Last week I tweeted a link to a clip to this video: A Video of Students Today, from anthropologist Michael Wesch at a conference on the future of medical education. The speaker was presenting his work on live tweeting in lectures, and some of the delegates expressed their concerns. I’m not ashamed to say that my first reaction was very parental. I wanted to scream at the students to put their devices down and take notice of what was happening around them. Watching the video for a second time, after having reflected on my own practice for TMA02, I realised that this is the world now. Online, offline…the line is fine and permeable. And that’s OK. The students in this video had an awareness of world issues that I don’t think my generation really until 1984, when Michael Beurk reported on the Ethiopian famine. And that was delivered to us, in our living rooms via television. Before that it was books.

There’s a point in the video where you find yourself making a judgement – what the students are saying about their study is either great, innovative, exciting or it’s disgracefully disrespectful of traditional academia. The first minute sets out that there’s a divide between the old and the new, both equally alien in the other’s worlds. But you could say that about anything, you only have to watch an episode of Horrible Histories to see that (my favourite has to be Queen Elizabeth I and the “wrist clock”).

But as the video progresses, Wesch shows us what the world of study looks like through the eyes of typical undergraduate students. You could be pedantic and argue that these were typical undergraduate anthropology students but if Dahlstrom et al (2013) are correct then they are pretty much representative. In fact, the presentation that I referred to at the start of this post into undergraduate medical students confirmed to me that it is very representative.

So when Wesch asks “Can technology save us?” my answer is yes, it always has. Technology is a manifestation of the ingenuity of the human mind, the reason why humans adapt to every challenge the world has thrown our way – mountains, oceans, deserts, space. The internet is overcoming physical barriers, allowing us to communicate with distant friends, families and tutors. It’s making remote working and studying possible, providing the potential to create socio-political change more rapidly than ever before. It’s giving us the opportunity to lots of things, but how we choose to use it is up to us. Perhaps, therefore, a more pertinent response to the question “Can technology save us?” might be “From what?”

Victoria Hewitt

Module Leader

Content and activities that you can access on a tablet or a phone, courses you can do from anywhere… Is it really so flexible…?

Stranded in Kathmandu.

April 2010 and the Iceland ash cloud grounded flights into Europe. I’d squeezed in a short Easter climbing trip in Nepal and now I was stuck in Kathmandu with teaching commitments pending and no quick way of getting home. The one little glimmer of hope was that much of the student support stuff for the Research Methods module and the Dissertation modules was by e-learning, and you are supposed to be able to do that sort of thing from anywhere… aren’t you..?

So a backpackers hotel at $8 a night that had an internet café on the ground floor, and a block booking on the nice-quiet-machine-in-the-corner-please.

– Contacted the University Line Managers – they went “REALLY…???…” and laughed.

– Contacted the PGT course co-ordinators… they went “OMG…!!!.”.. and laughed.

– Contacted the University IT guys saying I’d be accessing stuff (very) remotely… they said “yeah, whatever…”

So how did it work:

The students though it was “cool” (their words). No change in support ‘though a few did comment that its supposed to be the students that bunk-off in a backpacker dive on the hippy trail, not the staff.

IT was fine. As support is mostly text based (mostly email) it was seamless; the resources really do what they are supposed to.

What did it cost..? Eating in the Thamel district and $8 a night for the best room in the place was actually cheaper than being at home. I kept all the receipts for internet access; little paper flimsies, stamped and triple-signed for an average of 200 Nepali rupees a day (about £2) which made a better souvenir than an expenses claim. Only really expensive bit was the jewellery. With the delay I’d missed my wife’s birthday…. and out wedding anniversary …. Q: Have you any idea how much a really BIG Topaz costs…?

Modern distance learning is seriously flexible – its all the other bits of life that  are still in the slow lane.

I’ve been supporting distance-learning students for over ten years as module lead for students completing research projects and writing up their Masters dissertations. The students are people well embedded in a career track in health care; research nurses, pharmacists, trial managers, doctors in their specialty training etc. As you can imagine they are an impressive bunch of people who are robust, adaptable and well used to the rigours of “further training”, yet for many they share a common concern… the pirate ship looming over the horizon that is…. The Masters Dissertation.

So what is it that makes this particular element of a masters degree such a source of anxiety…? Here is a sample of the collected concerns from the last decade, with comments:

I’ve never done any real research…. Are you sure? Most folk have to identify unknowns about their patients or work tasks on a daily basis. They use agreed or standard methods, apply standards to make decisions and have to relate the new facts to a wider experience in order to use the new information. That is the scientific process and for most healthcare workers it is also… the day job…!!!… they just didn’t realise it. The simple way to check that an individual can demonstrate that they understand the whole scientific process is to do the process from beginning to end… that’s why doing a research project figures so strongly in Masters degrees worldwide.

I don’t really understand all the IT stuff.  Me neither… we have geeks who do it for us… they give us how-to sheets that we follow… that you can also use (or ask your kids, or anyone under 19 yrs)…. We also have great IT support who are used to daft questions… even mine…

The regular modules are fine, but the dissertation seems scary. That is because in a knowledge-based module with an exam at the end you can hide-in-the-crowd to a certain extent, whereas a research project is individual and one-to-one with a supervisor or mentor. But one-to-one is a plus, you deal solely with YOUR issues/concerns/thoughts.

