Free Class: Teaching with Technology

The National Technology Center will be teaching the free online class from July 23 – August 27 2012, “Teaching with Technology: Tips, Techniques adnd Tools.” 

As I mentioned the class is free and open to U.S. residents, but enrollment size is limited so they ask that you check your schedule to be ensure that you have time to complete the entire class. 

(class description from the MARquee) 

In this class, you will learn about using technology tools for teaching distance learning courses.  We will discuss options and best practices for asynchronous and synchronous distance classes, as well as “blended” classes that offer both in-person and online options.  Adult learning principles will be reviewed.  We will examine and discuss examples of software and website tools in teaching.

The class is taught “asynchronously” using the Moodle course management system, so you can complete the classwork at a time convenient for you.  Allow approximately 2 hours per week for independent classwork.  There are 4 weeks of assignments, readings, and discussions, with the 5th week saved for a “catch-up” week.  Upon completion of the class you will receive 8 MLA CE credits.

To register: http://nnlm.gov/ntcc/classes/schedule.html

Unauthorized Copies of Medical Texts on Apple Apps Store

I am on vacation this week so I have also been taking a bit of electronic vacation as well with the blog. But I ran across a post earlier this morning and thought….”Wow I have to blog about this!”

The post is on iMedicalApps.com, “Are unauthorized copies of popular medical textbooks being sold in Apple App Store?” While reviewing “Human Anatomy Pro for iPad” by YoDevApps LLC, Tom Lewis noticed striking similarities between the Human Anatomy app and the Gray’s Anatomy for Student App/textbook. Yet, there was no mention of this in the original iTunes description and upon further examination, Tom noted that all the images and words were direct copies of the original text of Gray’s.

Tom emailed (June 10, 2012) YoDevApps LLC for explannation of the “similarities,” and basically Evans Ben (YoDevApps), in a poorly worded and spelled email, told Tom there are similarities to Gray’s as well as other texts because he consulted the text when creating his app.
Yet this is not limited to Human Anatomy Pro and Gray’s. Tom discovered there were several titles that appeared to have a lot in common with well established medical texts. They are:

  • Illustrated Medical Dictionary (Similar to Dorland’s illustrated Medical Dictionary)
  • Principles of Internal Medicine (Similar to Harrisons Principles of Internal Medicine)
  • Clinical Medicine (Similar to Clinical Medicine by Kumar and Clark)
  • Principles of Anatomy and Physiology (Similar to Essentials of Anatomy and Physiology)

On the iMedicalApps site Tom provides screen captures of images from the YoDevApps iTunes page and compares them to the other textbooks.  When making the comparisons, Tom used both printed editions of books (Kumar and Clark) and other ebook editions (Harrison’s via Inkling).  The images are identical.

Obviously as Tom indicates, these apps raise a lot of questions about proper licensing and distribution of copyrighted material.  Since the content appears to be heavily borrowed, it also makes it extremely difficult to trust the developer on content accuracy which is essential for medical apps.

iMedicalApps recently contacted publishers (of the original texts) and Apple regarding situation and will update their article when they have a response from those involved. As of 6/12/2012 Elsevier has responded and is “initiating action”.

Not only is this whole thing interesting from a copyright standpoint, but it reminds us that we must be careful regarding medical apps.  Any developer can throw something up on the App Store and have it look reliable.

Friday Fun Fashion

We all have heard how the makers of medical lab coats are now making pockets a little bigger so doctors can put their iPad in their coat pocket.  Now larger cell phones, called phablets (phone/tablet device) might be changing the way we dress.

Tim Worstall says as smartphones are getting bigger, men are at a disadvantage because their pockets can’t hold the devices and he doesn’t think men will carry purses like women do.  So he envisions an increase in the number of men wearing vests.  Why vests?  The vests can be outfitted with a larger pocket and fit close to the body thus preventing the lop sided look of a heavy device in a jacket pocket.  That ‘s great, but what about the women who don’t carry purses.  There are women who generally don’t carry purses.  (I am one of them.) What are we to do with our enlarged smartphone?  Are we to don vests as well?  Well, one female entrepreneur thinks she has the answer.  The JoeyBra. Yes you read that correctly.  There is somebody who created a bra with pouches to carry not only your cell phone but money, an id, and a key.  No word on how the JoeyBra will work with the phablets. 

I see a Project Runway challenge in the making here.

