Researchers have discovered that there are several variables that can have a statistical effect of patient survival, yet many "...surgeons placed less importance on sex, type of anesthesia, and ASA score [level of anemia]...."
This new information could decrease the high number of deaths, up to 22%, from hip fractures and resulting surgery.
For teachers or others involved with professional development and meta-analysis types of research, this article explains, in detail, the research procedures which would be a great help for many.
Evidence Versus Beliefs About Predictors of
Outcome
by Michael Zlowodzki, MD; Paul Tornetta III, MD; George Haidukewych, MD; Beate P. Hanson, MD, MPH; Brad Petrisor, MD, MSc; Marc F. Swiontkowski, MD; Emil H. Schemitsch, MD; Peter V. Giannoudis, MD; Mohit Bhandari, MD, MSc, FRCSC
Knowledge of predictors of outcome can and should influence
treatment decisions and can subsequently improve outcomes
Hip fractures have devastating consequences for patients
and their families, including a 22% mortality rate within 1 year
postoperatively3 and substantial impairment of independence and
quality of life.4 Hip fractures also account for more hospital days
than any other musculoskeletal injury and represent more than two-thirds of all
hospital days due to fractures.5
Figure:
The responses of American surgeons vs European surgeons regarding predictors of outcome after operative treatment of femoral neck fractures.
Free 2 Run by Ozyman
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License
Developing the Effective Schools Correlate: Positive Communication within the School, Home, and Community depends on how we view positive interactions through our understanding and development of compassion, forgiveness and altruism.
As you, your peers, parents and community members discuss ideas about the core of what makes a positive professional learning network of school, home and community, please consider these questions.
As you answer these questions, analyze your uncensored ideas. You will help yourself learn your strengths and weaknesses as they relate to building positive communication.
1. Are you more or less likely to listen to a differing opinion from:
a teacher?
an administrator?
a parent?
a student?
someone with less education than you?
someone with more education than you?
someone younger than you?
someone your own age?
someone older than you?
2. How do you react when someone in that professional learning network disagrees with you?
3. Should teachers have the locus of control in parent communications?
4. How do you analyze your own biases and stereotypes?
5. If there are disagreements within the complete communication connection, which method would be most effective when resolving conflicts that relate to learning.
6. What questions, about this topic, would you ask?
Orange mood by Pensiero
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License
Please consider these ideas as you qualify your own position in the positive communication connection.
What makes communications positive may flourish in an environment that focuses on the quality of relationships, not the power of individuals.
OR by johnwilliamsphd
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License
What thoughts can you express that evaluate your philosophy of the Effective School Correlate: positive communication in the professional learning network of school, home and community?
Do you agree that Positive Communication between School, Home and Community is a major correlate of effective schools?
Can a school be considered effective without a complete communication connection between school, home and community?
How do you feel when someone in that professional learning network disagrees with you?
These are some preliminary questions that teachers, parents, administration and community members should ask as they work through their positive communications within their professional learning network of school, home and community. What other concepts could be considered?
What is Synchtube? A beta web application that can be used to create a synchronous, virtual group that can view and interact about the same YouTube video.
It's a way for a group of people to synchronize the way they view YouTube videos. Invite a group to watch a YouTube video at the same time. It's an opportunity to discuss, enjoy and elaborate on any video available on YouTube.
Will you try it? What do you think of SynchTube?
I think it could be used for many professional development opportunities, as well as class discussions and projects. The beta project has a bright future. Just use it.
synchtube is the only place to watch YouTube videos with friends in real-time!
Simply paste a YouTube link and create a room. You can share this room with others, and watch videos in real-time... well enough talking, just try it already!
What is the core of teaching? What will make all the ideas, activities, books and lessons fall into place in the service to the education of students?
When I was a young teacher, I yearned to have THE answer. It seemed to me that there was an elusive ingredient to being a great teacher. In my mind it was like the golden ring at the merry-go-round. If I just worked, studied, and learned enough, I could grab the golden ring of education. As often happens with young people, I doubted myself. Even though I had wonderful grades, experiences and references, I was seduced into believing that there was ONE answer...a magic key to teaching.
Why did I search for the magic key? I wanted to be the best teacher in the world. I didn't want to doubt. I wanted to KNOW.
Being young, I thought there was always something else, some magic idea out there, that I didn't know, but there wasn't. Yes, there was plenty that I didn't know, but I hadn't figured out that there was no magic bullet that can replace the effective basics that help people learn well. It took some time for me to stop looking for something that I already owned. It took some time for the competitive energy of the student to be replaced by the collaborative efforts of the teacher.
