The Webinar Network  Project

Webinars, Lectures and Courses

Table of contents

1 Objectives

2 Background

3 Action plan

Set up of a Special Interest Group

Participants

Tools

4 Activity Guidelines

5 Why plan the webinar or a recorded lecture in this way?

6  What happens if I can't attend the webinar?

7 Quality assurance

8 Webinar clearinghouse

9) How can I get involved?

10 ) Participating Organizations

1 Objectives

1. To set up a Network of  ophthalmic societies, residency programs and eye hospitals and centers  to share online CME and  residency training activities.
2. To set up a clearinghouse for online synchronous learning activities of interest to in-training and practicing ophthalmologists.
3. To help content experts comply with guidelines for quality from continuing medical education accreditation organizations.
4. To help CME providers  and residency programs with logistics for delivering webinars.
5. To help medical teachers  to develop skills to create effective, meaningful and engaging online teaching interventions.

2 Background

Every year, residencies, ophthalmic societies and eye hospitals around the world prepare and deliver lectures and other teaching and learning interventions to their residents. This is repeated year after year as new residents come in.

When looked at from an efficiency point of view we can see that hundreds of the same lectures on the same topics are prepared and delivered by hundreds of teachers to, sometimes, very small groups of learners. More efficiency could be reached if each teacher could reach more learners.

At the same time, when looked at from an effectiveness point of view, in many places some topics are not taught at the highest level (or not taught at all), because not all places have high level specialists in all ophthalmology subspecialties. More efficacy could be attained if learners at places  where a subspecialty is not well developed could attend teaching interventions from places with high level sub-specialists.

Until recently, being more efficient and effective could not be considered because all teaching was delivered face to face on site , and gaining efficiency or effectiveness would imply moving learners  to attend lectures at other locations.

Today things have changed. Technology is providing us with  synchronous, multimedia, interactive, low cost tools that can bring down the geographic barriers that have not allowed us become more effective and efficient.    

These tools not only bring down the geographic barriers but allow to add features related to interactivity and collaborative learning activities that cannot be attained with the traditional classroom tools (blackboards, paper, pencils, PowerPoint presentations and projectors).

Ophthalmology supranational organizations can contribute to efficiency and effectiveness in several ways:

• Encouraging residency programs and CME providers to share their teaching interventions online, synchronously and asynchronously.
• Providing residency programs and CME providers with access to webinar software and other e-learning tools.
• Training residency programs and CME providers in the use of these tools
• Training residency programs and CME providers on new teaching and learning strategies and tactics.
• Setting up clearing houses where residencies and CME providers could announce their teaching offerings and find teaching offerings to attend.  .     

3 Action plan

Set up of a Special Interest Group

All brainstorming and planning for moving ahead with this project will take place on a Special Interest Group area, developed online for this purpose in the ICO´s Center for Ophthalmic Educators to discuss the project with other regions of the world. Probably we will set up “chapters” by country and region.

Participants

Individuals, residency programs and ophthalmology societies are  invited to join the Special Interest Group to help reach the proposed objectives.

Tools

At this time  we  are using “Adobe Connect”  webinar software provided by the International Council of Ophthalmology. Institutions that already have their own software  may  use it as well.

4 Activity Guidelines

Suggested guidelines for webinars and recorded lectures:

These are suggested guidelines for those who want to start from scratch. Other modalities are welcome to be included in the network

1. Choose a topic
2. Define the objectives for the webinar. If needed you can consider using as a guide the objectives defined in the ICO curriculum. http://icocurriculum.blogspot.com/
3. Choose a real or fictitious case with which to start the activity. (This is optional. You can start straight with your lecture.
4. Present the case in an interactive way to attendants following these steps

1. Do not disclose your objectives yet.
2. Give some information on the case (eg: main complaint, first exam data)
3.  Use an open question to attendants regarding a following step in the process of care. (eg: At this time which are your differential diagnosis?; What exams would you order?; What treatment would you suggest?, etc.)
4. Have a multiple choice question prepared that would replace the open question in case nobody answers the open question. (Find here guidelines for developing multiple choice questions:  English  Spanish   
5. Give feedback to the answers.
6. Give some more information on the case and repeat steps b through d.
7. You may add as many of these steps as appropriate to the case.

 5. Once finished the case, present a short interactive lecture that will complete attaining the learning objectives you chose.