How to Get Involved in Medical Librarian Organizations

Tuesday I wrote about being active in MLA.  Those who are active within the organization are the ones who see the most benefit of membership.  I realize telling people to get active may not be enough, so I am going to give examples of ways you can be active within various medical library organizations. 

MLA

MLA Committees, Panels, Juries, Task Forces:

Fill out the appointment application. http://www.mlanet.org/members/comappf_may-oct_only.html You MUST be an MLA member to apply (so you will have to login into MLA.net). If you get redirected after loging in go to Member Center – Apply for MLA Committee. Applications are being accepted NOW!  The deadline is October 31st!  

It is helpful to look at the two links at the top of the application prior to applying.  The Committee Appointment Information (describes the appointment process) and MLA Committees and Charges (defines the work of each committee, jury, and task force).  Knowing this informaiton will help you select the right committee and know what the committee chairs are looking for in a person when they are selecting their committee members.

Please put some effort in the qualifications or special experience.  Even if your qualifications aren’t medical library related but are related to the charge of the committee, jury, or task force, make sure to put that information in there!  For example if you have sat on an awards panel for your job or another volunteer organization, put it in!

Sections:

Join a section.  Some sections are bigger than others.  In smaller sections there might be more of an opportunity to participate in some activities because they don’t have a large pool of volunteers to draw from.  In bigger sections there might be more opportunities to participate because they have more projects going.  Once you have joined a section, watch their listserv for discussions and look for opportunities to participate (calls for reviewers, awards, etc.).  Watch communications to see if somebody on a committee needs a proxy to fill in at the annual meeting.  This year the MIS membership chair unfortunately was unable to come to Seattle, thankfully we had somebody volunteer to sit in for her at any meetings the membership chair needed to attend.   

Some sections are more loquacious than others.  So if you are on a section’s and the listserv discussion isn’t burning up your inbox, you might look at ways to foster discussion by asking a question related to the subject of the listserv.  You can also just email the chair or incoming chair stating you would like to become more active in the Section and you were wondering if there was anything you could volunteer for. 

Chapters:

Join a Chapter. Think of Chapters as MLA broken down to  specific sections of the United States.  The Chapters ARE NOT related to NLM’s National Network of Libraries of Medicine.  This can be confusing because often they have similar names with some of the same states in their groups.  

For example: Living in Ohio, I am a Midwest Chapter member whose library is a part of the Greater Midwest NNLM.  If I were living in South Dakota, I would be a Midcontinental Chapter member whose library is part of the Greater Midwest NNLM.   Confusing right? 

Once you understand that MLA Chapters are not NNLM regions then things are little easier.  Join your chapter and start looking for ways to get involved.  Join the listserve to stay in touch, look at the website for opportunities and contact people regarding those opportunities. Many people are very active in their Chapters.  Chapter volunteership often leads to being asked to join a something within MLA. 

SIG:

SIGs are very different than Sections and Chapters because they are more loosely structured.  SIGs are Special Interest Groups and generally are less formal and have more flexible organizational units.  They are not required to have officers, just a convener to act as the contact person with MLA, organize meetings, and coordinate activities.  One of the lures of SIGs is that they do not charge dues nor fundraise for themselves.  SIGs cannot sponsor a program at MLA unless it partners with a Section.  Programs at MLA sometimes cost money and because SIGs have no money they cannot help with the program costs, leaving the costs up to the Section.  While the no fees membership of SIG can be appealing it may limit a person’s official involvement due to its loose structure and possible lack of positions other than convener or co-convener.  SIGs are a great way to meet people with the same interests but depending on their organization they might lack some opportunities for involvement. 

State and Regional Organizations and Associations

Check out your state and regional organizations and join them.  If the idea of getting involved within a larger organization like MLA seems daunting, the state and regional organizations are often smaller and more intimate.  You probably already know many of the members through your regular job activities.  Not only does their size make it easier to know each other, but it provides more of an opportunity to get involved. 

Long before I was an MLA Board member I was chair elect, chair, and past chair of the Ohio Health Sciences Library Association.  That was one of the most rewarding and best opportunities I had.  I was able to work with librarians I already knew planning meetings, CE, budgets, websites, etc.  It really gave me the confidence to get more involved within the larger MLA.  Additionally, being an active member of this group gave me (and continues to give me) a way of dealing with issues in medical librarianship on a local level.  Many of these issues had/have more of a direct impact on my job and medical librarianship than MLA has had at times.  Why? Well, some things are only happening locally or they are better handled locally. 

