Pharmacology and prescribing for midwives

I have just added more information to the Midwifery Wiki about pharmacology and prescribing from a midwifery perspective.
I also added a couple of new resources about fetal and placental development in the bioscience section.

Video about moodle

Usually I would not post this here as this is my midwifery blog. The blog I use for matters to do with e-learning, education etc is my Fled blog. However it is ion Wordpress and not all embed codes work in Wordpress so I am posting this here. It is a hard decision to make but i do think i will need to leave Wordpress and return to blogger for my Fled blog as it is frustrating not being able to do some of the things I need to do.

Blended learning and midwifery education

Do we really understand the potential?

I have been looking at this video. Wouldn't this have been a great conference to be at? How exciting that we are entering a new era of midwifery education at this time and potential that is there for us and our students, as long as we leave the doors open enough to be able make the most of what the world wide web has to offer. As Myles says the virtual world has a lot to offer but needs to stay connected to the real world. We can do that, we can make the most of both!

Calling all midwives interested open access elearning

Image: Super-dupont-we-need-you, from Sorenshaman's photos on Flickr.com

Sarah and I are keen to see educational material availble for midwives free of charge through the internet. If you wish to study at your own pace that would be fine. When you feel that you can meet the assessment requirements of the course you would then enrol and only then would pay the fee for the course.

Do you want access to free open access midwifery educational material?

Would this type of resource aid your professional development?

If you are interested tell us why.

What would be the benefits for you?

We need your support to make this happen. If we cannot demostrate a need for this type of resource then it is unlikely to happen. Spread the word, get others to visit this blog or Sarah's blog and tell us why you would like this to happen for you.

We especially need to hear from New Zealand midwives but would like to also hear from midwives around the world who think this would support their professional activites.

I will add a poll to my side bar but please also add your thoughts and comments about this here. We need your help

Exploring second life for education

I have been looking at Second life in preparation for a meeting of midwives. I have been struggling to find good places to go to. When I search in second life I only seem to come up with some very 'dodgy' sites, not the sort of places i really want to hang around in.

I finally did a web search for slurl (which is second life urls) and found a really good wiki with lots of interesting places to explore. I also went to Leicester Universities Media Zoo. Which was very interesting.

This is a slide share of my experience

| View | Upload your own

Cell phones and PDAs for mobile (distance) learning

A post on the Eduforge blog yesterday led me to a YouTube video about software which can deliver online surveys and tests through cell phones or PDAs. I have heard of this before but it is intersting to see it in action. Another tool we might be able to use as we move delivering more course content at a distance.


Image from: newlearnscopes photos on flickr.com

Managing widgets in my blog

Click To Play

I haven't done a screen cast for a wee while. Decided to do one about widgets, explaining what they are. In particular I explain what the widget of my blog is. I hope this wee video works for you.

Learning communities online.

This post is in response to a blogpost by Sarah Stewart. We have recently been investigating how to use online resources to provide students with a sense of connection and a sense of being a learning community. I think this is what the facilitating online learning communities course we have been working on is all about really. Learning is definitely enhanced through community interaction and I think face to face will always be optimal,how can we help people feel that sense of connection and shared learning when they cannot physically be together in the same space. Do you think we have that sense of community in our facilitating online course? I think it has happened to a degree, but perhaps the sense of a learning community might be greater when the learning goals are also shared to a greater extent. Our course participants have come form a variety of practice areas representing a variety of professional groups and have been participating in the course for a variety of reasons, so perhaps it is quite astonishing that we have managed to achieve a sense of community at all. When we are working with distance students who are working together to learn specific skills towards a shared learning goal perhaps there will be a greater opportunity to develop an online sense of community. I wonder what others feel about this?