When I was a new to teaching, I had already experienced the positive impression of learning that is based on the Effective Schools research model, encompassed by the SEVEN CORRELATES OF EFFECTIVENESS. I had learned them at the knee of all the effective teachers, community members and family members who taught me.
I also knew what a good teacher looked like as they worked in the classroom. Others might agree that they have had some great teachers, good teachers and not so good teachers, while some who attended the same classes might disagree with their list. What I didn't know, what I yearned to know seemed an elusive ingredient.
Over the years, as I gathered more knowledge and experience, I learned that what I really wanted was to evaluate the effectiveness of my teaching. I discovered that the Effective Schools Research movement could serve as a core set of organizing principles for my educational philosophy.
What are the Seven Correlates of the Effective Schools Research Movement?
Instructional Leadership
Clearly Stated and Focused Mission
Safe and Positive Environment
High Expectations for ALL Students
Frequent Monitoring of Student Progress
Maximize Learning Opportunities
Positive Communication - School, Home, Community
Are these ideas that people could define or describe? Are these ideas that you want to see in your school? In your teaching? In student's learning? Isn't this a support base for effective student learning? Isn't student learning what it's all about in our world?
Pass The Pigs by Kaptain Kobold
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License
Hagen Lindstädt and Jürgen Müller, authors of Making Game Theory work for Managers, explain the ways in which Game Theory can be used to help business, as well as the ways managers may misuse the theory. This is also a good model for teachers to use when developing a plan to implement standards, teach content, affect student behavior and more.
One problem with using any model, is trying to cherry pick the "best, right" answer to a particular circumstance and not deviating from the plan, even when the scenario changes.
As the authors state so well, the best way to use Game Theory is to develop a "...range of outcomes".
As teachers get closer to the points where the various outcomes diverge, there is usually more data that can be used to revamp the model and hone in on the point of actual reality.
In times of uncertainty, game theory should come to the forefront as a strategic tool, for it offers perspectives on how players might act under various circumstances, as well as other kinds of valuable information for making decisions.
it’s often misused to provide a single, overly precise answer to complex problems.
The key is to use the discipline to develop a range of outcomes based on decisions by reasonable actors and to present the advantages and disadvantages of each option.
Getting Started in Web 2.0 is a great presentation to help develop activities to use when building effective school communities with Web2.0 tools.
You can encourage parent interactions with the school and teachers that will ultimately improve the learning of children. This wonderful school presentation was created using Google Docs. You can use it as a guide for several activities in the learning practices of a school community.
1. Professional Development for teachers and staff.
2. Parent meeting presentation
3. Class lesson
4. School Board meeting
Use this presentation, by Dan Noble, as a springboard for your own parent interaction presentation. That's what the author is hoping.
Mr. Robbo, The P.E. Geek, a colleague in my PLN (professional learning network) recently posted his teaching experiences with Skype. I agree with the basic premise of his post, Why Skype Is the Most Valuable Tool I Use. Yes, Skype is a great tool.
It seems strange, yet people often resist the most obvious and easiest internet path to use, free online tools. In my own case, I came to Skype recently, but it has revolutionized the way I communicate with my Professional Learning Network (PLN). What finally helped me begin to use Skype was encouragement from my peers.
Since my teen, as part of her official, school web applications, uses Skype in her Project Based Learning Activities, we discussed how she and her peers use Skype. Later, I wrote an article, Anticipate and Skype Your Reaction about a few of the many possible educational ways teachers could use Skype in their classrooms.
It seems to me that the increased communication capacities when using audio and video, as well as sharing links and screenshots make Skype one of the best free web applications to improve student access to teachers and their learning.
A new web application, Amplify, simplifies a number of learning strategies that anyone can easily use. Amplify makes ordinary notes expand into a marvelous presentation blog format that can include ideas, commments notes, quotations, and images that form a clog. Anyone who enjoys learning and sharing their ideas online can benefit from using this new web application, Amplify.
Clipmarks has been amplified in this new web application, and we are the beneficiaries. Try it out. I think you will find a variety of ways to use it.
Amplify makes a wonderful educational online tool. Teachers can use the group function to encourage students to take notes and share them in a project. Students can use Amplify to develop their reports, summaries or presentations.
Since your Amplified Clip goes straight into a Clip blog called a clog, you can easily start a group blog where your friends, family and coworkers can add comments if you like. Although you don't have to accept any comments if you are using it for a particular purpose. In a group or by yourself, Amplify gives you an opportunity to develop a special clip blog, so you can keep track of all you are reading.