You can find a list of some of the state and local organizations on MLA’s website. http://www.mlanet.org/resources/allied_lnks.html#3

Other Related Organizations and Associations

If you go to an MLA meeting (or any other medical library meeting) it is a good idea to keep your ears open while people are discussing other organizations and meetings they have attended.  If a lot of people are mentioning it, then there are probably a lot of people who belong to both it and MLA.  I know from my acoustical observations there are quite a few MLA members who also belong to the Association of Academic Health Sciences Libraries (AAHSL), Canadian Health Libraries Association (CHLA)/Association des Bibliothèques de la Santé du Canada, and Special Libraries Association Biological Sciences Division (SLA).  Involvement in one of these organizations can lead to involvement within MLA, Chapters, or local groups.  Likewise ideas and lessons learned in one can be adapted or shared too.

Get Involved:

There are many places and ways you can get involved.  You will be surprised your involvement will take on a life of its own and build upon itself.  People will remember you from a committee or a task force or for simply stepping up and attending a meeting as proxy or manning the table/booth.  When people begin to remember you for those things they will want to ask you to join them on other projects and your involvement because self sustaining.  That is when it gets really fun.  You begin to share new ideas across groups and organizations trying and using the best information available to make opportunities for not only yourself but for medical librarianship as a whole.  That is when you really realize that your membership is more than just a piece of paper.  That is when you realize what MLA can do for you.

What Can MLA Do For You?

I sometimes hear people saying, “I don’t belong to MLA because what has MLA done for me as a medical librarian.”  If you are looking for MLA to come in like a knight in shining armor to magically save your job, increase your salary, combat predatory pricing, and bring about universal health care, you are probably a disappointed medical librarian.   

I have gotten the most value out of MLA because of my involvement within MLA.  Did you catch that?  It was my involvement in MLA that began to add value to my MLA membership.  Not the other way around.  All too often in society we see a lot of reaction type of people and fewer and fewer action type people.  You can’t sit around and wait for things to happen and expect results.  Life is not a spectator’s sport, nor is your profession.

I know that is hard to think about in a field that tends to have more than its fair share of introverts among its ranks.  Heck, even the average extrovert can go to an MLA meeting for the first time and feel intimidated.  However the key to getting the most out MLA (the meeting AND the organization) is by getting involved.  I have had the wonderful opportunity to do some cool things like travel to places to be a speaker, sit on various committees, be on two NPC committees, and become a Board Member.  However I didn’t just land those gigs on my good looks.  I got involved.  Baby steps at first.  I started writing book reviews and my blog, then journal articles.  The book reviews let to greater writing confidence and the blog helped feed the topics.  Around the same time I became gradually involved in my local medical library organization, Ohio Health Sciences Library Association (OHSLA).  From there I started volunteer to work on projects or items as they came about.  It was that work that lead to the things I am doing today.  Without it I wouldn’t be where I am now.  Why? Because people wouldn’t know who I was and wouldn’t know what I could do.

You don’t have to start a blog to get involved.  (It would probably be a Pinterest board or Tumblr account now days.)  But you have to find those areas that you are interested in so that you can get involved.  Personally, I think the best way to get involved is to start with your local organization, Chapter, or a MLA Section.  Get to know people.  Volunteer to do some things.  You don’t always have to be going to the annual meeting to become involved.  There are committees that meet mainly via email.  Sections are always looking for section member volunteers to review papers for the annual meeting.  You can even teach a class all online without the need for GoToMeeting or some webinar platform.  The South Central Chapter just finished providing a FREE online class to MLA members https://sites.google.com/site/getmobilizedmla/home and the course instructors were from across the United States.  (I am willing to bet a bag of peanut M&M’s they did everything virtually and didn’t need to travel to MLA or another meeting to create the class.)

The times we live in allow us more opportunities to connect to one another and provide us more opportunities to become involved.  More and more things are done via email and using other online methods.  This should provide the individual with more ways to participate.  Only by getting involved and participating can you get the most out of your membership.  My MLA membership has improved my job, increased my salary and helped me become a better negotiator.  But it wasn’t the paper membership card that did that.  It is my continued involvement within the organization, the people I meet, things I learn, the opportunites and ideas discovered that has done that and continues do that.  Now I wouldn’t be able to do that without the paper membership card, but the paper membership card doesn’t do it on its own. 

I am going to badly twist a former United States President’s words, but it sums up my thoughts perfectly.
My fellow librarians: ask not what MLA can do for you — ask what you can do for MLA.

