Friday, September 25, 2009
Open and free courses
Open and free courses
http://oli.web.cmu.edu/openlearning/forstudents/freecourses
Carnegie Mellon’s Open Learning Initiative (OLI) Meets with Bill Gates
Bill Gates, chairman of Microsoft Corp. and co-chair and trustee of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation came to Carnegie Mellon University on Tuesday, September 22, for the dedication of the Gates and Hillman Centers at the Pittsburgh campus. As part of his campus visit, Gates, accompanied by Foundation Senior Program Officer Josh Jarrett and Microsoft Corporate Vice President Anoop Gupta, met for nearly 90 minutes with the Open Learning Initiative (OLI) team to discuss the past, present, and future of the project as it moves forward under support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. CMU personnel in attendance were Provost Mark Kamlet, Vice Provost and CIO Joel Smith, Director of OLI Candace Thille, Director of the Pittsburgh Science of Learning Center Kenneth Koedinger and OLI Senior Software Engineers John Rinderle and Bill Jerome.
A brief presentation by Thille highlighted OLI’s unique approach of applying learning science research results and methods to open course design and then collecting data to continuously improve the learning experience--a combination that has been drawing increasingly positive attention from a variety of sources. Discussion then centered around the possibilities and challenges inherent in the potential for rapid growth of the initiative, with a particular emphasis on possible ways to overcome technical, organizational, and cultural barriers to scale.
“The opportunity to discuss with Bill Gates what we’ve accomplished and get his advice first-hand is truly a privilege and an honor,” said Thille. Later that day, in his keynote address celebrating the opening of the Gates Center for Computer Science and the Hillman Center for Future Generation Technologies, Gates referred to OLI as “an amazing and critical piece of work. . . . The idea of these virtual labs and intelligent tutoring systems, I think, can really revolutionize education. And we need to revolutionize education.”
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Online - Diabetes in America, 2nd Edition
Diabetes in America, 2nd Edition, is a 733-page compilation and assessment of epidemiologic, public health, and clinical data on diabetes and its complications in the United States. It was published by the National Diabetes Data Group of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD. The book contains 36 chapters organized in five areas:
1) the descriptive epidemiology of diabetes in the United States based on national surveys and community-based studies, including prevalence, incidence, sociodemographic and metabolic characteristics, risk factors for developing diabetes, and mortality.
2) the myriad complications that affect patients with diabetes.
3) characteristics of therapy and medical care for diabetes.
4) economic aspects, including health insurance and health care costs.
5) diabetes in special populations, including African Americans, Hispanics, Asian and Pacific Islanders, Native Americans, and pregnant women.
Diabetes in America, 2nd Edition, has been designed to serve as a reliable scientific resource for assessing the scope and impact of diabetes and its complications, determining health policy and priorities in diabetes, and identifying areas of need in research. The intended audience includes health policy makers at the local and Federal levels who need a sound quantitative base of knowledge to use in decision making; clinicians who need to know the probability that their patients will develop diabetes and the prognosis of the disease for complications and premature mortality; persons with diabetes and their families who need sound information on which to make decisions about their life with diabetes; and the research community which needs to identify areas where important scientific knowledge is lacking.
Diabetes in America, 2nd Edition, is a 733-page compilation and assessment of epidemiologic, public health, and clinical data on diabetes and its complications in the United States. It was published by the National Diabetes Data Group of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD. The book contains 36 chapters organized in five areas:
1) the descriptive epidemiology of diabetes in the United States based on national surveys and community-based studies, including prevalence, incidence, sociodemographic and metabolic characteristics, risk factors for developing diabetes, and mortality.
2) the myriad complications that affect patients with diabetes.
3) characteristics of therapy and medical care for diabetes.
4) economic aspects, including health insurance and health care costs.
5) diabetes in special populations, including African Americans, Hispanics, Asian and Pacific Islanders, Native Americans, and pregnant women.
Diabetes in America, 2nd Edition, has been designed to serve as a reliable scientific resource for assessing the scope and impact of diabetes and its complications, determining health policy and priorities in diabetes, and identifying areas of need in research. The intended audience includes health policy makers at the local and Federal levels who need a sound quantitative base of knowledge to use in decision making; clinicians who need to know the probability that their patients will develop diabetes and the prognosis of the disease for complications and premature mortality; persons with diabetes and their families who need sound information on which to make decisions about their life with diabetes; and the research community which needs to identify areas where important scientific knowledge is lacking.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Education Matters for Health
Robert Wood Johnson Fdn, September 9, 2009
Education can influence health in many ways. This issue brief, prepared by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Commission to Build a Healthier America, examines three major interrelated pathways through which educational attainment is linked with healthhealth knowledge and behaviors; employment and income; and social and psychological factors, including sense of control, social standing and social support. In addition, this brief explores how educational attainment affects health across generations, examining the links between parents’ educationand the social and economic advantages it representsand their children’s health and social advantages, including opportunities for educational attainment.
http://www.rwjf.org/pr/product.jsp?id=48252
Report: S, Braveman P, Sadegh-Nobari T, Grossman-Kahn R and Dekker M. Education Matters for Health. Issue Brief 6: Education and Health. Commission to Build a Healthier America. Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Sep 2009.
http://www.rwjf.org/files/research/commission2009eduhealth.pdf To leave, manage or join list: https://listserv.yorku.ca/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=sdoh&A=1
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