Concept Mapping in Healthcare elearning

Concept mapping can be perceived of  representing visual knowledge in the form of a hierarchical graphic network composed of nodes and links. In the complex healthcare environment, it is very important for educators to cultivate critical thinking and judgement abilities in healthcare students. Concept mapping is an instructional strategy that requires learners to identify, graphically display, and link key concepts by organizing and analyzing information.

Concept maps can be successfully used to teach conceptual thinking, thus increasing students’ competence in critical thinking. Plotnick defines a concept map as a “graphical representation where nodes (points or vertices) represent concepts, and links (arcs or lines) represent the relationship between concepts”.

Edmondson & Smith describe a concept map as “a tool for representing the interrelations between concepts in an integrated, hierarchical manner”. The map provides a way to connect concepts, allowing the student to visualize during the learning process.  Many times, new meanings are constructed about events or objects based on the students’ prior knowledge.

Infusing critical thinking skills into didactic activities requires the construction and reconstruction of meanings by students through actively seeking to integrate new knowledge with knowledge already existing in their cognitive structure. Cognitive structure is a term used by Ausubel (in Mellish, Brink & Paton 1998:28) to describe a person’s existing knowledge of a particular subject and how well organised and clear that knowledge is. Concept-mapping has been identified as a stimulating learning method to facilitate critical thinking by encouraging students to connect new knowledge to their prior learning, and to give students an opportunity to gain further, wide and varied knowledge of a number of concepts in a short period (Akinsanya & Williams 2004:41).

Courtesy: Dr. jack Yensen

A study was conducted to examine the effects of concept mapping and synthesizers as instructional strategies for nursing students encoding and recalling pharmacology concepts in an undergraduate pharmacology course.  Although results cannot be generalized, this study showed that using concept maps and synthesizers in the teaching environment is effective in increasing the students’ learning experience.

If students can link new information to their existing conceptual framework, they can construct new, meaningful interconnections so that their existing conceptions are transformed, enriched or revised and conceptual change occurs.

Training without Marketing? You’re nowhere near!

Marketing? No !! 

Training? Yes !!!

How are you Training without Marketing?

Marketing is the display of value to ‘intrigue’ a prospect. Training is intriguing the audience to embed knowledge and trigger response. In both the cases, an event is designed to trigger a mental process.

Training has to take a lot from Marketing. Potentially, Training and Marketing together promise a huge return on performance outcomes. In training, the maximum talk is done by the content. Technology brings action into the talk through engagements. Training experts need to learn and leverage from Marketing. History of Marketing, especially Content Marketing has a lot to give us.

Content Marketing-preage

Content Marketing has been the binder for the marketer since ages. Content Marketing began its journey ages before on cave walls. As the focus started building on tactical tools and technologies, birth of idea-based marketing took place.

The Sun

Beginning the August 25, 1835, The Sun,  a New York newspaper, considered the most politically conservative, published a series of articles describing a scientific discovery of life on the moon. Top of that it the discoveries were falsely attributed to Sir John Herschel, perhaps the best-known astronomer of his time.

Michelin Guide

In 1900, André Michelin published the first edition of the guide to help drivers maintain their cars, find decent lodging, and eat well while touring France. It included addresses of filling stations, mechanics, and tire dealers, along with local prices for fuel, tires, and auto repairs. Until 1920, when Michelin brothers found a pile of them under a garage workbench, they rolled a new idea of marketing. They started charging for the guides to maintain credibility. In 1926, they also started listing restaurants with star ratings.

G.I.Joe

The conventional marketing wisdom of the early 1960s was that boys would not play with dolls. Toy company Hasbro, went for the term “Action figure” eliminating the term “doll” to market the famous G.I.Joe.  In 1982, Hasbro relaunched G.I.Joe with a storyline to include a terrorist group ‘Cobra Command’, pioneering several tactics in toy marketing, combining traditional advertising with an animated television mini-series and an ongoing comic book.

GNN

The Whole Internet User’s Guide & Catalog, by Ed Krol, was published in September 1992 by O’Reilly. The Global Network Navigator (GNN) was the first commercial web publication and the first web site to offer clickable advertisements, now commonly referred to as “banner ads.” Its still hosted at http://oreilly.com/gnn/.

 

 

Whitepaper, formerly a  government informal name for a parliamentary paper, was accepted widely in early 90’s for commercial and business information circulation. In 1991 Adobe Systems co-founder John Warnock outlined a system called “Camelot” that evolved into the Portable Document Format (PDF), which later became free.

Placeware

In 1996, PlaceWare—a spin-off from Xerox’s PARC Laboratory—started offering Web-conferencing services. In 2003, it was acquired by Microsoft and the today we see the services as Microsoft Live Meeting.

Hotmail

Launched in July 1996 as “HoTMaiL“, it became the first web-based email service. Later, Yahoo and Google launched free email platforms. By early 2000, email was one of the main forms of marketing outreach for corporations worldwide.

