Learning Entry Blog 10 - Distance Education

With the way the internet has grown in the world in the past several decades many aspects of our culture and lives have been changed. Many things that used to require a person to leave their house to do can now be done online. News, shopping, games,and virtually anything else you can think of can be done online. Learning is no exception. The evolution of the internet has allowed for students to be able to attend school without ever actually going to a school. This is known as distance education and while it has become very big recently it first started in 1728 with the University of London. Obviously, it has been made much easier now that we have the internet.

Distance education offers a great opportunity to people that might not be able to attend an actual institution. Many single parents who work full time jobs are now going back to school thanks to online schools like the University of Phoenix and Devry University. Most of these schools are fully accredited and their degrees carry just as much weight as regular university. There are, however, some "online schools" that are scams and will take people's money and give them a degree that is not worth anything so if you are considering attending an online school you must be careful.

The one problem with distance education is the lack of connection that regular classes have. When you have a class that you actually have to go to you not only build a connection with your teacher but you are also forced to learn. Online classes do not build that connection and require more effort on the students part to do the work. Unless you put forth the effort you will not benefit anything from an online class.

While I do think that distance education is a very useful tool I do not see any place for it in the medical field. I have taken a couple undergrad classes online and they were fine but I took them because I knew they would be easy classes. Most hard classes in undergrad are not offered online simply because they are too challenging. Medical school not only has many hard classes but the shear amount of information that you learn is too much for online classes to be able to convey efficiently.

Here is a good video detailing the guiding principles of distance education.

Learning Entry Blog 9 - Web Presence

With today's culture and society becoming more and more dependent on the internet, having a professional Web Presence is extremely important. A web presence is like having a resume on the internet. Many employers now days will google potential employees names to see what comes up. Usually the first thing is a person's Facebook page, which may or may not give a good impression. If you make a web page for yourself showing your work skill and abilities and even just showing that you are a normal person, it can look very good for a potential employer.

I feel that having a web presence is very important in the medical field. I know that when I have looked for research positions all the professors that I have looked at have very well designed web pages. When I apply for a job after I graduate from med school I am fully aware that employers will look me up online so I will make sure that my web presence makes a good impression.

Here is a video with some good tips for making a strong web presence

Learning Entry Blog 8 - Open Source Software

Open Source Software (OSS) is a concept that began in 1983 which calls for software to be made open to the public to edit for their needs instead of having it controlled by the company that makes it. One of the more famous OSS programs on the internet today is the Mozilla Firefox browser. Unlike Windows' Internet Explorer, which is made and monitored by Microsoft, Firefox is made by the public and is controlled by the public. There are many different apps and themes and buttons that can be downloaded for Firefox. All of these were made by people for the purpose of bettering Firefox and were not made by any large company for the sake of making money.

OSS is great in that there is virtually a free program for every brand name product out there. This is great for people who are on a budget or even just for people who want to have fun with a program but don't want to spend a lot of money on brand name software. There are free versions Microsoft Office and Photoshop, both very pricey programs, that people who are tight on money, such as students and people with low incomes, can afford.

While OSS is great it does have limitations. First, while there are many equivalent programs to brand name programs they are still not quite equal. Brand name programs have a lot of money put into them by their developers in order to insure that they work properly while OSS might not be developed as thoroughly. Also when something goes wrong with a brand name program you can call up the developer and they will help you with your problem. OSS, if it is developed by a single person or small group, might not have that option. And finally, if a program is to be used by a large business they will probably want a brand name program for its tech support and guarantee.

I think that OSS has a place in the medical field or any field for that matter. It is very useful regardless of what profession you are in. Whether you are a med student, a doctor, or work in a hospital there is no reason why OSS would not be useful.

Here is a link to Source Forge, a very useful website with lots of OSS programs.

Learning Entry Blog 7 - Tech Tools

Tech tools can be very useful in education. Concept maps, such as Webspiration and Bubblus, can be very useful in the classroom for planning out a project or outlining something. They can also be very useful in advertisement. When giving a presentation for an advertisement proposal concept maps can be used to diagram the different methods that can be used or to highlight the different target groups or key facts.

I don't think that concept maps really have much of a place in medicine. They are a bit cartoony and unprofessional so they would probably hinder you instead of helping. I think if you are doing an experiment and want to draw out the steps to help you that is useful but I would not use a program to do it.

Here is a link for how Webspiration can be used in education.

Learning Entry Blog 6 - Cloud Computing

Cloud computing is a relatively new form of internet data storage. Classical internet data storage uses hardware and server systems. It requires the user to buy expensive physical components that he or she then puts all of their data on. For expanding businesses this can be expensive since once the meet the capacity of their hardware they must buy more. Cloud computing is different. With cloud computing there is no hardware involved on the users part. Everything is done on the internet and all the data is stored in a "data cloud" that exists on the web. When a user needs more they can expand their service without hardware and shrink it back when they no longer need the space. The one negative of cloud computing is that if the cloud crashes and you haven't backed up your data you will loose everything.

I don't see much use for cloud computing in medicine. When it comes to people's medical health I think all professionals would agree that it is best to have hard copies on secure drives. If a hospital used cloud computing and the cloud crashed, it would be a catastrophe not to mention a legal nightmare. I think it is great for small businesses but for any large professional business cloud computing is no the way to go.

Here is a video explaining how cloud computing works.

Webspiration Concept Map

Here is my map for how social tools can be used in medical research. Some tools like Google docs or Delicious could be pretty useful in research but I think over all many of them don't have much application for the kind of stuff I would like to do.

Learning Entry Blog 5 - Blogging

This is my first blog so the whole idea of blogging is pretty new to me but I know it has been around for quite a while. A lot of my friends have had Live Journals and various other blogs but it has never really been my thing. After doing this though, I do see where the appeal lies. It is a convenient way to communicate to all your friends or to people who happen to stumble upon your blog. Whether you are just blogging about your day or about something important to you like politics blogs are a convenient way to get your voice heard by many people.

I don't see too much application of blogs in the medical field. The only case that I could see blogging being useful in medicine is in research. If a researcher is doing important work and wants to keep the public informed of what is going on, blogging can be a very useful tool.

Here is an article form BusinessWeek.com about how blogs can be used in the businesses. While blogs are mostly thought of as a communication tool for high school kids this article shows that it has an actual application in the real world as well.