25 Basic Styles of Blogging

Are you an active blogger? A newbie blogger? Only in the consideration stage of becoming a blogger? If you are any of these, this presentation gives some very helpful tips on the multiple types of blogging styles that can engage your readers.

Each style is rated by:

(1) Suggested frequency of postings
(2) The "Buzz Index" - how likely the posting will be linked to and commented on
(3) Difficulty level in creating each posting style

My personal opinion is that you should use any combination of several styles to make your blog interesting and engaging with your audience. No one style is dominantly the best. The ratings will help you determine which styles you should consider using most.

The 25 Basic Styles of Blogging ... And When To Use Each One

View more presentations from Rohit Bhargava.

The presentation author, Rohit Bhargava, is Senior Vice President of 360 Digital Influence Group at Ogilvy, a large global advertising company.

May these tips help guide you through your blogging adventures!

Clinical Cases and Images blog

The Clinical Cases and Images blog is a "free case-based curriculum of clinical medicine." I stumbled upon this resource three years ago and have recommended it as a reference to students for finding clinical images that are accompanied by helpful discussions.

The blog was created in 2005 and is a joint effort of physicians at the Cleveland Clinic and the Case Western Reserve School of Medicine. It is well organized by specialties along the top menu bar.

The topics covered include:

Allergy & Immunology -- Cardiology -- Pulmonology -- Gastroenterology -- Nephrology -- Endocrinology -- Hematology & Oncology -- Rheumatology -- Infectious Diseases -- Neuorology -- Geriatrics -- Pain Management

Other categories offered provide more information and links in the right menu bar:

-- Physical Examination Videos
-- Procedure Guides Step-by-Step
-- Electrocardiograms, X-rays, CT scans
-- Clinical Images from NEJM
-- Clinical Cases in Test Format (test your knowledge based on details of a case)

In the lower part of the right menu bar is a link to many of the images found in the blog that are housed on the photo hosting site Flickr - http://www.flickr.com/photos/clinicalcases/.

The comments made on the content are helpful discussions. An encouraging feature to note is that all entries have a "Published" and "Last Updated" dates that you'll find by scrolling down the page. This can help you evaluate the usefulness and timeliness of the content.

To get a sampling of what you can learn from this well done blog, take a look at EKGs with Dr. Koch: It's Not Only Educational It's Also Fun!

11 Advantages of Using a Blog for Teaching

Here is an interesting presentation, titled 11 Advantages of Using a Blog for Teaching by Frank Calberg, a strategic inspirator from Zurich, Switzerland.

View Upload your own

This blog that I have created has been a way for me to teach to the many people who I will not be able to come face to face with because of distance and time. For example, I had an average of 350 views of this blog just in the month of June. On average, I meet with about 20 people per month in person or via email to help them with their literature searches. So the fact that I can teach that many more people through this blog is a testament to the power of using a blog to disseminate knowledge farther and wider.

If you have never created a blog and want to play around with how to create and use them, you can start with Blogger, which is free. There are other alternatives such as Wordpress or Typepad. If your institution already has purchased blogging software, contact your administrator to find out about using it.

Using a blog to teach can be a fun, interactive, and dynamic tool for you to consider using in your role as a teacher.

Radiology Picture of the Day (blog)

Like most internet users, you probably grab images from a basic Google image search. Well, thank your lucky stars that there are some nice alternatives to just "googling" for medical images.

Check out the Radiology Picture of the Day blog. A new image is posted daily that is provided by a physician with a brief description below about the image with related references.

The blog is edited and maintained by Dr. Laughlin Dawes, a diagnostic neuroradiology fellow at the Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital in Perth, Western Australia. The images date back from November 2006 to the present.

I prefer to navigate this blog via its ARCHIVE page that categorizes the images for you. There is a link to suggest an image that you would like to submit to this blog, as well.

As always, give credit where it's due if you are going to use any image from the web. For example, if I were to use this image

I would reference this image as:

Congenital cystic adenomatoid malformation. Image provided by Dr. Ahmed Haroun. Posted Feb 28, 2008 on the Radiology Picture of the Day blog. Accessed on June 30, 2008 at http://www.radpod.org/2008/02/28/congenital-cystic-adenomatoid-malformation.

Wikis, blogs, and podcasts

What's all this buzz about "Web 2.0"? This catch phrase is already becoming "so yesterday", but the main thing to know is that the next phase of communication tools on the web are now giving educators a chance to take advantage of their teaching potential. For example, this blog you're reading has been set up as a way for me to be able to teach you search tips even though we may never meet each other.

In case you have just come back from a trip to the moon, here are some quick definitions:

WIKI - a website that houses documents that can be shared and edited by those with password access

BLOG - a website that has archived postings that allow for readers to comment on the content

PODCAST - an archived online audio or video broadcast

Subscribing to a blog/podcast's RSS feed allows you to keep up with newly added material. There's also a quick way to subscribe to a blog/podcast in a Firefox browser.

A 2006 article details ways medical educators have been using these collaborative tools:

Boulos, MN, Maramba, I, & Wheeler, S. (2006). Wikis, blogs and podcasts: a new generation of Web-based tools for virtual collaborative clinical practice and education. BMC medical education, 6, 41-.

Stay tuned... I'll be posting links to interesting wikis, blogs, and podcasts relating to medical education. For starters, there is a Medical Education blog created by University of Saskatchewan faculty.

Be sure to check out the UCSF Library's webpage focusing on medical information blogs.

Medical Blogs

Blogs have evolved to offer a wealth of information that can be used for educational purposes. Gone are the days of purely tapping into the personal diaries of the blog's author (aka, the blogger).

Here is a compilation of several medical information blogs that offer useful information in the categories of:

Images and clinical cases > Law and ethics > Medical education > Medical journals > Medical technologies > Doctor diaries and medical specialties > UCSF blogs