Evaluation of a multimedia online tool for teaching bronchial hygiene to physical therapy students

Background: Advances in information technology have been widely used in teaching health care professionals. The use of multimedia resources may be important for clinical learning and we are not aware of previous reports using such technology in respiratory physical therapy education. Objectives: Our approach was to evaluate a conventional bronchial hygiene techniques (BHTs) course with an interactive online environment, including multimedia resources. Methods: Previous developed audiovisual support material comprised: physiology, physiopathology and BHTs, accessible to students through the Internet in conjunction with BHTs classes. Two groups of students were compared and both attended regular classes: the on-line group (n=8) received access to online resources, while the control group (n=8) received conventional written material. Student's performance was evaluated before and after the course. Results: A preliminary test (score 0 to 10) was applied before the beginning of the course, showing that the initial knowledge of both groups was comparable [online, 6.75 (SD=0.88) vs. control, 6.125 (SD=1.35); p>0.05]. Two weeks after the end of the course, a second test showed that the online group performed significantly better than the control group [respectively, 7.75 (SD=1.28) vs. 5.93 (SD=0.72); p>0.05]. Conclusions: The use of a multimedia online resource had a positive impact on student's learning in respiratory therapy field in which instrumental and manual resources are often used and can be explored using this technology.

Ambiente virtual de aprendizagem: estruturação de roteiro para curso online

O presente trabalho visa descrever os passos para desenvolvimento de um curso e sua estrutura em ambiente virtual de aprendizagem Moodle. Para tanto, a pesquisa consistiu na aplicação de conteúdos de enfermagem para oferecimento de curso online em workshop internacional para grupo de estudantes de graduação e licenciatura em enfermagem do Brasil e de Portugal. Durante a pesquisa foram registradas etapas distintas, desde o planejamento do curso passando pela construção e transformação dos conteúdos, até a disponibilização aos estudantes. As atividades interativas e conteúdos foram elaborados pelos professores com participação de equipe técnica. No trabalho são apresentados procedimentos específicos e papéis a serem desempenhados por professores, especialistas, estudantes e técnicos. Os resultados do desenvolvimento e oferecimento do curso online apontaram alguns aspectos a serem aperfeiçoados no processo de trabalho, no formato dos conteúdos e na utilização das ferramentas.

Úlcera venosa e terapia compressiva para enfermeiros: desenvolvimento de curso online

OBJETIVO: Descrever a elaboração de um curso on-line sobre úlcera venosa, com enfoque em terapia compressiva, para capacitação de enfermeiros. MÉTODOS: O desenvolvimento do curso on-line seguiu as fases de análise, design, desenvolvimento, implementação e avaliação, baseadas no design instrucional contextualizado. RESULTADOS: O curso dividiu-se em dez módulos estruturados no ambiente virtual de aprendizagem Moodle. Caracterizou-se por uma proposta construtivista, visando ampliar a participação do aluno, disponibilizar as principais referências, revisões e consensos, bem como utilizar objetos multimídia e recursos didáticos interativos. CONCLUSÃO: O curso possibilita a capacitação profissional do enfermeiro em terapia compressiva de maneira inovadora, flexível, interativa em diversos ambientes de cuidado.

Intelligent tutoring system for distance education

This study aims to develop and implement a tool called intelligent tutoring system in an online course to help a formative evaluation in order to improve student learning. According to Bloom et al. (1971,117) formative evaluation is a systematic evaluation to improve the process of teaching and learning. The intelligent tutoring system may provide a timely and high quality feedback that not only informs the correctness of the solution to the problem, but also informs students about the accuracy of the response relative to their current knowledge about the solution. Constructive and supportive feedback should be given to students to reveal the right and wrong answers immediately after taking the test. Feedback about the right answers is a form to reinforce positive behaviors. Identifying possible errors and relating them to the instructional material may help student to strengthen the content under consideration. The remedial suggestion should be given in each answer with detaileddescription with regards the materials and instructional procedures before taking next step. The main idea is to inform students about what they have learned and what they still have to learn. The open-source LMS called Moodle was extended to accomplish the formative evaluation, high-quality feedback, and the communal knowledge presented here with a short online financial math course that is being offered at a large University in Brazil. The preliminary results shows that the intelligent tutoring system using high quality feedback helped students to improve their knowledge about the solution to the problems based on the errors of their past cohorts. The results and suggestion for future work are presented and discussed.