Technology first entered the classroom many years ago. Nowadays, almost every lecture hall and small group classroom is fully equipped with computer and projector. Blackboards have been replaced with interactive whiteboards which opened new ways to use multimedia and the internet as part of teaching.
At the moment, one very well known classroom technology is the use of wireless voting systems. These Audience Response Systems (ARS) are rapidly being introduced in the daily practice of higher education. Software is available and seemingly easy to use. In practice however, many presenters do not use the technique properly and do not make optimal use of the Audience Response system. As a result, the didactical advantages of the technique are often not utilized. This lecture will focus in on didactical issues of using ARS in teaching. Principles of ARS will be discussed and good practices in medical education will be shown.
A second technique that will be discussed is the use of MP3 devices to individually instruct students with an audio tour. The audio can be enriched with pictures, short movies or animations if the devices allow that to be played. This technology is used for example for guiding students through a medial museum without the need of a teacher being present.
Peter de Jong is an E-Learning staff adviser at the Leiden University Medical Center in The Netherlands. In this position, he has been managing several major programs within Medical School, including the introduction of a digital learning environment, the use of laptop computers by all students, and recently the implementation of an audience response system for lectures and symposia. He has initiated several studies in the field of mobile learning and is involved in an online testing project for Medical School and a streaming rich-media project for Leiden University.