture to your students when you are away from the place they are, using synchronous communication tools.

But, what happens if you cant't be online at the same time as your students? In this case, there are ways you can deliver your lectures using software that will convert your PowerPoint presentation to a web compatible format.

One of many resources you can use is AuthorStream, a web based software that allows you to upload, convert and store PowerPoint presentations, with or without audio, and view it on the web as the following.

Classroom vs web based teaching

AuthorStream has a free version (as the one we used above), and paid versions that may add more features.

If you need to post your presentations with more sophisticated controls, notes, search capabilities and quizzes integration, you can look at software such as Articulate. Of course this software is not free and you need a web site to upload your presentations. Articulate can provide this, but you get charged for this also.

The following presentation was built with the Articulate Suite. View the presentation

If you need to ask questions about this topic, please feel free to do so using the the "Comment" area at the bottom.

See you next month!

Social Bookmarking: Sharing Knowledge in the Web

2009-09-25T15:37:00.000-07:00

By Helena Filippe
According to Wasserman and Faust (1994) social networks are defined as a set of socially-relevant nodes, each representing a network member, tied to each other by several types of relations. Relations must always be defined in a relational context. A clinician’s life is all about building relations with others as in a network, with patients centered in our attention.

The learning process happens in a certain social context according to the constructivist paradigm of teaching and learning developed by Vigotsky.

The contemporary educator must bear in mind that he no longer detains the whole control over knowledge but more and more the role of a facilitator for the others around to build knowledge.
In this context it is not difficult to envision us doctors (educators and students) connected to each other thus defining the connectivism paradigm.

Social bookmarking consists in searching, storing, organizing, managing and sharing a data of bookmarks of web pages by tagging or labelling them in a collaboratively facion. A folksonomy or social tagging is then built.

In 2003 Delicious (www.Delicious.com) initiated tagging and the designation social bookmarking came up.

We lately decided to start social bookmarking in our residency group making use of this tool

to search, store, organize and share interesting ophthalmology websites that each one finds

We can very easily access anytime, anywhere the data selected, as a social network. Helpful and useful websites are continually being added thanks to the whole group contribution, in a collaborative way.

We save time, learn more, and strengthen our residency group both in intellectual and human sides.

There is an interesting video explaining how to sign up this Web 2.0 tool that can be accessed clicking here
You can find more information on Delicious clicking here

Being at two places at the same time

2009-08-29T06:06:00.000-07:00

By Dr. Eduardo Mayorga

Imagine this scenario: The head of the eye department has asked you to give, tomorrow, the lecture to the residents he was supposed to give at 7,30. You had promised your wife you would take her to buy new carpets for your house at 9. You live 4o miles from your hospital. No way you can make it back in time. What do you do?

Some time ago Karl Golnik told us about Synchronous e-learning. Today we will talk about 2 more tools that can help us with this task: Being at two places at the same time. We will learn to combine Skype, a communications software and Google Docs Presentation, a presentation tool.

Why combine if, as Karl showed us, there are tools that already have these two functions incorporated? I personally like this combination because they work better than any other, when you are not on a high speed connection.

Skype offers excellent audio and video and Google Doc's Presentation offers faster screen synchronization between teacher and students because it does not use screen sharing, as other collaboration software. When using Google Docs, teachers and students are synchronized in the same web page.

If you are not familiar with Skype you can find help on how to use it here. If you are not familiar with Google Docs Presentation you can find help here

Once you are familiar with connecting audio and video with Skype and you have uploaded you PowerPoint presentation to Google Docs you arrange your desktop to look like this.

Remember to activate the "View together" function, at the right bottom corner, to take control of the screen of all who are watching.

Questions from the audience can be done using audio or you can have the students write them using the chat area and answer all questions at the end of the lecture.

At this time, Skype only allows 5 connections at a time. You only need one to connect to the lecture room where your residents are listening to the audio from one computer , so you could have 3 other residencies attending or an invited professor from other place. There is no limit as to how many connect to the presentation area, so you could have in the same room, several residents watching their own screen and asking questions through the chat area.

If you need help using this combination or any other software mentioned in our blog, please contact us at elearning@icoph.org

Internet Resources for Teaching Evidence-Based Medicine

2009-07-29T13:30:00.000-07:00

By Dr. Gabriela Palis

Evidence-based Medicine (EBM) is the practice of Medicine in a way that integrates the best research evidence with clinical expertise and patient values. This competency is widely recommended to be taught during residency, as a strategy residents should master for finding, appraising and assimilating the best available evidence from studies, and using it for their patients’ care.

