Outbreak App from CDC

The Centers for Disease and Prevention (CDC) created an app, Outbreak, which is a free download for the iPad.  The app is an epidemiology game with different levels, where the user attempts to find the source of an outbreak.  It has fantastic potential as a teaching tool for use in high school, and higher education.  An pre-professional in healthcare could benefit from its use.

Learn more about the app from the YouTube video below.

Draw MD App

I discovered an amazing app in MERLOT today called Draw MD.  The app is free and includes anatomical drawings that the user can annotate with drawing and text tools.  The drawings can be saved, printed, or emailed for further use.  You can learn more about the app at http://www.merlot.org/merlot/viewMaterial.htm?id=906206 

The YouTube video below provides information about the urology drawing and associated tools.  

Microsoft Office 2015 for the Mac

I read this morning that Microsoft Office is scheduled for release at the end of 2015.  However, Outlook is available now. 

If you have a subscription to Office 365 and you have updated your operating system, you can take advantage of the update now.

You can read more about it from the MacWorld article at http://www.macworld.com/article/2848035/first-look-microsoft-outlook-2015-promises-few-new-features-but-better-performance.html

MERLOT Fall 2014 Newsletter

The Fall 2014 newsletter for MERLOT was released yesterday. It is available at http://grapevine.merlot.org/index.html

The topics are:

• Emerging Technologies for Online Learning 2015 Conference
• Peer Reviewer Extraordinaire 2014-15
• MERLOT and Quality Matters
• MERLOT at the Illinois Art Education Association Conference
• MERLOT and OER Cancer India

Of special interest are the conference for next year, how MERLOT is integrating Quality Matters, and the MERLOT Open Education Resources (OER) for Cancer project.

Apple Pay - Update

Apple Pay is now available for those who have the latest iPhones and iPads.  You need to do the latest system update to access the feature.  Once the update is installed, click on Settings to enter credit card information.  Entering the credit card info is extremely easy - just click the camera icon in the credit card set-up window and hold the camera over the card.  The information is automatically recognized.  If for some reason, it isn't, you can enter the info manually.  Once you are done, the app validates the card information and you probably will receive verification from that credit card company. It took me only a couple of minutes to set up my Apple Pay credit card accounts.

Apple Pay is more secure than using your credit card because it uses NFC (near field communication).  Every time you pay, it generates a unique code that cannot be used again.  That is in contrast to using your credit card where you have that little extra 3 or 4 digit code in addition to the credit card number. 

I found a quick useful article, Apple Pay Do's and Don'ts at http://www.forbes.com/sites/paularosenblum/2014/10/21/apple-pay-dos-and-donts-a-practical-guide/

Another good article about it from CNET, Everything You want to Know About Apple Pay is at http://www.cnet.com/news/everything-you-want-to-know-about-apple-pay/

Nursing Informatics Textbook Error - Chapter 6

There is an error with the first Applications and Competencies exercise for chapter 6.  It refers learners to the textbook website for chapter 7.  It should refer to http://dlthede.net/informatics/Chap06WordProcessing/chap6.html for the multitasking.rtf file.

EndNote Lessons Learned

I have used EndNote citation software for MANY years but I am still learning :-)  A student in one of my classes had problems with EndNote writing out the names of the author within the citation.  In researching the problem - I found that if the author had published a number of resources and the author's name is entered differently in the EndNote, EndNote believes the author is different, so it attempts to help out by writing out the name.  The work around is to copy and paste the author's name into each resource so that it always appears identically.

When attempting to empty the EndNote trash - the trash would not empty.  We figured out that it was because the citations were being used in the Word document.  After deleting the errors in Word, the trash emptied because it was not in use. 

The third problem - was that the student's EndNote library got locked for some reason.  The research on correcting that problem was to restart the computer.  As challenging as issues such as the three I just discussed - it is rewarding to learn new tricks.