HSTA Workshop Features New Projects
Thu Oct 9 2008
Participants at the West Virginia Health Science and Technology Academy's (HSTA) fall professional development session Sept. 19 in Morgantown took part in workshops on two projects being developed by the Center for Educational Technologies®.
Dr. Laurie Ruberg, associate director of the Center for Educational Technologies, presented a workshop using the EdTech Collaborative. This NASA-funded website, which the center is developing, shares best practices in educational technology.
In her session she created an activity called, "Create a Personal Tech Literacy Plan." Participants used free resources on the Internet to assess their learning styles, multiple intelligence abilities, and tech literacy skills. They then developed a personal tech literacy plan to enhance their HSTA mentoring.
The EdTech Collaborative is considered to be in the alpha stage of development. The website, which works like a wiki in that users contribute materials and can comment on or edit postings, was an outgrowth of the biennial benchmarking on educational technology report completed for NASA by the NASA-sponsored Classroom of the Future housed at the center.
Ruberg reported 172 new users signed up for the EdTech Collaborative website as a result of the workshop.
In the other workshop, Dr. Bruce Howard, assistant director of the Center for Educational Technologies, introduced participants to CyberSurgeons™. This simulation, whose development is funded by the National Institutes of Health, provides an authentic way for high school students to apply science knowledge and skills. The mission curriculum is based on national and state science standards related to human body systems and the disease process.
To complete the mission, students become part of the fictional CyberSurgeons remote trauma unit on a mercy ship. The simulated ship is equipped with a high-tech hospital and medical research capabilities, state-of-the-art high-end communications systems, and dedicated satellites to relay information.
The mission is conducted through a videoconference hookup from the classroom to the Challenger Learning Center® at the Center for Educational Technologies. Before the live simulation students learn how to analyze and apply simple datasets to medical situations. On mission day students connect live for 40-75 minutes with the "chief medical officer," played by a professional educator at the Challenger Learning Center.
As the "mercy ship" travels up the Amazon River, students receive alerts from research stations located in ports along the way. The students review patients' medical histories and catalog their symptoms. In real time students diagnose various maladies and recommend treatment. The students use an array of computer tools during the mission, including a realistic view of the body to access a database that links symptoms, possible conditions, test results, and treatment options.
