Category: Technology

Complexity theory: learning in unfamiliar contexts

Sep 27, 2011

in Education, Learning, PhD, Research, Teaching, Technology

complex cases, Complexity, complexity theory, context, practice knowledge, professional practice, unfamiliar scenarios

The following are notes I took while reading Fraser, SW & Greenhalgh, T. (2001). Coping with complexity: educating for capability. During the past 6 months or so I’ve found myself thinking more and more that the way we teach health professionals (at least, in my experience) has had too much of a focus on technical…
Sharing? Collaboration? No thanks

Aug 5, 2011

in Education, Learning, Students, Technology

collaboration, demonstration, Google Docs, groupwork, sharing, spinal cord injury, wiki

Last week I took our third year students to see a demonstration of the management of a patient with spinal cord injury as part of the Movement Science module that I teach. I noticed that during the demonstration many of them were taking pretty comprehensive notes, and thought that this would be a great opportunity…
Concept mapping assignment in Movement Science

Jul 15, 2011

in Assessment, Assignments, Technology

assignment, cmaps, cmaptools, concept mapping, movement science

Fora while I’ve been toying with the idea of using concept mapping for an assignment in the Movement Science module that I teach and I finally took the plunge. See below for the assignment I gave the students using CmapTools to explore relationships between the concepts in the module and clinical practice. It’s my first…
Mendeley and Dropbox

Jul 8, 2011

in Research, Technology

articles, dropbox, mendeley, papers, research

A little while ago I finally hit the 500 MB free storage limit of Mendeley, which isn’t surprising considering how I go about collecting research papers. Whenever I come across an article that looks like it might be mildly interesting / vaguely related to my work I copy it into a folder that…
Why open licensing benefits everyone

Jun 7, 2011

in Assignments, Education, Open access, Physiotherapy, Research, Social media, Technology

collaboration, open access, openphysio, physiopedia, publication, sharing

In 2009 I started an online physiotherapy encyclopaedia called OpenPhysio. It was a space for me to run a few assignments with my 4th year students at the time, as well as a bit of an experiment to see what would happen i.e. would physiotherapists and physiotherapy students automatically create and edit an online physiotherapy…
The use of innovative technology in clinical education

May 24, 2011

in PhD, Physiotherapy, Research, Social media, Students, Technology

clinical education, innovation, learning, presentation, prezi, teaching, technology

A few days ago I gave a presentation to our faculty on the use of innovative technologies in teaching practice with specific reference to clinical education. I’ve been using Prezi a bit because I wanted to explore alternative ways of doing presentations. Here it is: Innovative technology in clinical education on Prezi Note: the…
Using social networks to develop reflective discourse in the context of clinical education

Mar 10, 2011

in Assignments, Conference, Education, Ethics, Health, PhD, Physiotherapy, Research, Social media, Technology

clinical reasoning, ethical reasoning, facebook, health professional education, healthcare professional students, medical education, online discussions, poster, reflection, reflective discussion, research, saahe, safri, social network, social networks, teacher

My SAFRI project for 2010 looked at the use of a social network as a platform to develop clinical and ethical reasoning skills through reflective discussion between undergraduate physiotherapy students. Part of the assignment was to prepare a poster for presentation at the SAAHE conference in Potchefstroom later this year, which I’ve included below. I…
Extreme writing

Jan 21, 2011

in Research, Technology

article, author, collaborative tools, Google, Google Docs, planner, publication, real time, sprint, study designer, Team, team member, twitter, writing

In February 2010 I came across this blog post discussing the possibility of writing a draft literature review in a short period of time i.e. 1 hour, which I found intriguing. I left a comment on the post saying I was keen to try, and also bounced the idea around on Twitter a bit, but…
Reflections on blended learning in clinical education

Sep 22, 2010

in Learning, PhD, Physiotherapy, Research, Technology

blended learning, clinical education, Michael Rowe, phd, physiotherapy, research, sasp, south african society of physiotherapy

A few weeks ago I was invited by one of the local groups of the South African Society of Physiotherapy to present the initial results of my PhD research into the use of blended learning in clinical education. Afterwards, I was surprised by the support I received from the clinicians, and at the resistance (or…
Is researching a Twitter feed ethical?

