Web 2.0 and Medicine: It is about having Digital Creativity

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In the previous post I wrote that to learn about Web 2.0 and Medicine is as important as to learn how to write. But the main idea here, it is to realize that with the technologies we have on our desks, we can express our ideas and share our knowledge in many different ways, not only by writing. We can use sounds, images, videos, animations, we can talk to others, we can discuss with others, we can share screens, edit documents at the same time, create communities, etc. There is no limit. Just use your imagination and be creative.

Digital Creativity

"New technologies give us the ability to represent so many different kinds of object in the same standard digital format (text, layout, image, sound, 3D object, moving image, etc.). They also provide us with the mechanisms to capture, store, manipulate and output these representations to produce objects we can experience through our senses. This unity of underlying representational form and technological processing provides the foundations of a convergence."

   Recommended links:
   Pictobrowser
   Web 2.0 : Imagine the Possibilities
    Digital Creativity

Digital Literacy: How to Search the Web

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e are living in the era of information. Information is knowledge, and knowledge is power. But how to find what you look for? That is why it is important to learn and to develop "digital literacy skills". Nowadays it is so common to find patients who look for answers to their health problems before they go to their primary doctor. With the information accessible to any person from their computers, lot of people without access to the health care system will try to cure themselves. But what type of answers are people finding? I think we have to spread awareness about this fact in the health care community. And that is why we have to learn how to search for information on internet. This presentation was made by Patricia Anderson. I highly recommend it. At the end of the post you will find more links to improve your searching skills.

   Recommended links:
   Professional & Clinical Information Skills Beyond UM 1
   Professional & Clinical Information Skills Beyond UM 2
   Professional & Clinical Information Skills Beyond UM 3
   Professional & Clinical Information Skills Beyond UM 4

Digital Literacy: Find Whatever You Need for Medicine

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esterday I received an email from a friend. He asked about information to do a protocol. He told me he did his research for information in Google, but this was not useful. I think it was not useful because he did not know how how look for the information he needs that is in Google, and also because not all the information is there. Theassumption "if it is not in Google, it does not exist" is false. That is one reason I think digital literacy is really important. Today I am going to leave some links really useful to those people who are trying to get into a residency program. One presentation on PowerPoint, a list of questions you will be asked and some you can ask, and finally three videos of residency interviews. Enjoy them.

      What do the program directors look in a resident?
      General Competencies for a Resident:
      patient care,
      medical knowledge,
      practice-based learning and improvement, and
      interpersonal and communication skills,
      professionalism,
      systems-based practice.
      source: Outcome Project

      Material to READ:
      Smart Strategies for Successful Residency Interviews UCLA
      Interview Planning. Interview Questions: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

      List of Questions:
      List 1
      List 2
      List 3

      Interview VIDEOS:
      University of Texas: Bad Interview and Good Interview Examples
      University of Washington: Preparing for Interviews
      University of Minnesota: Residency Interview Workshop

Web 2.0: Medical e-books and the Importance of Digital Literacy

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ew weeks ago I went to UCLA Medical Center. Medical students were presenting their posters about the work they did during the summer. There were many interesting ones, but there was one that caught my attention. It was about how publishers are changing from paper publications to electronic publications during the last years. This week I read a post from K.S. Descartin. She wrote about her experience with the use of e-books and all the advantages that this fact represents. Even when I like a lot techno-gadgets. I have to admit that they still have disadvantages when compared with paper materials. While you can access lot of information with a simple click. You depend on the duration of the battery of your device to access the information you want. And actually you have to buy the gadget - what not all can afford -. And what about if the system crash. No internet connection. Have you think about that? What will happen if you can not access the information you want the moment you need it. Of course technology has lot of advantages we can not deny too. But, are we using these technologies efficiently? These things make me think about the importance of digital literacy again. And the fact there is still a lot to learn. Somehow each one of us learn about it by our own. I have not found a formal course to learn about it. I think now more than ever, with lot of information you can access if you know how, learning is a matter of motivation more than a merely passive act.

This is a funny video just to think why digital literacy really matters:

   Recommended links:
   Medicine 2.0 in action (blog carnival)
   Medicine 2.0 Tool: Study On The Go With Medical e-Books plus Some Experiential Babbles & Lessons On Integration
   How to Use Web 2.0 to get Medical Ebooks
   Using Web 2.0 to Access Medical Ebooks Online and More

Digital Literacy: Sources of Information

Digital Literacy: Internet Misconceptions

With the time the use of technology has become so common and easy that we don't have to understand how do they work. Sometimes we start to mix up the meaning of different terms, interchanging one meaning for another without taking care of that. A common example for that are the words internet, web, and browser, what are totally different.The Internet is the worldwide, publicly accessible network of interconnected computer networks that transmit data by packet switching using the standard Internet Protocol (IP) or in toher words we can say that is the physical media. The World Wide Web ("WWW" or simply the "Web") is a system of interlinked, hypertext documents that runs over the Internet or we can say that it is the data. A web browser is a software application that enables a user to display and interact with text, images, and other information typically located on a web page at a website on the World Wide Web or a local area network or we could say that a browser(i.e. firefox, internet explorer, opera, safari) is the program we use to surf in the internet to access different type of data. This presentation show some common misconceptions about the internet that people have.

Information literacy in this Century

This is a presentation just to emphasize the importance of learning digital skills, and to show you how people is working to help professional to get this goal. It is important to learn how to educate ourselves in a continuous manner, with all the information I found for free on internet I believe that the main role of our universities or wherever we go to study is to teach us how to become long life learners. But, my question is why when the information is there, so few ones use it?

Digital Literacy Skills

How to get the ability to understand and use information in multiple formats from a wide range of sources when it is presented via computers? What skills do you have to learn in order to become digital literate? With this presentation I just try to show you some of the skills you have to develop. But keep in mind that you will have to spend time and patience until you become really efficient in the use of the internet as a tool.

What is Digital Literacy?

click here to see the presentation in full screen
One of the main things about Web 2.0 is the fact that make the access to internet easy, let you do things without the necessity to learn about digital language, but even when it is easy now to upload a video, share a photo, have your own podcast, there are many other things we have to learn, and we have to learn those thing by ourselves, fortunately internet allow us access to all this information, we just have to look for.
In this presentation I just try to explain why it is important to learn about it.