Tuned-in to students
Image: Chris Jung
Nearly three years ago, the University of Michigan School of Dentistry launched an interactive learning initiative, in partnership with Apple, Inc. The venture was one of the first of its kind with any professional school in the USA and meant that dental students had access to education-related content virtually anywhere and any time.
Using a special iTunes Music Store interface from Apple, called iTunes U, students can download classroom lectures onto a computer, iPod or MP3 player, and then listen to them in their apartments, walking around on campus, or even while working out.
“Sparked by rapid changes in hardware and software, the explosive growth of the Internet, and faster and novel ways of delivering information, the new technology appeals to students who are as comfortable using laptop computers, iPods and MP3 players, personal digital assistants, and cell phones as their parents were with transistor radios, eight-track tapes, electric typewriters, and rotary telephones,” says Professor Lynn Johnson, Director of Dental Informatics and Information Technology at the UM School of Dentistry.
Since its launch, the dental students have recorded over 1600 unique lectures that have been made available via iTunes U. The School of Dentistry has now expanded the project to include automatic capture of faculty PowerPoint and/or keynote slides simultaneously with their spoken words. In building upon the student capture of lectures, videos of dental procedures performed on artificial and actual patients are being recorded and made available to students. “Now students are reviewing how to do a procedure at home, in the dental school where they practice first on manikins and then in the operatory just prior to performing the procedure on a patient,” Johnson says.
Students at the school have stated that the access to lecture podcasts are directly attributable to their improved learning. Comments include: “It gives you the opportunity to listen actively in class instead of worrying about taking every little note down. Also, if you don’t understand a concept, you can replay it a couple of times.”
Johnson explains that the school will continue to embrace new technology and find new ways of using it to educate students in the future. “With technology, you can never stand still. We don’t intend to be left behind,” she concludes.
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