Sep 21, 2010

in Ethics, Social media, Technology

consent, ethics, private, public, research, twitter

I just finished reading an article looking at the feasibility of Twitter as a form of academic conference discourse for non-participants (Ebner et al, 2010). Results of the article aside, which are useful in themselves, it got me thinking about the ethics of conducting research on a public conversation. I know that Twitter is a public platform…
Google Search Stories video creator

Jun 15, 2010

in Learning, Teaching, Technology

google search stories, small project, video creator, visual thinking

Google Search Stories is a brilliant marketing strategy, but also fun to play with. I think it has some potential as a short exercise in the classroom for students to explore a concept. It helps one to think about a topic in a slightly different way. Here’s my first attempt.
PLE: experiences in personal learning

Jun 9, 2010

in Education, Learning, Social media, Teaching, Technology

Centre for Teaching and Learning, information technology, Michael Rowe, personal learning environments, ple, presentation, Stellenbosch University

Earlier this year I was lucky enough to be invited to present at the Centre for Teaching and Learning at Stellenbosch University. I chose Personal Learning Environment’s (PLE’s) as the topic, not because I knew very much about them, but precisely the opposite. Considering that my PhD research is inevitably going to make some use…
Google Translate: when small things make a big difference

Jun 8, 2010

in Technology

elegant and intuitive solution, Google, google reader, google translate, ilona buchem, slideshare, stephen downes, translation

I’ve never really had the need to use Google Translate. Most of the content I come across is in English, and if it isn’t I’ve never read it and so never realised what I was missing out on. Earlier today I came across Ilona Buchem via a post from Stephen Downes, pointing out a presentation…
Wikipedia as a credible source?

Mar 19, 2010

in Social media, Technology

academic credibility, content creation, learning, online credibility, online resource, open source software development, wikipedia, wikis

I was recently asked about my views on the credibility of Wikipedia as an academic resource, and soon realised that the question isn’t an easy one to answer. Since Wikipedia was launched in 2001, academics have generally decided that it’s suspicious at best, and many responded to students’ use of it with blanket bans on…
Misunderstanding the conversation around teaching with technology

Mar 17, 2010

in Conference, Education, Technology

e-learning, greater online community, heltasa, ICT, learning management system, learning management systems, lms, online space, teaching practice, teaching with technology

I’ve been going through the collection of abstracts from last year’s HELTASA conference, looking for a citation for a poster presentation that I’d like to use for an assignment. This gave me an overview of the event that I didn’t pick up on while I was there, as I tend to focus on individual presentations…
Reflections on improving teaching practice

Feb 8, 2010

in Education, Research, Technology

Ann F. Lucas, blog, lecturer, open textbook, phd, Professor, reflection, research, scholarship of teaching and learning, students, teaching, teaching practice, wiki

Up until today, I was kind of maintaining 2 blogs…this one, and a reflective commentary that I included in my teaching portfolio wiki. The portfolio is something that our faculty suggests we keep for when we apply for promotion, etc. but I thought it could be something more. So when I started teaching in 2007, I…
Gnome-shell on Ubuntu

Jan 22, 2010

in Technology

desktop, gnome, gnome-shell, innovation, kde, technology, ubuntu

I’ve been playing around with Gnome-shell on Ubuntu over the past week or so and am still trying to decide if I like it. It’s going to replace Compiz in the next generation of the Gnome desktop and the idea is that it’s supposed to enhance productivity by creating an innovative user interface that more easily exposes…
Thoughts on Geekretreat 2010

Jan 18, 2010

in Open access, Scholarship, Social media, Technology

cognician, community, education, geek, geekretreat, p2pu, peer to peer university, social media, stanford valley, technology

I got back yesterday from Geekretreat in Stanford Valley (beautiful, by the way) and these are some of my thoughts after reflecting on the experience. The theme of this year’s retreat was (broadly) the role of the internet in South African education, which is what motivated me to apply for a scholarship. I have to…
Google Wave in higher education?

Dec 3, 2009

in Education, Technology

collaboration, collaborative authoring environment, collaborative editing, Gina Trapani, Google, google wave, higher education, internet access, leo laporte, online sources, scholarly document editor, search strategies, wave

I just got my invite for Google Wave and I feel like a little kid with a new toy, only I don’t know what the toy is, or how it works, or what (if anything) I’m supposed to do with it. Apparently I’m not alone (keep hitting Refresh to get different comparisons). I’m not going…
Chromium: changing the default keyword search

Nov 18, 2009

in Technology

chromium, default keyword search, Google, google chrome, keyword searches, keywords, search engines, short search, site specific search option, wikipedia

I just came across a pretty cool feature of Chromium…keyword searches. I know that this idea isn’t new, and now that I know about it, it’s clearly documented in the Google Chrome help pages, but I’ll put up some screenshots anyway. You begin by typing the URL of the site you’re going to (Chromium will…