Apr 30, 2007

Mashup Google Video and SlideShare Presentation: Zentation

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PresentationZentation









I uploaded the PowerPoint presentation of Dean Giustini about "How Web 2.0 is Changing Medicine" to SlideShare some days ago.The presentation is great, and Dean Giustini summarizes his ideas in an incredible way, but it would be interesting to listen what Dean Giustini said at the National Library of Medicine during his presentation. Is it possible to do that without money? Is it possible to do that without training? Do we have to spend lot of time to make it possible? Do we have to possess supercomputers to do the work for us? The answer is no. We just have to find the right tool to do that. Presentations on-line certainly are a really useful tool for doctors, an example of great presentations online, with video and diapositives at the same time, can be found at Johns Hopkins Division of Infectious Diseases Pre-Recorded Infectious Diseases Grand Rounds, the first time I saw it I was just amazed. Video and PowerPoint presentation simultaneously displayed. I tried to do something similar, but the work and time I had to spend doing that did not worth. This week I found Zentation , it is a tool that allow me do that, I can syncronize a video on Google Video with a PowerPoint presentation on SlideShare. In other words, Zentation is a Mashup - A mashup is a website or application that combines content from more than one source into an integrated experience. - It is really simple to use, and like every product of the Web 2.0 it is FREE. It is still beta, but you can use it. Take a look to the example showed below.

What old people do for fun
0:40
A comical how-to-guide for drivers


Recommended Links:
Web 2.0 pilgrimage to Washington, DC
How Web 2.0 is Changing Medicine

Presentations Online:
SlideShare
authorSTREAM
Slideburner
Zentation

Apr 29, 2007

RSS: Really Simple Syndication Tutorial

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Today, I leave you here a tutorial about Really Simple Syndication (RSS). This is just an old tool, that day by day gain more users. RSS makes easier to you tracking the new content that is added to your favorites pages on internet, in consequence it allows you to save a lot of time. RSS keeps you up to date with the news you are interested in. But, why do we have to learn of all that? we are doctors, we have to learn how to cure diseases, even when I believe that we do not heal people most of the time. The way I can explain it to you, why it is important to learn about how to use internet, it is using two phrases that I found. The first it is because, “The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who can not read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.” (by Alvin Toffler "Rethinking the Future"). This is really important, day by day new technologies are created, we just have to pick the one that fit better to our necessities, but sometimes it is really difficult to change from one service to another when we already get used to something that we like. The second reason is because, "the ability to learn faster than your competitors may be the only sustainable competitive advantage"(by Peter Senge "The Fifth Discipline"). We as doctors have to learn not only medicine, but things that can be useful in our daily life, not only for us but for our patients.






Recommended Links:

Video: RSS in Plain English
Online Education: Myth or Reality

Some Medical Journal Feeds:
New England Journal Medicine NEJM Current Issue Feed
British Medical Journal BMJ Current Issue Feed
Journal of the American Medical Association JAMA Current Issue Feed
The Lancet Current Issue Feed

Apr 26, 2007

ooVoo: Video Web Conferencing

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ooVoo
Communication is now really easy in comparison to past years. You only need a web cam, a computer and lot of creativity. It is not necessary to have a million dollar to have a video conference or to do lot of things with the Web 2.0 as Dean Giustini mention in his blog. ooVoo, an IM/Video conferencing tool, is just awesome. It is now beta. It works as a messenger program like Windows Live Messenger or Yahoo Messenger, but what make it special is the fact that you can make video calls, video conference( up to 5 persons at the same time), video messaging and upload your videos to their server to embedded messages in your forum or blog. I think that ooVoo will be more useful than Skype and other messenger programs. Companies are working hard to offer this type of service, Google just bought Marratech to offer this service in the future. Try it now, you will not be disappointed.


ooVoo links
ooVoo Main Page
ooVoo Tutorial
ooVoo Download

Recommended links:
Our Vision? A new, digital literacy
Free Web based Meetings: A Web 2.0 Tool to Connect Doctors
Before You Participate in a Web Conference

Apr 24, 2007

Bookmarking: Learning 2.0 and Del.icio.us

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Del.icio.us is a useful productivity tool, a lot people like librarians use it in a very efficient manner. As the information in the web grows and grows without stooping , it is essential to learn how to find and how to organize this information, the use of del.icio.us allow us to find what others consider important to save, in other words is the people who decide what matters and what not. This is a video I found in Brightcove, another video host site like You Tube, the quality it is not good but the content is great.



