Week 1
As I reflect on the past year and how quickly we have all transitioned from meeting for MDT, journal clubs, conferences, educational meetings and student teaching to almost exclusively online and virtual platforms it has made the think more about online learning. While it works for some things for others I think it still requires some thought. I would agree with some of the tutorial sentiments in relation to multi-taskings and sometimes finding a temptation to drift off during online talks and conferences. I also perceive that one gets less audience interaction, discussion and questions in an online lecture format than one would do at a traditional conference. Similarly myself and my colleagues have found it harder to get medical students to engage in online lectures – I am not sure if it is the format or they are all merely covid fatigued. In contrast while I do not particularly like social media myself I do find twitter useful for me as following the medical journals and respiratory societies I can see what papers they are tweeting and find it an efficient way to find important papers. Similarly many of the respiratory societies have clinical problems and images to engage members and are a great source of learning and part of me wonders if something along those lines could be incorporated into undergraduate teaching so that interesting clinical scenarios or images can be used to teach and engage students more than they are at present.
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Hi!
Its nice to read a positive Twitter story 🙂 In particular, one that provides a useful tactic for negotiating the sheer volume of new papers that are being published.
Certainly, there is a rich history of educators using social media to extend the range of the overall ‘teaching’ environment. Of course, one would need to be careful about sharing images outwith the secure environments permitted by consent and professional boundaries – but the media certainly presents interesting opportunities for posting quizzes, CBL / PBL case scenarios, and I am aware of mobile phone / texting apps that assist with populating clinical logs on the fly, which students have found very useful. In virtual patient narratives, the posting of SMS messages informing students of incoming test results, etc, can also provide a useful *real-time* component to the overall narrative.
Thanks Nicola. I think we have work to do yet in considering the different possible formats of online teaching and their implications. Online is not just online lectures—what other kinds of activities could educators set up to encourage learner engagement?