Amplify DOES NOT require a toolbar to make it function properly. All you need to do is download a tiny icon with a drop down function box. There is a Firefox extension icon(it also works in Flock), as well as a Microsoft Internet Explorer extension icon. It is clean and out of the way. When you want to use it, the Amplify extension icon is available right away.
Several of us are testing a group clog entitled ABC's of PLN Power, and I want to invite you to join us in this beta. Add your comments and suggestions. We can guide the development of this wonderful web application through our participation.
Doing da Vinci, a new interactive website with a companion weekly show, contains historical and scientific information about Leonardo da Vinci, as well as games and surveys. There are also video clips and information and interviews about the expert builders who brought da Vinci's machines to life, from his notes and diagrams.
One of the more interesting web applications on this site is Leonardo da Vinci's Personality Quiz. Several colleagues, including CoffeeDdaisy, Lona, sciproLdySlpr, Linda (Mrs C) and brina 1300 in our PLN, professional learning network, tried it out. We found it enlightening, as well as entertaining. This quiz would definitely capture the interest of students and teachers. It could be used as a lesson starter, sometimes called the anticipatory set.
This website contains timelines, samples of da Vinci's machines and a host of other applications that could be used by teachers of any subject.
The draw to da Vinci, as the ultimate Renaissance Man, remain his great and varied interests. Try out the website, quizzes, model-building and dramatizations. The companion television show will air each Monday throughout the month of April.
Impatience by mdezemery Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License
Integrating technology organically turns the unobtrusive, the familiar into something new and unique.
These are Skype techniques that belong to the Anticipation Reaction learning strategy family.
If students are away from class, but able to virtually participate, they can watch, text and be viewed through Skype.
Total class involvement: ask or display a question, statement or problem in class, then students answer through Skype. Begin the discussion after all have answered.
If a student wants to ask a question, they can ask in private, through Skype, without other students knowing, if they are shy or think it would be embarassing.
After all anticipatory answers are received by the teacher and discussed in class, students can skype their reactions(answers)to the lesson. Changing some answers and leaving others as they were originally skyped will encourage student learning in a non-threatening environment using this user-friendly, ubiquitous online web application.
Opportunity abounds all around us. Let's work this new year to see it, while we decide to take it and use it. Opportunity defines our lives in so many ways. People in all walks of life, throughout history, make life changing choices based on Opportunity.
The discussion of this important idea, it history and implementation in education will be a major focus of my 2009 professional development discussions. My most important Opportunity of 2008 was the creation of my Professional Learning Network, and my Personal Learning Network. These wonderful people have been the embodiment of my greatest Opportunity in many years, and I thank them for their knowledge, collaboration, collegiality, friendship and improved Opportunities.
What does Opportunity mean to you?
For song writer, Pete Murray, Opportunity presents a fine canvas to write a song of powerful feelings.
For General George Washington, America's first president, Opportunity was the result of making himself available to accept it. It is widely known that learning about soldiering was an opportunity that his brother provided through fencing lessons and instructions in arms, his service in the French & Indian War and Viriginia militia. As a standing colonel in the Virginia militia, Continental Congress representative George Washington presented himself at the meeting wearing his military uniform. He took his experiences to continue opportunities to serve, and he was nominated by John Adams to be the commander-in-chief of the Continental Army. He took Opportunity and used it for the benefit of our country.
For author, Malcolm Gladwell, Opportunity is the core of his new book on success, Outliers. You can listen to Charlie Rose interviewing Malcolm Gladwell about his latest book and the ideas that support it.
Welcome to the new year. "Opportunity is what you make of it!"
WORDLE has a function that allows users to submit any del.icio.us user name to make a non-linguistic representation of bookmark tags. You can analyze the use of various tags within your bookmarks and look for areas of great emphasis, synonymous tags or areas of little emphasis. Each of these areas of analysis can drive future teaching and writing related to your professional development plan and the school's curriculum map.
I created my delicious WORDLE that could be used formative assessment, summative assessment or self-assessment by analyzing this snapshot from November 10, 2007 of n2teaching delicious bookmarks
Here is another version of the same set of bookmarks on the same day that contains more words. Controlling the number of total words is an aspect of WORDLE that you can change within the layout function. Hopefully, these ideas will lead you to think of more ways to use WORDLE as an interactive tool, not just a toy.
