Searching using the Internet

The ability to find useful information on the Internet is problematic for many students.  I am always looking for web sites that provide the "teachable moment".  This morning I discovered Richard Byrne's blog at http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2009/10/beyond-google-improve-your-search.html The blog includes a booklet with 15 tools and strategies to assist users to improve Internet search results.  I especially liked the links on the topic of Boolean logic.

Webinar Software

My research partners and I tested DimDim free webinar software this past week.  We were especially interested in the desktop sharing function. The sound transmission within DimDim was problematic.  When testing with a student there was a lag in sound.  Although KF had a headset, we could not hear her speak.  We ended up using the phone for audio and the software for work.

Desktop sharing is possible, but the user has to be able to download a 2MB file.  If the user is working from a hospital behind a firewall, the app probably will not work.

MC was using her netbook and had difficulties, due to small screen size, with the view.  She also had difficulties staying connected. 

Clearly, commercial software is much more robust.  As of now, I am hesitant to use DimDim with others who are not comfortable with technology.

Webinar and Polling Software

I have been exploring the use of webinar and polling software for the past several months.  Some of the grad students in the Integrating Technology in the Health Science Educator Role have not had any experience with webinar software.  It is a concept that some of the informatics students had difficulty understanding, too.

Many of the colleges and universities in the University System of Georgia (USG) use Wimba; however, GCSU does not.  I would like to use webinar software for:

• Online course orientations
• Student "oral" class presentations
• Assissting one or more students who need guidance to resolve a technology issue
• Collaborate with students on course projects
• Online meetings

I am familiar with Wimba and Elluminate from a participant and speaker's perspective, but what about free solutions?  I discovered DimDim (http://www.dimdim.com/ ) this past weekend. It is free for up to 20 users.  It has all of the features that were on my "want" list:  videoconferencing, ability to use presentatiaon and polling software, and the ability to share desktops. 

Next, I explored using Poll Daddy software (http://polldaddy.com/ ).  It could be useful for formative assessments for a lesson or course.  So far, I have experimented with the use of polling software in email. My next step is to include it on a web site or this blog.

I am working on course prep for my Integrating Technology into the Healthcare Educator Role class.  I reflected on the polling software that was used in yesterday's webinar and decided to do some additional exploration.  I reviewed the Digital Inspiration web site at http://www.labnol.org/internet/best-web-polling-software/6207/ which provided a summary about a number of polling software solutions.  The polling software that I have explored to date include:

• Micropoll http://www.micropoll.com/
• Poll Everwhere http://www.polleverywhere.com/
• Toluna  http://www.toluna.com/
• Poll Daddy http://www.polldaddy.com/

I also explored Jane Hart's web site that lists the Top 100 Tools for Learning 2009.  Using the resources on that site, I explored DimDim online meeting software.  It is free for up to 25 users.  You can anticipate watching me experiment with some of these software solutions.  I welcome hearing about your experiences and recommendations.

Educational Gaming

I attended a 2 hour webinar entitled Playing Games to Enhance Learning with Dr. Atsusi Hirumi as a presenter this afternoon.  Plan to attend the follow-up face2face presentation next Friday.  The presenter engaged the audience by asking us to visit gaming sites and then used online polling to obtain feedback. The SCORM modules that I am sharing in this blog are low tech gaming solutions (in comparison to scenes and lifelike figures).  I will be posting some examples of more sophisticated gaming software pertinent to the health sciences later.  I did add a couple of educational gaming blogs to my Blogger site to follow. I attempted to search for additional one at the Technorati (Blog search engine) http://technorati.com/ site, but the search engine was not working.

Gaming sites to explore:

• 360ed  http://360ed.com/ (not open to the public but interesting)
• TabulaDigita http://tabuladigita.com/
• Gazillionaire http://www.gazillionaire.com/gaz.html
• Games2Train http://www.games2train.com/
• Disaster in Franklin County http://cpheo.sph.umn.edu/cpheo/umncphp/franklincounty.html (free but requires registration)
  

What other sites or educational gaming blogs do you recommend?
This information supports Chapter 23 on e-Learning (Thede & Sewell).

Personal Reference Manager - Exporting Citations from EndNote to Zotero

Two new members of our Web 2.0/Health 2.0 research team will be using Zotero to manage citations.  I needed to share the citations information that our GCSU team members had already collected.  The solution was not obvious at first because the export functions in Zotero differ from Endnote.

I knew that Endnote could import files from Zotero if I had exported them as a RIS file. The screenshot on the left shows the export file formats that are available in Zotero.

The problem  was the export features in Endnote were different (See screenshot above).  RIS was not listed as a file type.   

The solution?  I had to select RefMan (RIS) Export as the Output Style using the drop-down menu by output style first (See screenshot below) and then export the file as a text file(.txt)!  I found the solution counter-intuitive, but it worked! 

This information supplements Chapter 12 (Thede & Sewell) on Digital Libraries and Personal Reference Managers.

Creating an eBook Part 2

I downloaded Stanza  reader software for the iPhone to explore how it might be used to create an ebook.  Stanza can read files with ePub formats.  I discovered that there is a desktop version of Stanza (that works both with a PC and a Mac) that you can download to convert different file formats to an ePub format. 

Since I am teaching an informatics course this semester with 2 ebooks that are PDF files, I wanted to see if I could read one of the books on the iPhone.  It was so easy!  I exported the book to ePub format and then  used the iPhone to find the "shared book" which was located on the PC desktop. Have not had time to explore how easy it might be to navigate the converted ebook, but that will be the next adventure.

