NEJM Audio Interviews with Authors

Here's yet another cool multimedia feature of the New England Journal of Medicine - In the middle of the right column on their homepage (http://nejm.org), there is a box titled Recent NEJM Audio.

1. The first link takes you to interviews with authors of recent articles.
2. A link to the full-text article being discussed is available on the interview page. (NOTE: you must be connected to the campus network to access the articles.)
3. The interview can also be downloaded to listen to on your mp3 player.

A full archive of all interviews is also available.

NEJM Audio Summaries

No time to read the New England Journal of Medicine? No problem. The NEJM has audio summaries of the latest issue available on their homepage (http://nejm.org).

Look for the Audio Summary link. The summary runs about 20 minutes.



You can listen to the summary on your computer or download them as an audio file to listen to later on your mp3 player. Wow - what'll they think of next?!

Audio and Video Podcasts of Lectures (article)

There is ever-increasing use of podcasts of lectures in higher education. Along with this comes concerns of whether this form of delivering education may decrease class attendance and if podcasts truly improve student learning.

The article below addresses these issues and sheds light for those of you who currently podcast or are thinking of podcasting your lectures.

Copley, J. (2007). Audio and Video Podcasts of Lectures for Campus-Based Students: Production and Evaluation of Student Use. Innovations in education and teaching international, 44(4), 387-399.

ABSTRACT
Podcasting has become a popular medium for accessing and assimilating information and podcasts are increasingly being used to deliver audio recordings of lectures to campus-based students. This paper describes a simple, cost-effective and file size-efficient method for producing video podcasts combining lecture slides and audio without a requirement for any specialist software. The results from a pilot scheme delivering supplementary lecture materials as audio and video podcasts are also presented, including data on download patterns and responses to a survey of students on podcast use. These results reveal students' enthusiasm for podcast recordings of lecture materials and their primary use by students in revision and preparation for assessments. Survey responses also suggest little likely impact on lecture attendance as a consequence of podcasting, but indicate that podcast recordings of lectures may not be effective in facilitating mobile learning.

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.