Have you ever read an article that really hits a chord of dissonance in your brain? You can't forget it. It is like a car wreck, you want to look away, but you can't. Well, today I read just such a post, written by Mr. Robbo, entitled Are You Engaging Your Children?
One of the poignant, yet (in some cases) true statements was the one I wanted to look away from the most,
I also find it funny that teachers will boast about being computer illiterate, thinking that it will absolve them of any responsibility for not including technology in their classes. I bet these same people would not admit being unable to read or write, but as we move into the future being computer illiterate will also become shameful and embarrassing. To put it simply, future schools will not employ those who don't use technology in their classes and even if they do, the students wont listen.
Are you computer illiterate? Do you need to move into the 21st Century? Is this video a metaphor for what technology looks in your class?
Your school, your community and your colleagues must step up to the plate and work with everyone to develop professional development opportunities to encourage the use of the fantastic tools of interactive online living.
Look for help wherever you can find it and make a "see change" in your professional practice.
Please insist that your school provide appropriate professional development, appropriate working technology and help you move into the 21st Century. You will enhance your professional skills, while your students will experience a quantum leap in their real world education in the 21st Century.
Blog Action Day is back for 2008, and you can participate. This would be an excellent project based learning activity for any level of student or classroom bloggers.
It is easy to sign up, and you will get a widget to encourage your friends and readers to participate. The name of your blog, podcast or other online mode will be listed among the various participants.
Plus, a great amount of attention is turned to the worthy cause that is the focus of Blog Action Day each year. This year the Blog Action Day topic is Poverty.
Last year, on October 15, 2007, millions of my Blog Action Day friends and I wrote on the Topic of 2007: the environment. Since much of my biology training and teaching experience is in the area of the environment, I decided to join this worthy cause.
I focused on a living, migratory animal whose very existence depends on a clean environment and a healthy ecosystem, the Monarch Butterfly. Their migratory path from Canada to Mexico each year takes them through our area. My Blog Action Day posting, n2teaching: Momentous Monarch Migration, revealed just how spectacular and environmentally relevant their yearly migration can be.
Participating in Blog Action Day is a most enjoyable LEARNING experience. I recommend it to all my readers.
Image by ccmerino via FlickrMany of my colleagues at Diigo share marvelous bookmarks that relate to various hands-on and outdoor teaching categories, and Tami Brass shared a great resource,Group Recipes. She and I discussed other websites to help teachers in these hands-on subjects enter the Web2.0 world.
She mentioned other teachers interested in golf and another who is a voluteer in a nature center and intereseted in raptors who could be introduced to Web2.0. While I couldn't help out with the golfers, I realized one of my favorite science networks, Journey North would give the raptor afficionado as starting place to see the value of online learning networks.
Can't help with the golfers, but one the oldest and most respected wildlife migration and habitat study groups is Journey North.
They have an entire section of work with a variety of animals, including RAPTORS, whales, Monarch butterflies, and many others. Journey North organizers present cool science projects like the tulip growing, Mystery Classroom, etc for classes to join. A teacher can pick as few or as many of these project as they want to participate in.
While the Journey North project started as a way to study the Monarch butterfly migration in North America, it has gone global. Kids and teachers in classes all over the world participate in many of the activities like Mystery Classroom and Tulip Growing(phenology) experiments.
Image via WikipediaToday, at Pittsburg State University, I presented two technology education workshops. The first techED conference workshop related to sharing the beginning concepts of social bookmarking systems. My goal was to share how teachers use these online systems to teach research skills, including note-taking. The second was a presentation, a basic overview of widgets, tiny self-contained snippets of code that make objects become interactive within a website, wiki or other online portal.
Both workshops were well attended, and overall I was satisfied with the results. Those attending asked excellent questions, and I will write about each set for a few days.
In the del.icio.us session, most participants discussed how this online bookmarking would work for the stated purpose, research and note-taking. The teachers made great observations, some I am still processing. As always happens, there were issues, some of which included different operating systems, different learning rates and different browsers.
The analogy I like to use when thinking of the different operating systems is a car analogy. Using different operating systems is similar to driving different makes of vehicles. This difference in operating systems, to me, is the same as if I was driving my husband's GM pickup or driving my Saturn. There are definitely differences in placement of the lights, windshield wipers, and other important systems, but once you refocus, all cars move on down the road. I know that most people don't see the different operating systems, Mac and Windows in such simplistic terms, YET once you get to the internet, all operating systems work the same.