What I Learned at MLA

The first thing I learned is that being a Section Chair, NPC co-chair, Board member combined with a 3 hour time change makes Michelle a very tired girl at the MLA meeting.  So upon leaving Seattle and returning to Cleveland I decided to take a week break from all things librarian (except for my job) to get some much needed down time.  

Now I am back with renewed energy and want to talk/blog again.  So I thought I would list a few thing of what I learned at MLA.  Some are just small things while, other things are a little bigger and will probably be a future blog post.

  • Get involved! So many people asked me and others I know about the best way to get on committees and being a part of MLA.  Short answer: Get involved. Long answer: See my “how to” blog post later this week.
  • Food is good, but sometimes expensive, think outside the box to lure people to meetings/programs.  I was the chair for MIS, I discovered it would cost close to $450 to provide snacks (cookies and soda) for the MIS Business Meeting.  That is a lot of money and last year the promise of a free breakfast still had us scrambling for enough members for a quorum.  So we got creative and offered an iPad 2 ($400) as an attendance prize. We had people sitting on the floor at meeting.  Think of this when you are trying to lure people (doctors, nurses, med students, librarians, etc.) to a meeting or a class.
  • Google+ Hangouts might be a good free alternative for small group webinars or conference calls.  You can post the documents online and share them with the Google circle.  Big thing to note…you will need a laptop to initiate a Hangout.  So far you can only attend a Hangout on an iPad not be the one who initiates it. 
  • I can almost do everything I need to do on iPad and may not need my laptop at meetings anymore.  I say almost because if I want to do a Google Hangout (which we did for the MIS Business meeting) I need a laptop. I also needed a laptop for displaying the Twitter feed at the Tech Trends program, but that was more for my comfort.
  • Need anything while at the conference? Use Twitter! I had a bad headache and tweeted I needed some Advil and debated about going back to my hotel room to get some.  Within one minute 5 people tweeted they had some for me, including one person in the same room.  I repaid my Twitter karma by giving Alisha764 some Advil when she tweeted she had a headache.

Other observations:

  • More people had iPads or smartphones than I have ever seen in one conference. I think the knitting librarians dropped their needles and yarn and bought iPads. If you doubt me take a look at gabinator’s Instagram photo of the conference room when Mark Funk asked people to lift up their mobile devices. It’s blurry but look at all of those white screens.
  • There is NEVER enough time to see and do everything….that just conference life. That is why the online content is so important now.
  • There is probably a need for “How to do an MLA Meeting” online guide for first time attendees. 
  • You can never have enough power outlets.
  • If you do a Google Hangout to include members not at the conference, don’t schedule your meeting for Saturday or Sunday.

This is just a list of some of the things I learned and observed.  I plan in the next week or two to highlight a few posters and presentations that I found especially helpful or insightful. 

 

 

Friday Good: MLA Relevant Issues Service Project

The Official MLA’12 Blog has a post about the Relevant Issues Section project for the Pioneer Square Clinic.  The section invites MLA 2012 attendees to pack a little extra and bring along new socks and underwear, in all sizes, for both men and women. Extra toiletries from your hotel room may also be donated. A collection box will be set up in the registration area. Pioneer Square Clinic is in the Pioneer Square Neighborhood, serves over 1,000 homeless and low-income patients each month and has been doing so since 1971.

So just before you leave make sure you hit the store so you help others out. Also if you bring your toiletries from the hotel each morning, housekeeping will replace them each day and you can bring more.

Are Publishers Too Old To Design/Create Effective eBooks?

Wolters Kluwer tweeted a link about a middle school class creating the top selling enhanced ebook on iTunes. The book,  “Creatures, Plants and More! A Kid’s Guide to Northwest Florida,” is interactive and contains pictures, videos and text related to the wildlife found in Northwest Florida.  It was published by a seventh grade class at Woodlawn Beach Middle school, based on a student assignment to create multimedia content around the local gulf-coast wildlife.

Now the book is free, so I am sure that helps keep it at the top of the best “seller” list.  One could argue the press surrounding the creation of an ibook by middle schoolers helps drive the “buys” as well.  However, the book was just published April 26, 2012 and according to a May 1st  article (earliest report on the ebook I could find) on the Woodlawn Beach Middle School’s web page, the book was already the top ranking free book. So, while the press coverage might add to the popularity, the book itself started out strong.

Why is this important, especially on a blog about medical librarianship?  