Purple Cow

In 1995, Seth Godin launched Yoyodyne which used contests, online games, and scavenger hunts to market companies to participating users. In August, 1996, venture-capital firm Flatiron Partners invested $4 million in Yoyodyne in return for a 20% stake. The site gained significant traction, with over one million viewers visiting the site, and companies like America Online, American Express, H&R Block, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble, Sony Music, Sprint, and Volvo using its services.

At Yoyodyne, Godin developed the principle of permission marketing and authored Permission Marketing: Turning strangers into friends and friends into customers. I

In July of 2000, author and blogger Seth Godin created the e-book Unleashing the Ideavirus and made it available for free.
Nexters no longer require describing.

2001:

iPod

 

 

 

 

 

Today and Tommorrow:

Social Today

 

 

 

So eLearning Makers, what have you learnt!!!

 

Outstanding adoption of digital media for Healthcare Education-by Amgen

In this post, I express my heartiest wishes to Amgen, Inc over their outstanding efforts and contributions towards healthcare and medical learning and education. My intension is to present Amgen as a case study to all members of the industry and postulate some finer learning and training aspects and strategies that such initiatives have been able to deliver.

Project 1: http://www.amgenoncology.com

The site is developed with best-in-class digital media tools and technologies. Technically, the portal has been designed using high-fidelity Flash technology. The Graphic User Interface has been designed in a dashboard-like style and presents a non-linear learning approach. The portal aims at presenting a comprehensive wealth of knowledge about Oncological Pathways encompassing;

• Bone Metabolism and Metastases: focus and direction on Rank Ligand
• Angiogenesis
• Growth Regulations: Mechanism of Action for diseases like IGF and HGFSF
• Apoptosis: MOA and extrinsic and intrinsic Pathways
• Hematopoieses: Endogenous Pathways
• Personalized Medicine

Major Value-adds:

Videos Based Learning Objects: 3D and 2D videos of animated mechanism of actions present step-by-step illustrated instruction of complex biological processes such as role and action of Angiopoeitins in maturation of blood and lymph vessels and hence their critical role in Tumor Angiogenesis.

Branched Information Presentation: Additional information such as Extrinsic and Intrinsic Pathways of Apoptosis is presented in the form of branched illustrations to prevent information clustering and encourage systematic knowledge flow.

The portal in a excellent way integrates Amgen Products, referred as ‘Amgen Treatment Toolbox’ with the disease-state information. Empowerment knowledge is presented in the form of Support and Advocacy Information through the portal.

Project 2: http://angiogenesis.amgen.com/

This portal takes my attention away all together. It is designed to present 2 High-definition versions of the portal as its index. It allows the visitor to choose either a HD version of the portal to load OR a 3D HD version of the portal to select.

To view the 3D version of the portal, one may need to procure special blue/amber color code glasses.

The portal is designed with high-definition Flash technologies and presents the content in a 3-Dimension format.

Major Value-adds:

Navigation: Navigation is designed to be flip-style and includes touch-sensitive horizontal sliders.

Content Types: Majority of the content is 3D. Biological concepts have been designed to be interactive and touch-sensitive.

Branched Content: Illustrated biological objects including animated MOAs, videos, movies deep dwell into the subject areas. Hotspots allow clickable branching navigation into curriculum sub-branches for deeper insights. A well designed navigation and site mapping allows flawless navigation into modules, topics and lessons.

Instructionally, a better treatment and presentation of the content with context to the subject presentation would be the rarest to find.

Integrated community building and development for healthcare using web 2.0

Care, delivery and development is the key driver to excellence in the Healthcare segment. With a steep increase in realization of the value provided by web technologies, seekers of knowledge and seekers of practise have begun to find the web, a wholesome platform for unified information and advanced knowledge.

Conventional models of disseminating practise and finding-based healthcare education involves developing specialized knowledge and practise programs around research, trials and evidence based results; developing the community and arranging events for the knowledge to be delivered in.
With the change of the conventional mask, societies and associations have realized the high value potential of using web 2.0 as a reliable effectiveness tool. Here is how any association/ society can prepare to leverage this change.

1.Develop a Trusted Site for Health Care Professionals and Organizations: Focused on improving communication amongst health care professionals; Private, secure environment for members.

2.Implements online communities for health and life-science organizations: Health Systems, Non-Profit Organizations, Medical Schools, Professional Associations, Research Groups, Industry.

3.Develop communities for Key Opinion Leaders: Increase interaction between KOLs (Key Opinion Leaders) and their peers, Amplify important topics, Provide messages where and when MDs are ready for them, Provide Discussions, News, Media, Presentations, and Event Scheduling.

4. Allow Other organization types derive their own value from communities: Increase Alumni interaction, Provide news and resources, Inform of reunion activities, Increase percentage and quality of email and contact information,
Raise awareness of underfunded programs.

5. Develop and assign CR projects: develop, validate, share and publish project data.

A professional community portal helps KOLs drive professional medical and healthcare activities, peers connect to peers and establish secure and confident relationships.
Extended value of such a collaborative portal is:
A)Saves Time
Find content from people you know
Interact with organizations in one setting

B)Improves Collaboration
Connect with colleagues around the world
Improve teamwork (clinical trials, clinical support, etc)

C)Builds Reputation
Promote research and studies
Market referral interests