Other links:
Del.icio.us
How to use Del.icio.us Tutorial
Medical Pages on Del.icio.us
Social Bookmarking Del.icio.us: A Personal and Professional Productivity Tool

Apr 22, 2007

Free Web Based Meetings: A Web 2.0 tool to Connect Doctors

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Free Web Based Meetings: A Web 2.0 tool to Connect Doctors
We talk a lot of Web 2.0 and the use of the web as a platform, what is it? in simple words it means that you do not need to install a big software in your computer to do whatever you could wish, in consequence, more than a powerful computer with a super powerful operative system (as Windows Vista pretends to be), what we need is broadband internet connection. In our case, communication is paramount, most of us know how to use a messenger program like Windows Live Messenger, or Yahoo Messenger, etc. But these are not the only programs that exist to talk to other people, and is not the only thing you can do with your computer and internet, you can do much more and do not to have to spend lot of hours trying to learn it. So, is it with the use of messenger programs the only way we can discuss with other colleagues? The answer is no. For example we can use live meeting conferences, what is a live meeting conference? what can you do? check these demos to have a better idea about it: Microsoft demo or Adobe demo. After you watch these demos you will have a better idea of what a live meeting is for, but do you have to pay for that? the answer is no. You just have to be creative. I am going to tell you how: first of all use a program to talk with more than one person at a time, for that I use Skype, then define what you want to do; for most of us something that will be useful is to show to others what you see in your screen, so why not to share your screen with others(while talking with Skype), to do that use Yugma, you and the people you want to share your screen with have to have an account, at any time you can decide who is the one who will show the screen to the others. If you would like to have something like a whiteboard where to write you can use Vyew, you can do annotations, upload PowerPoint presentation, invite more people( up to 20 for Free), but every person has to open an account( what is free) . Or maybe if you just wan to have a whiteboard but do not want to open a account you can use Skrbl, no necessity to open account or install nothing. So why not to use these tools to interact dynamically with others doctors, for example to discuss clinical cases, I think that the possibilities are endless.

Free Live Conferencing Services
Yugma
Vyew
Skype

Payed Services
Gotomeeting
Webex
Office Live Meeting
Genesys
Adobe Connect Professional

Whiteboard:
Skrbl

Apr 20, 2007

Web 2.0: Openness to Medical Knowledge

1 comments

School of Medicine
Anywhere I look in internet, I find a trend to openness: Open Access, Open Medicine, Open Course Ware, Open Culture,Open Learn, Open Source, Open Directory, Open Office, etc; what in my opinion it is an amazing change with respect to past years. The information is there, if we want it, we have to take it. As doctors the principal beneficiary of this action will be our patients. But, the most difficult challenge is still ahead of us: The challenge to "Open Our Minds" to the change. We have to plant the seed that stimulates thirst of knowledge and happiness of learning. Now exists a huge gateway of knowledge opens to anyone who wants to learn; but most of us are standing in front of it and do not realize that it exists, or if we know of its existence, we do not cross the door to use the knowledge it contains. Technology can create the misconception that it limits the interaction among people, and it could happen if we become extremists with the use of it, but on the contrary it is the tool will help us to back to the basics of education, an education that teacher and apprentice will be closer than ever. Finally, I want to share with you a phrase of Rita Dove that I found, she says "the library is an arena of possibility, opening both a window into the soul and a door onto the world" , now we do not have to go to a library to access the information we need; but the librarians are still there to help us, as guides to the knowledge that will enrich our minds.

References:
Our Vision? A new, digital literacy
Why Open Medicine?
Technology and 3 Types of Teachers

Open Sites:
ODP - Open Directory Project
SourceForge.net: Welcome to SourceForge.net
Home | Open Source Initiative
Open Culture
Open Medicine
OpenLearn LearningSpace - The Open University
Oxford Open initiative
Open Access Now
Open Access Defined
Directory of Open Access Journals

Open Course Ware Resources:
MIT's OpenCourseWare
Waseda University's OpenCourseWare
Utah State OpenCourseWare
UT's OpenCourseWare
Universia Open Course Ware MIT spanish
Tufts OpenCourseWare
TOKYO TECH OCW
ParisTech Open Course Ware
OCW Finder
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health's OPENCOURSEWARE
Carnegie Mellon's Open Learning Initiative
KYOTO-U's OpenCourseWare
Keio University's Opencourseware
Fulbright Economics Teaching Program OWC
MERLOT Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching

