Andy Wright
Distance learning developer & MOOC development lead
School of Dentistry, University of Birmingham
In September, myself and my colleague James Kelly were privileged enough to attend the U21 Health Sciences annual meeting , hosted by Fudan University in Shanghai, China.
Having led on the development of the University of Birmingham’s medically-related MOOCs since our first course was launched last December, I was invited to run a workshop discussing the practical and strategic considerations of MOOC delivery, and also to give a short talk the following day on the broader educational and social implications of online learning in general.
Here is a video summary of the workshop:
And here is a ‘guerilla’ video of the talk (skilfully captured from the audience on James’ iPad!):
(For anyone interested, you can access more related resources on my ‘TEL eVision’ ecourse page.)
Although all this kept us pretty busy in the four days we were there, we did get a chance to explore the city for a few hours. A real highlight for me was the bar on the 96th floor of the Shanghai World Financial Centre, where we spent a very enjoyable couple of hours one evening, gazing down at the stunning light-show that is downtown Shanghai at night, and watching the huge, shadowy barges that drift incessantly along the Huangpu river, in stark and thought-provoking contrast to the hi-tech, ‘Bladerunner-esque’ metropolis around them.
Back to business though! The meeting itself was great, with many interesting presentations and perspectives on contemporary medical education. It gave us a unique opportunity to meet people with similar interests from across the U21 network, which will hopefully lead to productive international collaborations, and the establishment of various platforms for sharing ideas in the future.
Many thanks to Fudan University for being excellent hosts, and thanks also to the U21 Health Sciences group for inviting us along in the first place.
Andy Wright
BrumDentists 