|
In 1999, the Faculty of Medicine began to implement a new medical curriculum.
Although based mainly on traditional teaching, the curriculum incorporated
major new elements such as Problem-based Learning, Special Study Modules
(SSM), and the integration of IT through intranet delivery. The aims of
intranet delivery in the new curriculum were: (a) to use IT to access
information resources, and (b) to use IT as a dynamic learning tool. Implicit
in our approach was an assumption that the use of IT in the curriculum
should be driven by educational needs and not by technological advances.
It was anticipated that students would benefit from an intranet portal
that featured announcements, schedules, course content, self-assessment,
discussion groups and WWW medical resources. With this perspective, MEDNet1
(Medical Education on the Net), an intranet learning environment, was
gradually constructed to support the new curriculum.
A series of workshops conducted by the Computer Centre helped to enhance
staff IT literacy. To promote student awareness of IT, lectures and practical
sessions were introduced into the curriculum. Collaboration with the Integrated
Virtual Learning Environment (IVLE) team helped to strengthen and broaden
the range of applications in MEDNet. Pivotal to the design of MEDNet was
the M1 Road Map in which individual teaching units are linked to their
respective objectives, references and lecture summaries mounted in a Microsoft
SQL Server database in the IVLE. The objectives and summaries were mounted
in standardised templates so that a unified curriculum can be presented
to students over the duration of the course. Other features of MEDNet
include self-assessment, links to medical websites, online journals and
textbooks, an SSM project directory and several image libraries including
the Faculty Digital Image Repository, created by the Medical Informatics
Programme. By a special arrangement between CITA-Medicine and the Clinical
Biomedical Computing Unit, University of Cambridge, MEDNet is host to
a mirror site for Computer-Aided Learning (CAL) Reviews, a peer-reviewed
guide to medical multimedia resources.
Features planned for the coming academic year include several multimedia
applications and improved web database access. In the longer term, divergent
delivery requirements that need to be reconciled are a broad bandwidth
for multimedia in contrast to discrete packaging of information to exploit
the ease and speed of PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants) and WAP (Wireless
Application Protocol) technology.
Eight months after the launch of MEDNet, an opinion survey was conducted
to assess the impact of MEDNet on first-year medical students. The response
rate was 84% (171/204 students). Although objective measurements were
not carried out, the survey nevertheless provided some interesting results.
Almost all of the respondents (91%) found the M1 Road Map in MEDNet useful.
The SSM, IT Resources, and self-assessment websites were equally popular.
While most of the respondents (91%) felt that the use of IT can enhance
learning for medical students, fewer (78%) felt that IT had enhanced their
learning experience. This could be related to the widespread demand for
more detailed lecture summaries (84%) and more links to medical WWW sites
(78%). High on the list of items that students want in MEDNet are announcements,
examination results and more self-assessment. Technically, a common complaint
was the inability to access MEDNet by dial-up through Internet service
providers other than NUSNET. Otherwise, MEDNet scored high on user-friendliness
(82%) with 96% of respondents rating its overall quality as excellent
(5%), good (54%) or fair (36%).
Although the initial response to MEDNet has been encouraging, much will
depend upon staff and student attitudes if we hope to attain a significant
integration of IT-based learning into the curriculum. This is a fundamental
change in educational culture that requires time, resources and a paradigm
shift. Clearly, to develop an IT-based learning culture in students, it
is first necessary for teachers to develop IT skills themselves. Only
then will teachers be able to apply IT as a tool for new approaches to
learning, and not merely as a means of information delivery. From our
early experience with MEDNet, it would appear that IT awareness is attained
relatively easily by students; consequently, their expectations are high.
It is our task as teachers to match these expectations in the new IT era.
The primary role of a Faculty Intranet is to provide rapid network delivery
of learning materials that can be readily revised and updated. As an IT
tool that uses the WWW platform, an Intranet can also be structured and
designed to provide interactive content that is focused towards the needs
of specific users. Whether viewed from the perspective of students or
teaching staff, an intranet environment has the potential to foster the
development of new educational methods, skills, and attitudes.
1. http://www.mednet.nus.edu.sg/
|