Apr 17, 2007

How Web 2.0 is Changing Medicine

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How web 2.0 will change medicine?, How web 2.0 can change medicine?, How Web 2.0 is changing Medicine?, how web 2.0 will transform medicine?, While it is not easy to answer these questions, I just can say that it will happen sooner or later. But what is Web 2.0? How medicine is related to the learning of computer skills? Most medical doctors spend seven to eight years, on average, at medical school; but most of us never took any classes on these technologies. I agree with Guistini when he says that is difficult to define the Web 2.0, but what I know for sure is that Web 2.0 is about knowing how to share and how to collaborate with others to create new and better content.
I have received a ppt presentation from Dean Giustini. While I don't know him, I read the article he wrote in December in the British Medical Journal about "How Web 2.0 is Changing Medicine". I just want to thank him for his presentation about this topic. I like what he wrote in his article: "the spirit of open sharing and collaboration is paramount", and he is right, because all is about that in the Web 2.0, share with no interest, maybe it could sound like a romantic idea, but it is true.
Finally, I just want to remark his conclusions:
1.- Physicians should learn about the vast ecosystem of the web
2.- Web 2.0 is not a fad, but is changing the way patients and physicians interact
3.- Wikis and blogs help doctors to communicate, collaborate and participate more
4.- Software tools help physicians to form digital communities of practice
5.- In the future, physicians will publish in the absence of associations or affiliations.

Download the presentation as:
Related links:
How Web 2.0 is Changing Medicine
Web 2.0 pilgrimage to Washington, DC

Apr 15, 2007

Video Sharing: A tool of Web 2.0 for Medicine

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Video Sharing: A tool of Web 2.0 for Medicine
Definitely, to share videos nowadays, it is really simple, we just have to chose the right place where to upload the information, we want to share with others, or even to make money with that, if this is your purpose. Today, I am talking about that, because, I found that one of the places I like a lot( Veoh ) change its policy about videos that last more than one hour. Before, I used to watch videos that last more than 2 hour with no necessity to upload it in many small pieces, but now you just can watch a 5 minutes preview, if the movie lasts more than an hour, to see all the video, they tell you to use their program to download it; but, who will do that?, when everybody just want to make click an watch the videos. So I decide to change of place and look for another with better characteristics. So, I found one, and I will take advantage of that to compare it with two places more: Youtube, and Veoh, that allow you to upload videos and share them for free. To do it really easy to understand I picked a video that it is hosted in these three places, the video name is "Alizee - J'en Ai Marre", so while comparing you can have some fun too.
First of all the most popular of all this kind of places, but not the best YOUTUBE: Alizee - J'en Ai Marre Click chere to watch he video on youtube.
Next, Alizee - J'en Ai Marre Click chere to watch he video on Veoh.
Then, Alizee - J'en Ai Marre Click here to watch the video on Stage6.
So, get your own conclusions about what is it the best service you can find on internet for free. If you want to see medical videos hosted on internet just visit our Basic Sciences Section, you will find lot of them. Finally, here I leave you a list of other places that offer the same service, with some advantages and disadvantages, just pick the one that fit better your necessities:


p.d.: just one more video for fun click here

Apr 13, 2007

Are Doctors Prepared to Used the Web 2.0 ?

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This is an update of the presentation of Ves Dimov about Web 2.0 and Medicine. In my opinion one of the biggest problem we face is the fact that most of us still do not realize, that we have to learn about internet and how to use it, that medicine and computer literacy are necessary to continue our education by ourselves. Even when we are far from big cities or we are working in rural places, or even when we are in transition to get a job or to get into a residency program, we can continue with our education, since the time we enter to medical school, or even before, we know that our profession will never end, that we will face one and thousand tests the rest of our lives, and this is a time when the best doctors can be found anywhere, not only in the big cities or in the big hospitals, to become one of them, we have to work hard, and we have to change the idea the most of us have about traditional medical education.
I made a small search into the curriculum of some medical schools of the United States, but I didn't find computer literacy skill courses as part of the formal education of a student who will become a doctor receive, some of them just have some elective courses or some seminars to learn how to use the internet and how to select information and evaluate resources of knowledge. But what can we expect when our teachers don't understand what we are talking about, when most of our colleges do not show interest to development new skills. Most of the people who is working and using these tools that internet offers, learned everything about internet by themselves, they spent time and energy to understand about Blogs, RSS, Podcast, Videocast, Wikis, Medical Search, Content Sharing sites, Online communities, companies, e-books, online writing, and many things more, but what about the rest of us, I have been trying to teach others about this tools, and the basics of internet, and I have realized that sometimes people can not differentiate between a browser, a search engine or an operative system. I know that anybody you explain how the web can be used is going to tell you that it is amazing, but even in these cases they are not going to use it. And the reason of why not, results simple, we are not prepared to use these technologies, it is too "complicated" yet. I analize it, and think that it will take some time yet, until each one of us can use the internet as the powerful tool it is.
We have lot of things to learn, this is the curve of learning we have to pass, just at that point of learning, we will take advantage of the main purpose of internet that is COLLABORATION. We the people who likes both Medicine and Internet are working hard to get this goal, but definitively it will take time, even when the tools already exists.