The writing scares me. That’s because you did science at school, science at University and you haven’t had to write a document bigger than a thank-you letter for 15 years…. This is common in folk on a science or healthcare career track but its not that you can’t, you just never got the practice… so here’s the opportunity… and its easier as its on a topic you know well…. and you even get help and support in “how-to-write”.

I don’t really understand stats. Q: did you play cards for pennies at University… ?…then yes you DO understand stats.. for the formal stuff we have great little modules in the courses and one-to-one support for “working” your own dataset.

It all seems a bit daunting. Aha..!… the crux issue. We are all good at working the day job, but the reality is that we are rarely the sole arbiter of what the bigger plan is that we contribute to… for a Masters dissertation you are the ring-master… you decide what advice to follow and what to ignore and to ensure that all the components come together, from study design to governance applications, from data accrual to doing the stats…. but it’s a learning curve with support, not a chucked-in-the-deep-end process. The module staff  help and guide you in this bigger process of project management and final assembly, just like the teachers did for the individual component subjects… its just another skill after all.

This capacity of being responsible for the whole plan is the quality that employers/appointment boards are expecting when they see someone has a Masters degree, which is why you see it so widely as a necessary qualification for senior staff, team leaders, senior administrators and those wanting the gateway to higher qualifications.

We all have holes in our skills set; things we didn’t master first time or wish we were better at, and much of the anxiety concerning a masters dissertation seems to centre on our own personal gaps… so a Masters dissertation is an effective way to plug the gaps as part of professional development…. just not what you were expecting when you thought you’d like a gap year. (?).

Dr Pete Middleton.

Module Lead Dissertation Module.

Oncology and Palliative Care Masters programme.

Clinical Research Masters Programme.

Hi, my name is Christine and I am going to tell you a few things about myself and how I found being an e-learning MSc student.

I live and work in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland which makes attending any ‘face to face’ training difficult both in time and cost. Having a small population means we have a small hospice(!) but still have to satisfy the national standards for a specialist palliative care service. These standards state that the lead palliative nurse should be educated to MSc level, hence my decision to undertake the course. A colleague had already started the MSc in Palliative Care with Newcastle and recommended the quality of teaching material and accessibility to me. I have been fortunate to be funded by my employer, along with some tuition fee grants from Help the Hospice. My employer also granted me three paid study leave days for each module.

It took me a few modules to get into the swing of e-learning and time management, or, being honest, to discipline myself to work steadily rather than panic and cram into last few weeks. It’s amazing how interesting the ironing and hoover become when an assignment is due….! I found that when I needed to concentrate and when working on assignments that I achieved more by coming in to the small library that we have at work and treating the time as ‘work’.

E-learning is definitely about getting out what you put in. The tutors are mostly helpful but don’t have a crystal ball or mind reading capacities so we students have to be proactive in contacting them. Discussion boards are interesting and as you progress you often find that others are following the same path as you and you develop a ‘virtual bond’.

It’s hard work juggling full time work, family and study but now I am, hopefully, finished I can say it’s worth it. Mind you two months ago, when in the midst of dissertation angst, I was saying to my colleagues, “Don’t ever let me say I’m going to study something again!” However, much to my surprise, I am already missing the learning so might be looking for something else to study sooner than I envisaged.

I can’t decide whether to attend the graduation. It would be great to meet those I’ve got to know virtually in the flesh but time, distance and expense might outweigh other considerations.

If you are dithering about starting and reading this to help you decide I can say it has been a positive learning experience even the modules I felt were way beyond me, like Genetics. I find that I have retained more than I expected and able to apply the learning in lots of aspects of my work. Try and persuade a colleague to do it with you, it was definitely beneficial to be able to talk coursework through with others.

Christine- MSc Palliative Care Student (soon to be graduate!)

Hi, my name is Jeanie and I’m a clinical pharmacist from Perth, Australia. After finishing my postgraduate studies in pharmacy I realised that oncology was still a big mystery to me. Working in a teaching hospital where many weird and wonderful things happen on a daily basis only exemplified that! I attended an introductory course on oncology and realised that I wanted to know more – a lot more. After a long search of cancer related courses on the internet, I thought Newcastle sounded like a good course – it was online, covered many different aspects of oncology (more than what a pharmacist would learn) and the Programme Team answered my emails very quickly!

Prior to starting the course, I hadn’t studied via e-learning. I was a little worried that I would find it difficult to be self- motivated, but having the discussion board for each subject really helps. I’ve ‘met’ so many people from around the world and also found others studying close by! Seeing how things are done differently in other countries has made me open to new ideas and possibilities. The module leaders are also very encouraging and helpful if you encounter problems along the way.

Studying via e-learning is also very handy for learning on-the-go. I’ve read articles and module notes on my phone or tablet while on public transport and on aeroplanes! It’s really portable and the iPad app for Blackboard is easy to use. The course is also very up to date – you can watch videos and look at very recent news articles. You can also print anything you want if you prefer.

I’ve found it fairly easy to study part-time while working full time – one or two units per semester. The hardest thing I’ve found is that the UK semesters run Spring to Autumn in Australia, so sometimes staying inside during beautiful weather can be difficult! I usually set aside time on the weekend to studying at the dining room table with a cup of tea (or three) to work through the topic with my ‘supervisors’ (my budgie and cockatiel).

I think the MSc Oncology course has been really beneficial so far – I’ve developed confidence and knowledge, which I am passing along to younger pharmacists and I understand the roles of others in the oncology team. Studying has also helped me to obtain a specialty pharmacist position – thanks Newcastle!