The final project output from the Virtual Europe project. A presentation for ECEL 2009: 8th European Conference on e-Learning.

At the conclusion of the Virtual Europe project, this paper offers a unique viewpoint on the benefits and limitations surrounding the development and pilot of a European health based simulated community. It discusses how the project has not successfully achieved its targeted objectives and reflects on the barriers which stopped the project from being successfully utilised within European health education curriculums. It contrasts the lessons learned from work on the Wessex Bay virtual community (Scammell et al. 2008) with its international counterpart and offers some suggestions on the practicalities of working on future interprofessional, intercultural e-learning projects.

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Our Supporting Breastfeeding Mothers E-Learning package has been shortlisted in the Johnson & Johnson Award for Excellence in Midwifery Education category of this year’s RCM Midwifery Awards.

The package is a high quality, interactive, web-based ‘reusable learning object’, aimed at final year student midwives. Using video narratives of women’s lived experiences of breastfeeding selected from Healthtalkonline, together with other published evidence, students are provided with an enhanced insight about what kind of support is effective, empowering and valued, and what support is regarded as unhelpful, detrimental and disempowering. They are then encouraged to critically evaluate and challenge current practices that influence the initiation and continuation of breastfeeding, as well as reflect on their own practice and attitudes to breastfeeding.

An edited version of the package should be appearing on the Healthtalkonline site in the next few months in the Teaching and Learning Section. Once this is up and running I’ll post a link to it from here.

RCM Midwifery Awards

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Press Release and News Story from Bournemouth University on my Journal of Nursing and Healthcare of Chronic Illness article “Twitter as a tool for delivering improved quality of life for people with chronic conditions”…..

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Article doi: 10.1111/j.1752-9824.2009.01027.x

An interesting article in the new UK edition of Wired – “The Buddy System: How Medical Data Revealed Secret to Health and Happiness”. The article discusses how social networks might influence health and happiness and has links to Tajfel’s theory of Social Identity (one of four theoretical frameworks that I’m looking at). It relates to a new book Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives which has just been published and looks like a good read (not out in the UK until 2010 though)…..

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Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives

Nursing Times article on my Journal of Nursing and Healthcare of Chronic Illness article “Twitter as a tool for delivering improved quality of life for people with chronic conditions”…..

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Article doi: 10.1111/j.1752-9824.2009.01027.x

Here is the SimpleMind mindmap of my presentation from Handheld Learning 2009 created on iPhone (it’s too big to see in this post so I’ve attached it as a link).

SimpleMind is a great free easy to use application which you can then upload to iPhoto – shame it wasn’t really big enough to hand around at the conference round table so I resorted to a paper version.

HHL09 Presentation Mindmap

I will be presenting a short (but lovely) paper “Mobile Technology as a mechanism for delivering improved Quality of Life” at Handheld Learning 2009 in a roundtable session. Here are the links to web materials from my reference list which might be of use from this (a full list including other references will accompany the final paper at a later date).

Anderson, J. and Rainie, L. (2008). The Future of the Internet III. Retrieved February 16, 2009, from Washington, DC: Pew Internet and American Life Project.

Barr, F. (2009). Nintendo DS to offer diabetes care. Retrieved July 24, 2009, from London: E-Health Europe.

The Centre for Cell Phone Applications in Healthcare. (2009). C-PAHC Vision. Retrieved January 6, 2009, from The Center for Cell Phone Applications in Healthcare.

Fox, S. and Fallows, D. (2003). Internet Health Resources. Retrieved October 30, 2008, from Washington, DC: Pew Internet and American Life Project.

Haddon, L. (2008). Mobile Access to Social Networking Sites: A UK Survey. Retrieved February 17, 2009, from London School of Economics.

HealthMap. (2009). Global Disease Alert Map. Retrieved February 24, 2009, from Harvard-MIT: HealthMap.

Horrigan, J.B. and Rainie, L. (2006). The Internet’s Growing Role in Life’s Major Moments. Retrieved July 7, 2009, from Washington, DC: Pew Internet and American Life Project.

Imperial College London. (2006). New report demonstrates the need for systematic use of mobile technology in healthcare. Retrieved January 12, 2009, from Imperial College London.

Madrigal, A. (2009). Tracking Internet Chatter Helps Spot Swine Flu Outbreak. Retrieved July 9, 2009, from Wired.

Ubisoft. (2008). My Health Coach: Manage Your Weight. Retrieved July 21, 2008, from Ubisoft.

Who Is Sick? (2009). Retrieved February 24, 2009, from USA: Who Is Sick?

World Health Organisation. (2003). Adherence to long term therapies – Evidence for action. Retrieved February 19, 2009, from World Health Organisation: Geneva.