Apr 11, 2007

Using Web 2.0 to Access Medical Books Online and more

3 comments

I just talked to a friend about the things we can do with our computers, and it is interesting to realize that most of the people use their personal computers just to type, to read, to store information, and to chat with people; but, Is that all you can do with your computer?, What are you allowed to do with your computer?. Sometimes we just don't do more things because we don't ask ourselves what is possible and what is not, or sometimes we just don't look for the answer to our questions. In this post I just going to show you how useful(more than you can expect) is to learn how to use the internet to access medical books on internet. I'm going to do that using OVID Books as an example of that:
How? just click HERE , now you can access to 59 book online, you can search in more than one book at a time, and you can see some journals also, sometimes this link allow you to access to more than 200 book, but the last time I tried it just 59 books. You want more?. you just have to keep yourself looking. Do you know what happen when you visit Statref, and write "newyork" in the username box, "metro" in the password box, and then you make Click?. Try it, you won't be dissappointed.But let's make it simple to you: click HERE, this is a really simple page but with lot of useful and powerful information, I found it 5 years ago and it still works. But, that's all the information I can access? answer: NO. There is a lot of more information, It is a matter of learn how to access to them, to finish I leave you a list of places that contain lot of links to download information from internet, some better than other, you have to try them to pick the ones you like the most:

Apr 8, 2007

How to Use Web 2.0 to Get a Medical Ebook

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Here I leave you and example Ipod Book Model of why I think an "Ipod Book" model can exist. The Ipod business born as a necessity against the piracy of music, because almost everybody knows how to rip a CD or DVD. But, how many people know how to get the information that is contained in books on internet for FREE? But , first let me ask you some questions more: Do You have to pay to have a book in pdf format? answer: NO Why not? because, there are many different places where you can download books in pdf for free, example: EbooksClub, you can find here more than four thousand links to download medical books. Second question: Do you have to pay to have a book in pdf format legally? answer: NO Why not? Because, there are many different places where you can download and search for books, example: Google Book Search allow download, search inside the book, view it online, those places also allow you to buy the book online. Third question, Can I see a book online? answer: YES examples: Statref, AccessMedicine , Ovid , but not only look in one book, but many different books at a time. But I have to pay for that? answer: NO, there are many different ways to get access to this books, for example you can go to the library of some university with access to this databases, ask your girlfriend who study at the university for her password, or find the password on internet( use Baidu in the search box type "ezproxy password").Or look for this on internet some people is uploading books and CD books online, example: Atlas of Emergency Medicine book from access medicine that was copied and uploaded again ,Clinical Oncology this is a CD book that is online.
But publishers don't change the way they make business, because we don't know and don't learn how to use the internet and the tools that exist and the fact that now it more easy to publish, I just few days ago found the Google Library Project , I just think that this is a good idea, except for the fact that each time you upload a book it ask you for the ISBN of the book. But there is another way to publish my book in pdf format online:
First, Upload the book to Scribd allow to embed the book in blogs, allow download in different format(pdf, word, text) and audio also, then if I want to read the book I just need to use an ebooks reader devices, or if I like to have the book in my hands, I can order to print it using a service like PrintFu (print pdf book service), and that's it
With this I just want to show you that, if lot of people know how to get a book using internet, they would not buy anymore books from the publishers. What publishers can do against this: low their prices, making their product more accessible to everybody
improve their products,create more services.

Apr 5, 2007

Ask Dr Wiki: An Interesting Example of Medicine and Web 2.0

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Drwiki
Ask Dr Wiki is an example of collaboration to create new knowledge without the necessity of third persons (publishers), what doesn't mean that the information would be of low quality, on the contrary, with the participation of each one of us, the knowledge that we create will be better, a concept of web 2.0 is FEEDBACK( to let others to know your ideas and opinions), the opinion of each one us is really important, and with the use of the web we can express our opinions, it is not impossible to communicate with others that have similar interests, but not too many people is participating yet in this change, some still believe that it is impossible to to create in internet without the knowledge to do so, but this is just partially true. We all of us learn day by day new things, that can be shared with others, so visit this wiki and spread your knowledge.

Apr 4, 2007

Using Web 2.0 to teach Medicine

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Microanimations
One of the goals I look for with this blog is to teach others, how to use the internet, obviously not all of us, are so involved with the internet and do not spend a lot time looking for tools that can make our work and study more efficient, but if you find this page, you don't have to learn what I try to teach, but you can take advantage of the links you will find here. What I notice is that a lot of people never check the pages they find, they just take a superficial overview and never realize all the information they are missing, and example of how I use this blog is to gather some information for some people, for example I create a blog with Microbiology Animations, not only the ones that everybody knows, but the ones that I found and consider useful. I made this blog to help my students from a community college where I am working for a while. Take a look to this maybe you can find something useful for you.