AU in Brazil
Dr. Paul Jerry and Dr. Constance Blomgren attended the “2a Conferencia Internacional de Inovacao em Saude” in Natal, Brazil from October 30 to November 1, 2018.
Dr. Paul Jerry presented an invited paper titled, “The imprecise art of predicting the future of learning in health.” The paper was part of a pre-conference symposium “Learning Analytics and Knowledge Management” that was hosted by Dr. Cristine Gusmao. It was a multi-national panel discussing technology and its impact on health education and delivery, including topics ranging from machine learning and AI to analytics. Dr. Jerry spoke about how to predict trends in technology and health, and gave examples of current issues and looking to the future.
“The conference itself was impressive, with speakers from around the world, and our own Dr. Blomgren presenting workshops on how distance learning and learning objectives work”
– Dr. Paul Jerry
Dr. Blomgren participated in “Coffee with Ideas” along with health professionals and educators from across the globe. The panel discussed changes to higher education and responsiveness to the learning needs of current and future students, especially within Brazilian health education.
In addition, Dr. Blomgren’s Open Educational Resources (OER) curation workshop, held over two days with over 50 participants, proved very successful. With the help of a translator, Dr. Blomgren was able to share strategies and digital tools to support the development of a “culture of OER quality.” Workshop participants used Brazilian health OER content to practice curation and assessment skills.
“I had several curation participants sincerely thank me for what they learned and acquired through the workshop. Several mentioned how they planned to use the workshop with their colleagues – and of course having some of the materials translated into Portuguese helped this process of sharing along.”
– Dr. Constance Blomgren
Both Dr. Jerry and Dr. Blomgren were interviewed by the local Brazilian media and AU is looking forward to possible collaborations in Brazil for the future, tapping into our expertise in distance delivery on health topics. This is particularly evident considering Dr. Neil Fassina’s recent trip to Brazil discussing the future of distributed learning and building an ecology for a digital culture.
