Synchronous e-learning

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

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

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.