SCORM Modules to Support the Thede & Sewell Nursing Informatics Textbook

The SCORM  modules (sharable content object reference model - see page 397-398 for more information) are now available for download and use to support the learning content for chapters the Thede & Sewell textbook. SCORM modules are designed for faculty who use the Thede & Sewell textbook and a learning management system to provide learning content. For more information, see my web site for the textbook at http://hercules.gcsu.edu/jsewell/textbook.htm

You can download the SCORM modules from the links below. Save each file to your desktop computer and then import it into your learning management system using the SCORM import feature.

Chapter 9 - Spreadsheets http://hercules.gcsu.edu/jsewell/textbook/Chapt9TermsScorm.zip
Chapter 10 - Databases http://hercules.gcsu.edu/jsewell/textbook/Chapt10TermsScorm.zip
Chapter 14 - Consumer Health Records http://hercules.gcsu.edu/jsewell/textbook/Chapt14TermsScorm.zip
Chapter 22 - Telehealth http://hercules.gcsu.edu/jsewell/textbook/Chapt22TermsScorm.zip
Chapter 23 - e-Learning http://hercules.gcsu.edu/jsewell/textbook/Chapt23TermsScorm.zip
Chapter 24 - Administration http://hercules.gcsu.edu/jsewell/textbook/Chapter24TermsScorm.zip
Chapter 25 - Research http://hercules.gcsu.edu/jsewell/textbook/Chapter25TermsScorm.zip
Chapter 26 - Legal/Ethical Issues http://hercules.gcsu.edu/jsewell/textbook/Chapt26TermsScorm.zip

Health 2.0

I "hand-walked" the Institutional review board (IRB) to protect human subjects info today to Tracy N.. Hope to pilot our research survey to assess "health 2.0" use in November. More to come.

Embedding a YouTube Video with PowerPoint

My students often challenge me to learn new technology strategies. This past weekend one of the students was trying to figure out how to embed a YouTube video using PowerPoint. I thought it was a terrific idea because there are hundreds of superb videos in YouTube that are relevant to nursing practice and patient education.

I knew that I could use video converting software to download a YouTube video, but I had not considered attempting to incorporate the URL into a presentation. I ventured out to create a PowerPoint presentation as a just-in-time tutorial. I plan to add some interactive questions at the end of the tutorial later.

To solve the problem, I googled the terms and discovered the solution in YouTube! The only snag was that I had a corruption on the computer I was using so it did not have Flash. The lesson I learned is that if Flash is not installed, it will not appear in the PPT Control Box menu. I emailed myself the PPT and used another computer to complete the presentation.

This presentation could be used to extend the information in Chapter 8, Presentation Software: Looking Professional in the Spotlight, of the Thede & Sewell textbook. Although almost all of the younger students feel proficient with the use of PowerPoint, they may not have thought about using YouTube videos.

The PowerPoint presentation is online at http://hercules.gcsu.edu/jsewell/Embedding_a_YouTube_Video.ppt

Creating an eBook

You realize that this posting is Debby Mac's fault! She created a
syllabus with a topic that included I was going to teach how to
publish to a PDA. It has been a couple of years since I had
researched that topic, so I have ventured out today to explore. Since
I have an iPhone, I began with publishing resources for the iPhone.
Reader for the iPhone
I needed reader software to view an eBook on a Smartphone such as an iPhone or PDA. I went to the iTunes store and found 2 free apps:

• Kindle for the iPhone
• Stanza

Kindle for the iPhone was free today, so I downloaded it. After the download, I was prompted to log-in to my Amazon account. To get a better perspective of how the ebook worked, I also downloaded Pride and Prejudice (free) from Amazon. The book was very easy to read. All I had to do was tap the iPhone window to get the pages to turn.

Creating the eBook Content
Patient education resources available for an ebook could provide just-in-time healthcare information at the point of need. The next step is to assemble all of the parts of a book such as a book cover and chapters. For patient education, the book might be really simple
like how to take care of you picc line, or managing your care when on Coumadin. In the Coumadin example, there could be "chapters" on interpreting the INR, when to call your healthcare provider, foods to avoid, medications to avoid, etc. In other words the chapters might be one or two paragraphs.

After creating the content, the next step is to run readability statistics to make sure that the reading level is no higher than 6^th grade level. You can do that using Microsoft Word Readability Statistics. To make sure that the Readability Statistics show, go to the Microsoft Office icon -> Word Options -> Proofing and make sure that there is a check mark in the box next to Show Readability Statistics located under the heading When Checking Spelling and Grammar in Word.

The next step is to do a spelling and grammar check for the entire document. The readability statistics will be the last display.

Note: For more information on information literacy and readability statistics, review Chapter 11 – The Internet: One Road to Health and Evidence-based Information (Thede & Sewell, 2010).

Software to Create the eBook
The final step is to generate the ebook. The web site http://www.lulu.com/ provide a
step-by-step process for creating an ebook free. Well, you know that a .com site can't really be free. A basic do-it-youself book is free. There is a fee schedule for varying levels of help such as editing, graphic design, etc.

Thede, L. Q., & Sewell, J. P. (2010). Informatics and nursing : competencies & applications
(3rd ed.). Philadelphia: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.

Writing for Publication

I will be presenting at an all day workshop in a few weeks. One of my presentations will be publishing patient education resources as a printed brochure, magazine, newsletter, newspaper, web site (such as a blog or static site), and PDAs. I will be posting resources for that workshop on this blog. Today, I decided to experiment using Word 2007 blogger resource. I found Word to be very easy to use. I simply selected new blog from the Microsoft Office button and a wizard started asking me which blog site that I wanted to use. After the blog page appeared, I could see that the ribbon was modified to include a tab for Blog Post.

You can expect to see posts over the next few weeks as I collect resources.