ZaidSwoosh Goes IMU E-Learning Facebook! WHAT?

Too much going on to maintain ZaidSwoosh, but I am everyday splatting some juicy discoveries on Facebook (IMU E-Learning), so why not just go there, if you liked ZaidSwoosh in the past. As for ZaidLearn, it will of course continue with 1-2 juicy posts a month.

So, if you want some deep and ironic learning reflections, ZaidLearn is there. However, if you want to know my juiciest learning discoveries every (working) day, then...

CLICK HERE!

The Vanishing Art of Lecturing (Prof. K. Ramnarayan)

PURPOSE OF A LECTURE?

1. Inspire
2. Influence
3. Inform

On the 24th May 2010, Prof. K. Ramnarayan (Vice Chancellor of Manipal University) conducted an inspiring lecture entitled 'The Vanishing Art of Lecturing' at the International Medical University (IMU), Bukit Jalil (Main Campus).

To cut the story short, let's enjoy and reflect this amazing and inspiring lecture below, chunked into three (3) parts:

PART I




PART II



PART III



To summarize in his own words, lectures should be:

Lively
Educative
Creative
Thought (provoking)
Understandable
Relevant
Enjoyable

Let's scrutinize and reflect his lecture a couple of times (or more), and then ask ourselves, "How can I be more inspiring uncovering what I am covering in a more exciting manner..."

Click here, to discover and enjoy IMU's inspiring e-Learning stream on Facebook :)

IMU Learning Series Launched!

CLICK HERE
(to read the first article)

WHAT?

The idea with this 'IMU Learning Series' initiative is to invite lecturers at IMU to share their learning and teaching experiences, and how they are innovating and inspiring students to learn and think (short articles: 250 - 1000 words). Later, we will also be inviting students to come forward sharing their learning stories and best practices.

A few more lecturers have also taken up the challenge (in progress), and hopefully more will follow. There are a lot of innovations and inspiring learning stories happening at IMU, and it would be wonderful if more lecturers came forward to share them. Especially, younger less experienced lecturers at IMU could benefit tremendously from these reflective learning and teaching stories.

Also, these learning stories will also be reaching many educators and learners beyond IMU. To date, IMU e-Learning Blog has had visitors from more than 50 countries (within a couple of months).

Finally, imagine if many IMU lecturers participate in sharing their inspiring learning stories over the coming months. By year end, we could actually compile and organize 'IMU Learning Series' articles into a digital e-book (e.g. IMU Learning Series 2010), which would be a wonderful learning resource.

In short, let's celebrate and participate sharing our inspiring learning stories and best practices.

Think big, start small, innovate fast :)

Let's make a difference! :)

Finally, if you are interested in experiencing IMU E-Learning learning stream on Facebook (including pictures from learning sessions), just CLICK HERE :)

Einztein - Find FREE Online Courses!

Einztein

"Openness plants seeds for future innovation. The work of many universities around open content has contributed to an ecosystem for innovation. Einztein is the latest company to try and add a value layer to freely available educational material. More and more of these companies will appear in the near future offering a combination of aggregation of open content, a central place to discover courses, tools to run aggregate courses, discussion forums for learners, and general course management tools (enrolling, sharing with other profs, grading, etc.). " - George Siemens



WHAT?
Einztein, a non-profit headquartered in Santa Monica, California, is the brainchild of three democratizers of education who believe in a world where learning should be a function of desire not privilege. Einztein serves as a one-stop campus from which online learners can easily explore the universe of free online courses delivered by any combination of text, audio, video and other media. Whether you already know the course you’re looking for, or you just have a general idea, the purpose of Einztein is to make online courses easy to find. All courses featured on Einztein are hand picked, by their PhD level editorial team, based on their completeness and quality (Source).

In short, Einztein is a great starting point to find free quality online courses. Though, I would like to note that I did find broken course links and courses with no substantial content, so the editorial team needs be 'more picky'. Perhaps, include a few non-PhD level e-learning professionals (such as myself...) to ensure more completeness and quality :)

TEDMED Lectures Innovations in Healthcare and Medicine

Via Dr. Neelesh


TEDMED?

TEDMED is a yearly medical technology and healthcare conference celebrating quality conversation as it relates to personal and public health. It celebrates conversations that demonstrate the intersection and connections between all things medical and healthcare related: from personal health to public health, devices to design and Hollywood to the hospital. Together, this encompasses more than twenty percent of the GNP in America while touching everyone's life around the globe.

You can keep yourself updated with TEDMED on their Facebook Group site (+2000 member), including their upcoming 2010 conference.

Even more interesting, you can watch all the talks (lectures) from the 2009 conference via the TEDMED YouTube Channel. This video collection should provide some interesting insights to some of the latest innovations in Heath and Medicine.

To give you a taste, let's watch David Blaine's story about how he broke the world record for holding his breath. But, he is not a doctor. Now, that is an Inno...



Here is Dean Kamen's passionate talk about the most advanced prosthetic arm and the people it is helping:




That was two (2) mind boggling talks, but we still have another 11 amazing TEDMED 2009 talks to view and reflect. CLICK HERE to discover the remaining 11 lectures :)

A New E-Learning Blog in Town!

Check out IMU's New E-Learning Blog: CLICK HERE

This blog's main mission is to explore and discuss how we can use e-learning or technology to enhance the learning process at IMU (International Medical University).

Everyone is welcome to participate in this learning exploration. If you have an e-learning story (or story using technology in the classroom or anywhere) to share with IMU (and beyond), you are more than welcome. One way to participate is by commenting on the blog posts. However, it would be even better, if you took up the challenge to write a blog post (200+ words) about your little e-learning story (related to medical education). Although, you are free to include what you want, it would be great if the write-up answered the following questions:

• What? (Topic/Learning outcome/Project/Approach/e-Learning tools used/expectations/etc)
• Why? (Reasons for choosing that approach/tool, if any)
• How? (Implementation process)
• Feedback? (Student feedback: Survey, Interview, Focus Groups, Observation, Comments, etc.)
• Findings? (Lessons learned: Positive/Negative/Areas for Improvement)
• Next Steps? (Continue/Change approach/Adapt/Enhance/etc.)

The write-up does not need to be so scientific or anything like a journal publication. If it is written using a conversational and opinionated format, it is totally fine as this is a blog (and not a journal). As long as you have an e-learning story to share that you feel could add value, or promote e-learning at IMU, this blog is ready to explore the possibilities.

Even if you have an e-learning story to tell, but no time to write about it, please share it with the E-Learning Department, because we could always blog the story for you.

Real life stories (challenge, success, failure) can act as powerful change agents (proof-of-concept, word-of-mouth, motivation, drive), and we do hope that this exploring blog will assist in facilitating positive change to enhance learning at IMU. However, we should not loose sight of the fact that technology can't solve all the teaching and learning challenges at IMU, and at times could even cause more harm than good, if used inappropriately.

The real challenge is to find the right formula (algorithm) for effective learning to take place, and hopefully this blog can play a small role there as it explores what is happening at IMU and beyond :)

An Incredibly Useful Guidebook to Internet Searching!

Via Jane Hart

Guidebook to Internet Searching

MakeUseOf.com (check out their other excellent guidebooks, too!) has released a Guidebook to Internet Searching (PDF) for everyone who wants to be more productive and get to know some incredible new search engines.

The search engines reflected in this guidebook are mostly not incredibly new, but the tips provided could be incredibly useful to find whatever you want :)