In the context of Continuing Professional Development (CPD), I don’t see a lot of use of mobile technology for the actual delivery of programs. Most courses remain in the tradition lecture format with supplemental hands-on workshops. There has been some attempts to use audience-response apps such as ‘Poll Everywhere’ or ‘Top Hat’ and these apps are quickly replacing our dependence on iClicker devices in the lecture hall.
Many online courses exist but at this point, most of those I encounter are designed to be viewed on a larger monitor. As technologies now exist to design courses simultaneously for screen, tablet or smartphone, I believe that more courses will be available in this format. For busy professionals, on the go, it will be most beneficial for them to access CPD material anywhere.
One way I do see mobile technology used regularly, is the use of Twitter or other forms of texting during courses and conferences. Large conferences will release a Twitter address for the event. For the organizers, it is a great way to release updated information, such as “Lecture 2 has been moved to Room 7”. Many participants will use the Twitter feed to comment on interesting information they are exposed to. Sometimes their colleagues who were not able to attend the conference will check in on Twitter to see how things are going and if there is any information posted that is relevant to their own work.
Sometimes, the most interesting conversations at a conference happen on Twitter while a lecture is going on. Dozens of people listening to the same lecture will Tweet their comments and questions on the material. Instantly, a small learning community develops with rapid-fire exchanges in real time. Although it can be a distraction, it certainly keeps learners engaged in the subject at hand.
This type of exchange gives learners control within the learning environment, engages others in cooperative learning, gives individuals recognition for their contributions and even fosters friendly competition and challenge when people are trying to best each other at coming up with ideas or other sources information. In short, it hits all of Malone and Lepper’s six categories of intrinsic motivation (1987, as cited in Ciampa, 2013).
Resource:
Ciampa, K. (2013). Learning in a mobile age: An investigation of student motivation. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 30(1), 82–96.
Hi Tanya,
Your description of what is sometimes happening with Twitter while a lecture is occurring strikes me as interesting. I have seen similar patterns with participants at workshops and conferences (whether I am a participant or a speaker). I like to pay attention to ideas that seems to resonate with peoples , and while Twitter does not represent a full cross-section of participants in a workshop or conference, I like that it gives me a bit more of an insight into what others perceive as ideas/information/insight they want to share.
As I write this, I am thinking about potential ways that the use of social networking could be harnessed a little more as a way for participants to engage with speakers/lecturers. You have me thinking now about that for some upcoming work! 🙂
Thanks,
Jo
Hi Jo;
I never thought about the benefit that Twitter use in a conference would have been to the presenters. You make an excellent point about it giving the instructors an idea of what others considered to be most valuable about their presentations.
I too want to think about good ways of using social media during live courses. People are on their devices anyway, so we may as well use it to our benefit!
Thanks so much for the insight.
Kind regards,
Tanya
Hi Tanya
Looks like our workplaces have a lot in common! We do not use mobile technology for the delivery of our programs either. I am a big fan of Poll Everywhere – haven’t used Top Hat before but I will definitely have to look into it!
Twitter is a great example of incorporating mobile devices. Are there are concerns about confidentiality? I would love to incorporate more social media in our courses but we are limited by a wide variety of policies (cannot comment on anything related to our clients or privileged documents).
Have you used mobile devices for anything else in your live programs? I’m always looking for new ideas!
Hi Colleen;
Yes, I think we have a lot in common, as we both deal with professional development.
‘Top Hat’ has been adopted for our undergraduate medicine courses. However, the issue is that the students have to pay an annual fee for it. It doesn’t cost instructors anything, and there is a way to offer it for free for learners at a particular educational event, but if you are constantly using it for the same learners, it may get tiresome to constantly set up special events within the software.
In terms of using Twitter, I have never found confidentiality to be an issue. However, we always hide the identity of individuals in our case studies, and more often than not, we make up case studies based on realistic patient encounters instead of using actual cases.
Another way we have used mobile devices is to have the audience text their questions to the moderator’s phone. Then the moderator selects the most interesting questions and asks them of the speakers. Then afterwards, all questions are answered by our experts and distributed to participants via email. It is a very efficient way of seeing what the audience is curious about and it encourages shy people to send us their questions when they likely wouldn’t stand up and ask them in front of a large audience.
If you have any other ideas, I’d be happy to hear them too.
Thanks for your response.
Kind regards,
Tanya
Hi Tanya,
Sorry for the late response! I like the idea of texting the moderator. Is it on their personal device or do you provide them with a work phone of sorts?
We use GoTo Meeting and/or GoTo Webinar which has a live chat option. For larger seminars we have a moderator interacting with the webinar participants (welcoming them, answering questions etc.). Any content specific questions that come up are passed along to the speaker.
We should defiantly connect at some point and pick each other’s brains!
Colleen
Hi Tanya,
I really like your example of the different ways that you could use twitter fo enhance CPD sessions. My only thought is, would you also have a timeline embedded on a website somewhere for those that are not on twitter? My thought is that you likely have a range of participants in the session, so how do you engage those that aren’t on Twitter?
Hi Jason;
I’ve only attended a handful of conferences in the past few years, but I’ve never seen a timeline embedded on a conference website, though, it would be an interesting idea. However, for large conferences, it could become a jumble of different conversations depending on who is commenting of which of the dozen activities going on simultaneously. You have made me curious to go back and check out the websites of the conferences I attended last year and see if they had a timeline or not.
For those people who are not on Twitter, they usually just chat or text with attendees that they know. Otherwise, it is up to the individual presenters to come up with ways to engage their audiences.
Thanks for the food for thought.
Kind regards,
Tanya