The successful transformation of care services depends on a flexible and skilled workforce with enthusiasm for learning new skills. With the support of the Department of Health, SCIE have just launched Social Care TV – a broadband channel featuring films and links to resources on the big issues in adults’ and children’s care services.

From personalisation and dementia care, to children’s safeguarding and young care leavers, it has been designed as a learning and development tool. You can view, download or e-mail films, and check out the key resources related to the subject. It launches with 25 films and two new films will be released every month….

Wii Fit Plus is the latest instalment in the Wii Fit series, and brings all new features to make your workout more productive, personal and even more fun.

Wii fit Plus will now allow you to check and monitor four key areas of your physique, BMI (body mass index), centre of gravity, and calories burnt during your workout, allowing you to set your goals

There are five training categories (including the brand new Training Plus), which help you to develop body balance, burn fat, tone and condition muscle, as well as increasing stamina. On Wii Fit Plus you can customise your own training routines, or ask your Wii Fit trainer to do it for you based on the area of your body you’d like to work on.

SenseCam is a wearable digital camera that is designed to take photographs passively, without user intervention, while it is being worn. Unlike a regular digital camera or a cameraphone, SenseCam does not have a viewfinder or a display that can be used to frame photos. Instead, it is fitted with a wide-angle (fish-eye) lens that maximizes its field-of-view. This ensures that nearly everything in the wearer’s view is captured by the camera, which is important because a regular wearable camera would likely produce many uninteresting images.

SenseCam Website

New study proves that Microsoft’s sensory innovation aids memory recall

A reason to forgive Microsoft for the appallingly crass and unfunny windows 7 adverts currently interrupting my televisual viewing………

Source : Kip Jones

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”…..

View Press Release

View News Story

Visit Journal

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)…..

View Short Version of Article

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”…..

View Nursing Times Article

Visit Journal

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

A nice YouTube video from CommonCraft.com explaining Social Media in Plain English with some lovely animation….

Social Media in Plain English

Source : Andy Black

My article on “Twitter as a tool for delivering improved quality of life for people with chronic conditions” has now been published in the latest edition of the Journal of Nursing and Healthcare of Chronic Illness (Volume 1 Issue 3: September 2009).

The journal is an international peer-reviewed journal for nurses and health care professionals who care for people with chronic illness and research in this area.

Visit Journal

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

Gartner are suggesting that virtual worlds are about to plunge into a “trough of disillusionment”, lecture podcasts are fast becoming obsolete, but cloud computing will soon be on the “slope of enlightenment” writes Zoe Corbyn in the Times Higher Education.

Difficult to find out how they’ve come to this conclusion without reading the actual report which I don’t have access to.

Times Higher Education Article

Hype Cycle for Education 2009 (you need access to Gartner)

Source : Kip Jones