amcunningham's posterous

using an image from a film in an educational context

My colleagues are putting together a teaching project on the use of film in medical education. They want to make an academic poster about the project, and also to make a flyer advertising an event talking about the project.

They have clarified that they have permission to show the given films in an educational context.

If copyrighted images from the films or their marketing are used in the academic poster, or flyer, and then shared widely online, is this 'fair use' in an educational setting?

Thank you.

How the VA brought about a 'culture of quality'

Muir Gray has proposed that it is the system and culture of the NHS which we must focus on not the structure. He says this in relation to #nhsreform which many people are worried will harm the systems and culture of the NHS. Tonight he suggested that the VA organisation in the US could be a model for improving outcomes by attending to the culture of the organisation. Below I have quoted from a paper which describes how the VA was 'reengineered' between 1995-1999. Looking at the description it seems that quite a lot of structural change was required to bring about the cultural change which lead to improved outcomes. This included developing a primary care system which had been virtually absent before. I do not disagree that culture needs to change to bring about improved outcomes. The question tonight is if the proposed structural changes to the English NHS are likely to help or hinder the development of the kind of culture we want to see in the NHS. 

.........................................................................................................

All quotes taken from Extreme Makeover: Transformation of the Veterans Health Care System

 

"Transformation Vision and Principles

The reengineering sought to create a seamless continuum of consistent and predictable high-quality, patient-centered care that was of superior value"

 

"Transformation Strategies

The proposed reengineering was based on five interrelated and mutually reinforcing strategies: 

 

Change strategy 1: Create an accountable management structure and management control system. 

Establishment of veterans integrated service networks.

Implementation of the new performance management system

Decentralization of operational decision making.

 

Change strategy 2: Integrate and coordinate services. 

Implementation of primary care. (they didn't really have any before)

Eligibility reform. 

Other efforts to increase the coordination and integration of care.

 

Change strategy 3: Improve the quality of care.

Performance management. 

Other quality-improvement activities.

Improving patient safety.

 

Change strategy 4: Align system finances with desired outcomes.

Creation of the veterans equitable resource allocation system

Expansion of the funding base. 

 

Change strategy 5: Modernize information management. 

Implementation of CPRS/VistA. (ehr)

Other information management initiatives."

Do you really want competition in health services?

"An acid test for whether a payer or government wants

competition is, ``Are you ready to for losses and for

having hospitals go bankrupt?'' If not, the government

will never recover the initial and extra transaction costs

of switching to competitive markets. "

 

From Light, D. (2001). Managed competition, governmentality, and institutional response in the United Kingdom.

Social Science & Medicine, 52, 1167-1181.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11281401

Making sense of the information age...sociology vs.cultural studies

I came across this webcast when looking at the sociologist Frank Webster's work on the Information Age (see here). This discussion is around his paper "Making Sense of the Information Age" . I think it is worth listening to if you have a free hour because

  • Frank Webster is an interesting person to listen to
  • the opportunity to see academics debating in public is still too rare
  • the discussion is so wide-ranging that it gets as far as 'what is social thery?' 'what is sociology?' 'what is a discipline?'
  • the debate is at a level that a non-specialist can engage in.

What do you think?

 

Julian Tudor-Hart Lecture tonight in Cardiff. Go!

The lecture is part of the "Science in Health" series. It is at 7.30 pm in the Large Chemistry Lecture Theatre in the main 

University Building, Park Place.  Coffee etc. from 7.00 pm 

in the Viramu Jones entrance.

You can read more about Julian Tudor-Hart's life here. 

In 1971, he wrote in the Lancet about the "Inverse Care Law", where he stated that those who most needed good medical care were least likely to get it. Nearly 40 years later we hope that is not true but there is still much evidence that it is.

 

 

Buzz from Heidi Allen

hello Heidi I'm going to try sending this to my posterous to see what happens- although I can't remember if I have set up my posterous to autopost to twitter!

 Link to this post:
 http://www.google.com/buzz/107775879940176889242/YDoGuRXtXSa/All-my-buzz-comments-are-coming-out-in-batches-on

18 Feb Heidi Allen: All my buzz comments are coming out in batches on twitter. May unlink buzz from twitter completely
18 Feb Ves Dimov, M.D.: You may want to think of a "title" before you start the Buzz update. It will work OK then. See this example:

http://www.google.com/buzz/110859855629071891085/Pv7ehAhJEPm/The-Complete-List-Children-s-Hospitals-Use-of
18 Feb Arin Basu: If you want to post selectively to twitter (ie, let some buzz posts show up in twitter), I recommend you use a service such as http://www.posterous.com . Using posterous, you can selectively email your buzz post to twitter, or another service if you like. Just forward your buzz to twitter at posterous.com (I assume you will create your posterous account from gmail). Hope this helps.
18 Feb Anne Marie Cunningham: that's a really good idea Arun:) I'm glad we have met! Ive tweeted your speed-litrevieinging idea
18 Feb Heidi Allen: Using buzz to with a title helps, but it still means they come out in batches which some people might regard as spam. also conversation on twitter is missed (but then you can converse in buzz so that point's a bit redundant) - except for those people not on buzz