Teaching EBM in Ophthalmology can be a challenge for many reasons:

pre-graduate medical schools not always include EBM in their curricula, so residents’ first contact with this model occurs during residency;

faculty are sometimes not familiar with the concept;

ophthalmologists who are knowledgeable of the theoretical concepts that sustain EBM, and who will teach them to residents, are difficult to find for every residency program;

EBM concepts are difficult to learn and assimilate, so teaching them can be time consuming.

Fortunately, there are some Internet resources that can help teaching EBM. I will describe three free resources I have found very useful:

Understanding Evidence-based Healthcare: A Foundation for Action (by Kay Dickersin and Musa Mayer).This web course, created by the United States Cochrane Center, was originally designed to help consumer advocates understand the fundamentals of evidence-based healthcare concepts and skills, and is very good as a first introduction to the concepts of EBM. The topics it develops include, among others, what is EBM and why is important; the research questions; research design, bias, and levels of evidence; acquiring, appraising and applying the evidence, etc.

PubMed^® Online: Excellent resource for teaching how to search and find the evidence. It includes PubMed Tutorial (based on the NLM’s one-day PubMed Training Course, in text format with animations, exercises, etc.) and the Quick Tours, animated tutorials with audio for learning how to search PubMed or how to optimize the use of MyNCBI, for example.

CAT maker at the Center for Evidence Based Medicine (University of Oxford): This software tool helps create Critically Appraised Topics, or CATs, for articles about therapy, diagnosis, prognosis, aetiology/harm and systematic reviews of therapy. The software includes calculators for clinically useful measures and their 95% confidence intervals. With the calculator for therapy studies, for example, you can load the control and experimental event rates, and you automatically get the relative risk reduction, the absolute risk reduction, and the number needed to treat.

In summary, although daily practice and modeling of EBM are essential for learning how to practice EBM, some theoretical concepts are needed in order to understand the process and put it into practice. EBM resources available in the Internet are useful and easy to use tools that could help faculty teach the basis and practice of Evidence-based Medicine

Wikis: A Collaborative Tool

2009-06-27T15:21:00.000-07:00

By Helena Filipe

'Wiki' is a Hawaiian word that means to hurry, swift, giving its name to the Honolulu International Airport shuttle.

Wiki, as far as technology is concerned, consists in an online resource which allows users to add and edit content collectively. They are participative and allow many people work together in a constructivism and connectivism environment.

Wikis, blogs and podcasts are Web 2.0 applications, which means they are a new generation of Web-based tools for virtual collaborative clinical practice and education.
In this context the Residency Group of our Hospital (Instituto Dr. Gama Pinto, Lisbon- Portugal –UE) created a wiki supported by Google technology: Google sites.

This site allows our community to create and maintain our documents as a group as well as keeping track of activities: we know who is doing what and when.

We can prepare documents together, sharing in an asynchronous way the desktop, adding or modifying content. (In this case a PowerPoint presentation)
We can keep our papers presented in scientific conferences and meetings, sharing this information as well as obtaining other types of information and knowledge.
The wiki allows us to communicate with each other at each one’s convenience using posts that allow comments.
We can share information about scientific reunions and congresses (calendar).
We can store legal information pertaining the residency program as well as the guidelines used in each Department to teach and evaluate in the Residency Program.
Wiki’s problems consist in possible vandalism, quality problems issues, as well as they can be a time consuming project.

The access to our wiki is only granted to a limited number of people, restricting the entrance to possible lurkers and web vandals by means of a password.
Even though we have an IT engineer working with us to help in the governance and architecture of the site, Google Sites has a very friendly interface that allows setting up the site with no knowledge in programming.
In summary our wiki is a motivating and engaging web based tool that enriches social networking, stimulates knowledge construction, strengthens the virtual community of practice, making it grow with a sense of duty and responsibility but without losing the fun element.

Synchronous e-learning

2009-05-30T07:53:00.000-07:00

By Dr Karl Golnik

There are two broad categories of e-learning; synchronous and asynchronous.

Asynchronous e-learning has advantages of anyplace, anytime, on-demand education. Podcasts, online courses and discussion boards are good examples. However, the instant interaction and feedback that helps the participant stay focused and interested are missing in these formats.