1. State the objectives of the presentation
2. As you develop your presentation try using open-ended and multiple choice questions in the same manner as when you presented the case.
3. Include multiple choice questions or short answer questions every 8 to 10 minutes to keep your audience engaged. The short answer questions that can be answered with a phrase or 2 or 3 words or multiple choice questions up to 5 answers. (Find here guidelines for developing multiple choice questions:  English  Spanish   
4. These questions could go immediately before you talk about a topic, as a previous knowledge evaluation or immediately  after a topic where they should apply what they just learned.
5. Give feedback to the questions
6. When you finish your presentation present to attendants the learning goals and objectives for the activity and explicitly review with them if their were obtained.

 6. Have "performance support documents" for your attendants to download and keep. Some examples are:

• A diagnostic or treatment flow chart
• A table with differential diagnosis
• A PDF doc containing your presentation
• A sheet with links to sites where attendants can find more information on the topics you worked on.

7. Do not limit your presentations to medical knowledge. Try to include other concepts related to the rest of the competencies residents must achieve

• Professionalism
• Interpersonal and Communication skills
• System based practice
• Patient care
• Practice-based learning and improvement

8. The complete activity should take no more time than an hour, so plan to present your case and lecture on no more than 40 minutes. The rest of the hour must be kept for delays on starting, questions and answers at the end, or other unexpected delays.

9. If you feel you need more than this time to reach the objectives, split and cover your objectives in 2 or more webinars or lectures..

10. Have your presentation ready to present and test with the webinar coordinator 36 to 48 hs. previous to the webinar delivery.

5 Why plan the webinar or a recorded lecture in this way?

1. The introductory case helps to

• Draw attention
• Put what you want to teach in context
• Explore previous knowledge of attendants
• Explore and exercise critical thinking of attendants
• Address more than medical knowledge

2. Making your lecture on the topic interactive helps to

• Explore previous knowledge of attendants
• Explore and exercise critical thinking of attendants
• Connect new concepts you are presenting to their previous knowledge

3. Making the teaching intervention short helps to:

• Retain attention
• Make scheduling to attend easier for different residency programs
• Makes it easier to prepare and deliver

4. Giving out "work documents" (depending on which) may help to

• Follow your presentation
• Review the main points at a later date
• Have a work aid for application of what has been learned
• Deepen the knowledge of attendants on the delivered topics

5. Preparing and rehearsing with the webinar coordinator will help you make sure everything works and that you are comfortable with the presentation controls. 

6  What happens if I can't attend the webinar?

As we can imagine, activities planned for residents or practicing ophthalmologists must match their schedules. Usually these activities are planned early in their mornings or late in the evening. Having learners spread across all time zones, only those in close time zones will probably be able to coordinate attending the same webinar.

For those interested in attending a webinar that does not match their time table, webinars can be recorded and watched asynchronously. Even though they will not have the same interactivity as when going live, depending on budget, asynchronous interactivity can also be added.

7 Quality assurance

The  ICO, PAAO,  and other international ophthalmic organizations will provide help for complying with multimedia presentation principles and ACCME online teaching interventions recommendations.

8 Webinar clearinghouse

• We created a  clearinghouse for ophthalmology webinars where residency programs and CME providers  can announce their teaching offerings and find teaching offerings to attend.
• All times are local for those delivering the webinars. We added a conversion time zone link

9) How can I get involved?

If you are interested in getting assistance in sharing your teaching interventions through webinars please contact:

10 ) Participating Organizations

(If your organization's name is missing please contact eduardo.mayorga@icoph.org)

Updated: 03/2/2015.

World Organizations:

International Council of Ophthalmology

Regional Organizations

Asia-Pacific Academy of Ophthalmology

Middle East Africa Council of Ophthalmology

Pan-American Association of Ophthalmology

National Organizations

All India Ophthalmological Society

Consejo Argentino de Oftalmología

Conselho Brasileiro de Oftalmologia

Sociedad Argentina de Oftalmología

Sociedade Portuguesa de Oftalmologia

Sociedad Ecuatoriana de Oftalmología

Hospital Eye Departments and Eye Centers

Argentina:

Hospital de Clínicas de Buenos Aires

Hospital Italiano de Buenos Aires

Universidad Austral, Buenos Aires

Colombia

        Clinica Oftalmologica del Caribe

        Clínica Barraquer

India:

LV Prasad Eye Institute

Dr. Eduardo Mayorga

eduardo.mayorga@paao.org 

eduardo.mayorga@icoph.org 

Director for E-learning Pan American Association of Ophthalmology

Director for E-learning International Council of Ophthalmology