I have a posterous blog so not sure how I would post from buzz to posterous to twitter (!)
18 Feb Arin Basu: For buzz >> posterous >> twitter connection to work (corrected version),

1) you will need to post to posterous from your gmail account (presumably that has buzz on it).
2) You can just use posterous and simultaneously post to both buzz and twitter if your posterous account is also connected to buzz. To link your posterous account to buzz, do:
a) Add the following to the posterous "bio" section:
<a href="http://www.google.com/profile/" rel="me" >Your Name, etc
b) Then add your posterous URL to your google profile and click add
c) Next time when Google spiders your posterous account, hopefully it will add your posterous to your buzz profile and then you are all set
d) check your google buzz profile connected sites and add the posterous site if you want

3) There are a couple of ways to do that:
1) (long way): create a buzz post, then use the comments section to email the buzz post to twitter AT posterous dot com (remember again, your posterous and gmail must be the same)
2) Shorter way (if you have configured your twitter to connect to buzz as well): just send an email to twitter AT posterous dot com; the mail will appear at both buzz and twitter

A point to remember is: using buzz@gmail.com will send only your subject line to buzz.

There are many other ways to channel, pretty much using similar processes. These are quite flexible.
18 Feb Arin Basu: Hi @Anne Marie Cunningham, thank you for tweeting the blog post. :), I think it'd be useful if we could set up creating a mechanism of evidence based review over the cloud entirely.
18 Feb Heidi Allen: Thanks Arin. I'm going to have a go setting up posterous with buzz. here goes nothing.
04:26 Heidi Allen: well, having configured my posterous to buzz, when I went to buzz and tweet about campbell soup's neuromarketing (someone's got to) using twitter@posterous.com it set up a new posterous blog about it.
so that's not going to work!
07:16 Arin Basu: Sorry to learn that it didn't work for you, Heidi. I usually have no problem in posting to twitter through posterous, hence suggested the tweak. Apologies.
08:23 Heidi Allen: no apologies necessary at all ! I love the fact that we're all pitching in with suggestions - and get to meet some new people to boot.
experimenting in public is good so others learn. And more to the point, I appreciate that you were willing to share expertise.
I strongly suspect I'm doing something not quite right somewhere...

Google forms/maps mash-up

I'd like to make a google form where a postcode could be entered, and the distance from a set point would be calculated, probably using google maps distance calculator. (Yes, it is for expenses claims!) Is this possible?

  • I've found a free application for calculating the distance between the first part of two postcodes. It is not so acurate over short distances and I don't know how I would add it into a spreadsheet. But it is still useful.
  •  I've found a geocoding site which I think could do what I want but I'm not sure how.
  • And I've found a google maps mash-up site that just has be confused.

So is this as easy to do as I think it might be? How? Has it been done already?

Thanks in advance!

 

 

Defining “Creepy Treehouse” | Flexknowlogy - Jared Stein on Education and Technology

In the field of educational technology a creepy treehouse is an institutionally controlled technology/tool that emulates or mimics pre-existing technologies or tools that may already be in use by the learners, or by learners’ peer groups. Though such systems may be seen as innovative or problem-solving to the institution, they may repulse some users who see them as infringement on the sanctity of their peer groups, or as having the potential for institutional violations of their privacy, liberty, ownership, or creativity. Some users may simply object to the influence of the institution.
via flexknowlogy.learningfield.org

Twitter conversation:

Stujohnson @ajcann is this of any interest to you re eportfollios - http://tinyurl.com/cw65b7

AJCann @stujohnson Thanks. Depressingly creepy treehouse.

amcunningham @AJCann why do you think it is creepy treehouse? should eportfolios only be the domain of students?

AJCann@amcunningham Lifelong learning? If locking ePortfolios into Blackboard/PebblePad isn't creepy treehouse, I'd like to know what is.

torresk@amcunningham agree with @AJCann ...I'm fine with the idea of VLEs, but they shouldn't include EVERYTHING. e-Portfolios are personal, IMO

To me the original conference, Future-Proofing PDP and e-Portfolio Developments, does not seem to be about embedding eportfolios in VLEs as the agenda includes "Alternative portfolio tools using Web 2.0, EXPO etc."

But I also ubderstand creepy treehouse as being about staff and institutions appropriating technologies that students are using already because they think it is cool, and will be a way to engage students. But the students see it suspiciously.

Now, as far as I am aware students are not spontaneously and subversively putting lots of time and effort into developing eportfolios outside of VLEs. So i can't see how it is creepy treehouse to try and engage them in these activities within VLEs.

I agree that a students work should be able to travel with them. But part of me thinks that at learning how to present oneself can be done within the protected walls of a VLE, rather than in the public world of the www at large.

And if anything it is the act of making them submit these eportfolios to us for assessment which is creepy.

Anyway, very interesting debate with my Leicester colleagues as usual:)