#cck09

[deanjenkins]

#hcsmeu - eats shoots and leaves.

Wish I had assigned more focussed time to it and a better tool than plain old twitter.com but managed to catch up with #hcsmeu 'Tweetup' today. The debate on Health Care Social Media Europe focussed today on the three questions:

Experiences in EU of sites rating physicians and/or hospitals? Which are the constraints?

What are most effective ways to build a healthcare (provider and patient) community? Are there any ressources available?

If DTC advertising to patients in EU is banned, but SM is global, can industry utilise SM to give EU patients info online (in keeping with the EC rules)?

The full list is available as a Google Doc. It was quite hectic and I would have preferred a more standard chat interface as I had to reload the twitter search every now and then. My feeling was that there was a lot of direct unguarded talk (understandable with the 140 character limit) with the intent of defining what the social media business model would be in health. Gritty, informal and refreshing with lots of different perspectives. The medium favours this type of 'messy' discussion and, in a way, to understand what others think is a good introduction for making contacts but perhaps not about understanding the subject. Analysing the themes of the first two questions (using the transcript) to me it looked like the following views were expressed:

Change seems inevitable.

Locality and mobility may be more important than ratings in patient choice especially in rural settings.

There are problems with patient feedback (in a simple 'rate your doctor' setting). How can it be made more objective?

A successful system needs the right design of community and the right mix of patient and professional, leadership and community.

Nobody pointed to very successful doctor / hospital rating sites but it was obvious there were many successful 'community' sites. [In my view mostly disease-specific.]

Would an emergent design be better?

There are difficulties with sustainable business models.

Difficult feedback from patients or communities can create even more problems with clinical governance.

As for Q3 I think the answer is simply yes ... but that may be me being too simplistic. This sort of discussion needs more time and consideration than a quick hour of shooting off Tweets and leaving in time for lunch. However, its focussed nature and the fact that it endures after the event allows for additional networking between the attendees (such as pharmaguy introducing me to an example of an effective community before Web 2.0 as in DIABETES-EHLB) and analysis of comments (such as above). Very interesting. Thanks Andrew Sprong and Silja Chouquet. Links: http://www.healthunlocked.com/ (example entrepreneur-led community site currently in beta testing) Docinsider.de blog PharmaTimes: EU drugmakers agree breakthrough on patient information. 5/Nov/2009 Imaginatik Webinar "Crowdsourcing in Healthcare"

[deanjenkins]

Updating myself on CCK09

Have been busy with other things lately and have not really been following the CCK09 course. It does seem generally a little quieter and that might reflect a "burn out" of some of the early enthusiasm. Managed to catch up with the reading over the last few days and updated my concept map. http://share.xmind.net/dean_jenkins/connectivism/ I am feeling far more satisfied with the rigour of debate that this learning theory has undergone but it is ironic (and intentional) that it is itself distributed and emergent. There are works by Siemens and Downes that link to a lot of related theory but they are stored in many places in different forms: articles, videos, teleconference sessions, photos of whiteboards etc. The debate emerges through CCK08, CCK09 and other related networks and it is certainly impossible for any individual to find it all and know it all.

[deanjenkins]

George's TEKL (was learnometer)

Anne-Marie prompted me to look at George Siemen's latest blog post on Technologically Externalized Knowledge and Learning which makes for fascinating reading. At least I assume that was the one she meant! The big question is when is this concept tool going to be available? Maybe someone has already written the iPhone app already.

[deanjenkins]

The 'we' not the 'I'

Reading this Pharma Strategy blog which resonates with the ideas being discussed on #CCK09. http://www.pharmastrategyblog.com/2009/10/its-all-about-we-not-i.html "That's what sharing and engaging is all about, sharing ideas and information willingly, leading from the front and setting a good example for others. New technologies and social media can be a wonderful tool for finding new people, new blogs, new ideas and plenty of spirited exchange. Fresh inspiration from others can set off a new creative spark and stimulate new content and more sharing, and so on ad infinitum."

[deanjenkins]

Knowledge ... not as I know it.

Reading with interest about knowledge and what it is. Haven't been so deep in philosophy before but find it a very interesting question. Should we be concerned with a theory of knowing rather than theories of knowledge? Ernst von Glaserfield's 2500 year summary of sceptical thought provides a background to what he describes as radical constructivism. Is knowledge about a thing or does it emerge from the interactions we have (without ever being a thing)? Stephen Downes goes deep into the Emergentist Alternative and builds the case for connectivism and "e-learning 2.0".

[deanjenkins]

Social (and learning?) evolution in terms of TIMN

Found David Ronfeldt's blog via Spinuzzi's blog posting on one of his RAND papers.