Maybe I got up on a different side of the bed today, but this report got me thinking about the design of ebooks and whether publishers are just too old, to “get it.”  Are the powers that be and structure within publishing  too steeped in the traditional concept of a paper book to really understand the idea of an interactive ebook?  to further explain this let me draw upon my grade school experiences with computers. (Yes I can remember back that far.)

When I was a kid (2nd or 3rd grade) everyone seemed to be rushing to get computers in school and I remember an old room converted to a computer lab stuffed with Apple IIe’s.  Time in the computer lab was supposed to be important, but since the whole grade school had to share 10 computers, we didn’t visit the lab very often.  The only time I remember visiting the computer lab was for math class, specifically plotting graph equations on the computer.  We would spend the whole math hour inputting coordinates into the computer and at the end, if we did it right, we were “treated” to a green line or triangle.  Booooorring.  I got nothing out of that.  I actually dreaded computer lab time.

In grade school we never used the computers for anything other than that section in the math curriculum.  Yet everyone spoke about technology in the classroom, using computers in education, and teachers were asked to teach with computers.  However the problem was the teachers were using old traditional concepts and marrying them to computers.  They really didn’t adapt the lessons or concepts at all.  The tool of the computer was little more than complicated graphing paper.  They were forcing a square peg into a round hole but not realizing they were even doing that. 

Now the computer has been around for long time and we now have the Internet.  Many teachers today grew up with computers (or at least remember sitting in front of those old Apple II’s).  Their minds no longer think of the computer as a technology, it is a part of their life, a tool for other things.  It is integrated better into the curriculum because it is already integrated into their (and their students) lives.  It is now as common as other things in the classroom like reference books, smartboards (no more banging chalk out of erasers), desks, etc. 

The interactive ebook is the Apple IIe, we don’t know how to create or use it effectively.  The vast majority of us have been programmed with the linear thinking of traditional books.  Many of us talk about converting medical texts into ebooks but we (including publishers) think of the book as a linear progression; start, middle, end.  We throw in movies, pictures and sound but those are positioned in a linear way; within chapters.  Often the ebook is the paper book with multimedia and perhaps added chapters.  But it is usually pretty straight forward.  It is the paper juiced up on steroids, but it is still the paper.

So while the middle schooler’s ebook is still more in line with traditional books it was created only as an electronic product therefore it is free of some of the contraints from already printed version.  Perhaps as tablet devices evolve and people grow up with them and begin to think of them as an everyday thing, our ebooks will begin to evolve beyond the print model.  My 5 yr old or my 1 yr old will be thinking of something totally different regarding an ebook when they are adults.  They will be the ones to see how to publish and distribute content that was once in paper.

Kick Some MLA Butt

I just posted on the MLA’12 blog, Bring Your “A” Game to the Unofficial MLA Kickboxing Class about the opportunity to participate in a kickboxing class taught by Gabe Rios. It will be at the downtown YMCA in Seattle on Tuesday, May 22, 2012 at 7:00am. It is a cardio workout and not a full-contact class. You do not have to be familiar with kickboxing or martial arts to take this class.

I have never taken a kickboxing class ever, but I am interested in trying it.  So if you are a Kung Fu Panda like me don’t be intimitated, come on try it out and learn from our Master Shifu of MLA.

Friday Fun: Social MLA

Yes we all attend MLA to learn and connect with colleagues, nobody doubts that. But we also have a lot of fun. A lot of the fun happens at the bar or the after meeting parties. A few years ago (and after a few beers) a few people determined that they were actually kind of an unofficial Special Interest Group within MLA. Their meetings just happened at bars not in hotel meeting rooms at 7:00AM, thus they dubbed themselves members of the unofficial Drinking SIG,

To have fun with the idea and to get into the spirit of the meeting theme, there is now a Drinking SIG jersey for Seattle. It is completely unofficial, unsanctioned and not a real MLA SIG. (Really, if it were do you think a $20 membership fee would cover the SIG’s expenses?) But even though the SIG is unofficial the proceeds of the sales are going directly to the MLA Scholarship Fund.

So if you find that you are often meeting your MLA colleagues over drinks after the meeting you might be a member of the unofficial, unsactioned Drinking SIG and not even know it. So, why not embrace it and help the Scholarship Fund by buying a jersey.

;

Baseball Jersey

This baseball jersey and other items are available at http://www.cafepress.com/drinkingsig
Just like that microbeer you order at the bar, the nerdy chic QR code expresses your social personality in a subtle yet fun way. The QR code sends you to a web page that says, “The unsanctioned #drinkingsig takes on Seattle! Engage, Learn, Enjoy, Cheers.”