Synchronous e-learning has the advantage of real-time interaction but the disadvantage that participants must be available at a given time. Webinars and online lectures are examples of synchronous e-learning.

For the past year, I have been traveling to a residency program 100 miles away once per month to lecture and teach in the clinic. I supplement this with a monthly one hour, synchronous online lecture.

Various software exists to facilitate this and is available at www.gotomeeting.com, www.webex.com, www.lotuslive.com, or www.yugma.com to name a few. I have not tried all of these but I have been using GoToMeeting with some success (I have no financial interest in GoToMeeting). This software requires registration and there is a 30 day free trial. After that, the charge is 49 US Dollars per month which allows one to host unlimited online conferences with as many as 15 different participant computers. Participants may use their computer microphones or phone to communicate.

Once registered, the host simply clicks on a small GoToMeeting icon and types in their email address and password.

The software then launches a meeting and a tool bar appears on the right side of your computer (Figure).

Towards the bottom of the bar a code appears and you email or call the participants to give them the code. They go to www.joingotomeeting.com type in the code and they can view your laptop and talk back and forth amongst each other. The list of participants appears in the box toward the top of the toolbar. A “chat box” is located in the lower third of the toolbar. This allows questions or comments to be typed if the participant does not wish to interrupt the speaker.Once everyone is online you simply give your talk as you would a normal conference. The obvious advantage to this method is that I can host a conference with anyone anywhere in the world from my house or even when I am traveling. In fact, I recently forgot about a conference, was about to step into the shower and got a reminder call. I rushed down to my computer, set up the meeting, and started the conference in about 2 minutes! The feedback from participants has been very good and they greatly appreciate the opportunity for an extra neuro-ophthalmology conference per month. They even gave me the compliment (I think!) that the online meeting was just as good as my being there.

I envision the possibility of providing this type of synchronous neuro-ophthalmology e-learning to programs anywhere in the world where neuro-ophthalmology specialists may not be present.

Adding narration to PowerPoint presentations

2009-04-30T07:11:00.001-07:00

By Dr. Eduardo Mayorga

Every year we give our new residents lectures we have been giving to other residents, year after year.

Many of these lectures, mostly those on the basics of ophthalmology, don't change much.
Teachers' time can be optimized by using the PowerPoint's feature to add audio to your presentation.

For busy teachers that lecture twice or more a week, adding audio to their presentations can help them save several hours a week.

Having your residents watch audio-recorded lectures does not mean you leave them on their own. You just use this feature for the knowledge transfer phase, but you walk into the classroom, once the lecture is over, to answer questions and stimulate discussion.

You can find how to do this using the "Help" feature in PowerPoint.
You may also want to watch this short tutorial we prepared. Click here to view.

Conceptual Maps: Helping your residents learn

2009-03-22T01:30:00.000-07:00

By Dr Eduardo Mayorga

Have you ever given a lecture to your residents, come back the next day, ask some questions about it, and find out they remember very few things?
It not only happens to me as a teacher, but also as a learner.

Transferring information (as in a lecture), does not mean those who attend the lecture will learn.

For learning to occur after being exposed to a lecture, other process must take place to facilitate learning.

One of these processes is identifying the most important concepts of the lecture and relating these concepts between them, and with previous knowledge.

A way to do this is through concept mapping, visual mapping, or also called mind mapping.

This can be done with paper and pencil, but is facilitated with special software that lets move concepts and their relations around the screen.

There are many software programs for mind mapping; some are free, some not. At this time, my preferred software is MindManager , which has a cost, and CmapTools, which is free, and is the one I use to work with my residents.

The map you see bellow is an example on how you can show, graphically, concepts and their relations.

Changing the traditional 1 hour lectures to a 15 or 20 minute lecture with collaborative mind mapping during the following 40 minutes, has empowered learning for my residents. Of course we cover less topics in one hour, but these are learned better.

There is no sense in covering more topics if these are not going to be learned.

In the following link you can see a map built by my residents after a lecture on Herpes Zoster, even though it’s in Spanish, you will see the power for concept mapping of CmapTools.

These maps can be built in a collaborative way, simultaneously, where several residents are working on the same concept map, as you can see in the photograph that follows. At the back of the picture you can see the projected map they are working on.

I enthusiastically encourage all involved in resident training to try this strategy. I am sure you will feel much less discouraged after evaluating what your residents have learned from your lectures.