"According to my review of history and theory, four forms of organization — and evidently only four — lie behind the governance and evolution of all societies across the ages:" Overview of social evolution (past, present, and future) in TIMN terms

TIMN stands for: Tribal, Institutional, Market and Network. This is a compelling way to look at the evolution of society and wonder if it can be applied to medical teaching and learning too. Tribal - apprentice and mentor within a particular practice Institutional - traditional university / college teaching Market - the open market for CME/CPD and courses Network - courses such as the Postgraduate Diploma in Diabetes at Cardiff perhaps, Wenger's communities of practice living in digital habitats, CCK09 of course ... My only anxiety is that evolution suggests a one-way and one correct way for a society to evolve. Working in a network with social equity, justice, information overload and rewarding connections but I'm sure there are times when the other forms of organistion would work better.

[deanjenkins]

Reflections on CCK09 week 2 - networks

Had an interesting week looking at network properties as part of Week 2 of CCK09. Building my own network (nature vs. nuture) Read Imreli Aro's introduction of herself to the course and in particular her 10 rules of becoming a social mediator. Asking questions seems such an obvious way to start networking and I've found it particularly useful during this week. Have built contacts and even met one for lunch who introduced me to a new restaurant on our campus (thanks Anne-Marie)! There are a number of health professionals on CCK09 and hope to connect with them some more. I wonder what the balance should be between actively seeking to make a network and allowing a network to develop by serendipity. Which is the more effective in terms of time and effort, efficacy of learning, complexity of knowledge etc.? It must be a balance but remembering the qualities of others in your network is something I find quite a challenge especially when the initial contacts are very brief. In 'the real world' it would take several meetings to build up a rapport and this connectivism network building feels a little like ruthless speed-dating at times. I think time and discovered shared interests will be the best means for me. Have initiated a lot of networking outside the CCK09 course as well and will build on my role as 'broker' between different networks and communities. Found the facebook tool to map my own personal network of friends very interesting. It allowed me to visualise hubs (my sister) and brokers (a friend who introduced us to a charity we are now involved with) in my own personal network. An interesting point has appeared when looking at the discussions of two people in my network both doctors talking about patients who read medical information on the internet and form fantastic disease-specific communities such as 'survive the journey' for Cushing's disease. You would think that doctors would be useful people in those online communities but they are not. The strength of the connections between the members of the community is much stronger than that of any doctor with the community. Network complexity / analysis I had read about scale-free networks previously but this week has allowed me to bring several of my own nerdy interests together. Fractals, Mandelbrot's (mis)behaviour of markets that suggests the complexity of market forces could be explained by its 'scale-free' nature, how the brain works, small-group teaching techniques, and specialist communities. This has been connection making at a conceptual level and has allowed me to look at learning with a different perspective. most interesting. Whether this is 'connectivism' or just being inspired by reading other people's opinions and challenges is the big question ... for my CCK09 thoughts. Added a lot about network properties and Downe's design principles to my concept map of connectivism. Reading Barabasi's Scale-Free Networks: A Decade and Beyond raised a question about how common scale-free networks are. Scale-free networks are a feature of many but not all networks in nature. In particular we do not know if the central nervous system does behave like this as we have no map of its connexions (the connectome) or any way of generating an accurate model. I wrote about it in response to a thread called 'the connection' started by Ken Anderson where I said,

"The key part of this which I am not clear on is how can we be certain that network properties that exist in one system can be extrapolated to another. Not all networks are best explained by a power law for example. How can our understanding of complex networks (WWW, society, models of scale-free networks on a computer or in a maths expression) help us explain the characteristics of networks which we don't understand very well - like the CNS for example. Likewise, in the other direction, how can our insight into human cognitive processes be extrapolated to explain the dynamics of personal learning networks. Hmm. Best leave it there with a big question mark and hope someone else pitches in to dig me out of my hole. ?"

[deanjenkins]

Concept map of connectivism

I started creating a concept map on connectivism for my learning on CCK09 a few days ago and have been updating it since. Added some more links about scale-free networks today and started a 'strengths and weaknesses' of connectivism section. http://share.xmind.net/dean_jenkins/connectivism/ I remember Tony Buzan on television as a kid and used 'mind maps' quite extensively through school and university. I was quite frustrated with their use in medicine since - from my perspective - the concepts in medicine were quite easy to understand but the reams of lists and facts were not. Mind maps were not of much use. I was even more surprised at the success of a book in medicine that included the authors' mind maps to help students revise. It seemed a rather odd way of communicating knowledge since one person's mind map may be different to another's ... and isn't most of the learning in creating the map itself? So it is quite interesting to return to mind mapping using software rather than pencil and paper. XMind allows me to easily share the map with others and display it for them without the need of additional software. It also works on my laptop (Windows) and my PC (ubuntu). I'm going to try and keep it simple and not add specific XMind features so that it is compatible with FreeMind. In a year's time my choice of mind mapping tool might be very different. I'd like to explore collaborative concept mapping and wondered if anyone on CCK09 reading this would care to comment on any particular part of the map. Does my concept map network resonate with my learning network? Do we share the same misunderstandings? Will the true insights (if any) be spread? Is there a concept map wiki version I wonder? That would be an anarchic tool.