Hi Everyone, 

Today’s post is a reflection on the evolution of my education dilemma. My initial idea has remained the same, however, components have been added on to strengthen its creation. The feedback from peers have been greatly appreciated and have provided me with valuable suggestions that I plan to incorporate into my project. For one, it was suggested to look into Continuing Medical Education (CME) accreditation, to help with adherence to the webinar. This is a great suggestion that I am looking into and I believe will facilitate participation. This raises a very important consideration of participation in educational technologies. Not only does the design of the actual project matter, but how it will facilitate participation as well and how to tailor the design to this. This was a theme that I saw throughout the development of my project, and the feedback provided to others. For instance, I have considered length of the webinar. Oncologists are very busy, thus I know time will be a barrier. In my design, I am trying to balance including all the important content with minimizing the time to avoid having time as a barrier. Altogether, when designing education technologies, it is important to consider the target audience and their unique needs to facilitate participation.

Moreover, through the development of this education dilemma my awareness of technologies and their uses in teaching/education have changed drastically. Thinking through the best way to address my Moreover, through the development of this education dilemma my awareness of technologies and their uses in teaching/education have changed drastically. Thinking through the best way to address my educational dilemma has allowed me to develop a tool belt of knowledge of the types of technologies available. I have thought through the advantages and disadvantages of each, which has allowed me to be more confident in assessing which technology is most appropriate for a given educational dilemma. I started out wanting to do webinars and still believe this is the best option to address my educational dilemma, however I think it can be complimented with other tools. Webinars have been well perceived by participants and healthcare providers in cancer education, with ratings of satisfaction and interest in participation of future webinars (Chiswell et al., 2018; Cueva & Thomas, 2017). Previous webinar delivery has done live webinars, that resulted in low live participation (Chiswell et al., 2018). I think having the webinars recorded rather than live will facilitate greater participation from oncologists. However, in doing this a live Q and A is lost. To compensate for this, I am thinking to supplement the webinar with a discussion forum such as slack. This will not only facilitate a Q and A but allow for deeper discussion amongst oncologists. For instance, they can discuss their experiences in practice and offer each other best practices; a separate channel for this topic can be created. Overall, my initial idea has not changed drastically but the consideration of additional tools to supplement it has been incorporated. 

 All in all, working on this educational dilemma has allowed me to gain greater appreciation for educational technologies, which will inform my future practice as a student, teaching assistant and researcher. In research, I will incorporate technology in my projects as best fits; this is very valuable as technology can facilitate interventions reaching more people. As a student, I can use the technology to facilitate my own learning and find online/educational technology resources to supplement my course materials. Finally, as a teaching assistant, I will incorporate technology with my students. For instance, I am an anatomy lab demonstrator and often have students emailing me questions. In the future, I will create a slack channel for my lab section and have them post their questions there. I will encourage them to answer each other’s questions, as this will help their own learning. I can also use this forum to post questions/case studies for their review, as well as share resources to aid their studying. This is valuable as time is limited in lab. Having a medium such as slack will facilitate more discussion for the students and time to ask questions while they are studying at home/over break. 

Chiswell, M., Smissen, A., Ugalde, A., Lawson, D., Whiffen, R., Brockington, S., & Boltong, A. (2018). Using webinars for the education of health professionals and people affected by cancer: processes and evaluation. Journal of Cancer Education, 33(3), 583-591.

Cueva, M., & Thomas, M. K. (2017). Reflecting on the importance of webinars in cancer education. Journal of Cancer Education, 32(2), 417-418.