There is a third option: GNU Linux or Unix and its flavors. These open source operating systems appear to be gaining user numbers for many reasons, yet I don't think we will be seeing the opensource operating systems being used in K-12 education in any great numbers.
The browser issue is another bucket of worms altogether. I try never to tell people which browsers to use, but historically, MS Internet Explorer is the target of attack from various people and groups bent on creating havoc on the ordinary user. That historical note always leaves me wondering why schools insist on using MS Internet Explorer and not Firefox.
While I really had to stay on my toes and could be a bit smoother in my delivery, I achieved my stated goals for each of the sessions. Having an opportunity to earn "Service to the Profession" professional development points makes me a better educator. I enjoyed working in an environment where people asked pointed questions.
Part of this debriefing will address ways to streamline the hands-on workshop. One thing I already know is that forty-five minutes was not long enough for even a basic introduction of del.icio.us. When people are rushed, they become pressured and may have difficulty learning new material. I don't want to do that to people again. I could have effectively used thirty more minutes.
All in all, it was an exciting thought-provoking experience, and I enjoyed all aspects of it. The participants were very gracious with each other and me. I hope they take some ideas home that they can expand on within their own classes.
Widgets are wonderful, helpful, contained, coded, practical, and fun. When I first discovered widgets, I didn't know that these little snippets, these tiny programs in a box could be so powerful.
Amazingly, my first widget was media player widget called Dizzler. I wasn't even thinking of using widgets as educational tools. I wanted to listen to music while I was online, and the widget from Dizzler fit the bill in the beginning. One very cool aspect of widgets like this is the flexibility of the LOOK of the widget. You can pick a SKIN that can make the widget look different. Mine was a butterfly, and I enjoyed using it. Later, I found other media player widgets.
As time went on, I discovered widgets that could keep track of the number of people who visited my site. My first tracking widget was My World Visitor Map.
When I was invited to join an educational social network, I first learned of static widgets. They are often called badges. They are usually widgets that you click on to get to the mentioned website. If you belong to a certain network, like Classroom 2.0, then you can get a badge to put on your website to help others find their way to Classroom 2.0. Most badges are invitations really.
The focus on widgets here is historical. I am using widgets to describe some of the simple ways a person can use widgets for a variety of purposes that WILL change over time. As a person's experience develops, it seems to me that their use of widgets matures.
For myself, I began to look to other educators blogs, websites and profiles where I gathered many ideas about the direction my interest and use of widgets would move. The next widgets I downloaded were interactive widgets, widgets that have content that you can manipulate. Some great examples of that type of widget include Voki, Flickr gadget, and del.icio.us tag cloud. These widgets may be considered excellent teaching tools and remain favorite interactive instructional tools, even now.
To learn more about widgets, read Learnings from the Widget Roundtable, a discussion by Dave McClure (who helps teach the Stanford Facebook class, and runs the Graphing Social Patterns conference), Justin Smith (of Inside Facebook), Rodney Rumford (of FaceReviews), and Jeremy Owyang, of how widgets could be classified.
Well, I made the rounds again today! No, I am not a doctor, a manager or a farmer. I am a teacher.
In the World of Matter, I live in Kansas, the first Land of Oz. At various times, I make a special effort to find teachers who also live in Kansas and use technology of all sorts.
This may just be me, but I find it is easier to find teachers on the other side of Earth, who have similar interests, than those living in my state. What has your experience been?
To find like-minded people, I look in the places where I live in the World of Electrons, for instance: Twitter, del.icio.us, Classroom2.0, TappedIn, and Diigo. Today, I found five people, living in Kansas, who teach and use technology. Some are not in the classroom each day, but they all have their roots in education. They also meet the use of technology criteria.
Why do I do this? I made this search part of my professional development plan. I want to help end teacher isolation in my state... in my lifetime. I hear about teachers in other states and countries meeting new area teachers and forming expansive collaborations in the World of Matter and Electrons. I think that is wonderful. What do you think?
To join with other Kansas teachers, to collaborate and share our past, present and future experiences would be a wonderful personal and professional goal to acheive. Kansas teachers have various opportunities to collaborate through area educational networks, yet they don't use them...even when they join.
How do you find like minded teachers in your state, region, or province in the World of Electrons?
I took advice from another teacher, @Helenotway, to check out Animoto You can use this website to make videos from pictures and images.
Then add music and Voila! you have a video that you can download, embed or put on YouTube. This is so cool.
This is my first trial, and it took about 30 minutes to complete, from start to finish. Oh, what I can do with this awesome web application. Thanks Helen.
clipped from www.orthosupersite.com
