Not Just for Students: Clever Ways that Teachers Can Use Instagram in the Online Classroom

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Student on computer using Instagram in the Online Classroom

Student using Instagram in the online classroom.

In the previous article, we looked at the benefits of Instagram from the standpoint of students. This article looks at how teachers can use Instagram as a powerful teaching tool in the online classroom. The power of Instagram creates meaningful online interactions between students and teachers, keeping both parties engaged and informed.

For instructors, Instagram makes it easier than ever to post reminders and notable factoids discussed during regular class time hours. Teachers can simply upload pictures of relevant material (such as textbook chapters, learning resources, etc.) to share with their students. Teachers can also post motivational memes and other encouraging photos that will help build solid relationships with students by promoting lighthearted exchanges of everyday information. Additionally, instructors may post review reminders to encourage students to stay on-track with their homework and/or with remembering notable items that might be present on a quiz or test.

In return, students can also provide valuable content for their instructors as part of this positive exchange. For example, students might post subject-specific pictures from their own lives that illustrate concepts explored in class. Additionally, students might provide a sort of “photo essay” for instructors, which is a practical, lighthearted way for instructors to gauge student progress on an infrequent basis. A teacher can post a relevant picture, and the class can post their thoughtful reactions to this picture using certain teacher-specific guidelines.

Of course, when it concerns Instagram and the online classroom (or any classroom for that matter), it is crucial for both teachers and students to remain professional in all of their interactions. It is equally important for instructors to check with higher education administration to fully understand any guidelines regarding acceptable social media activity.

Want to learn more about how teachers can use Instagram in the online classroom? Contact us today.

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3 Ways to Study for Online Classes

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With online courses, students have the flexibility of taking their class whenever they want, wherever they want. But with so much flexibility, how do students stay on top of everything?

Student taking an online course. From the Avidity Medical Design Blog.Because online classes don’t consist of a physical classroom and in-person teacher, studying for them may require even more discipline and organization than a regular class would. Students, rather than the teacher, will have to be the ones reminding themselves of when an assignment is due or when a midterm will be.

To help you stay on top of your online classes, here are three study tips that will keep you productive.

1. Create a study schedule for yourself

Because online classes are more flexible, creating a study schedule will help students stay on track. One way to do this is to look at your syllabus and put any due dates onto your calendar. After that, schedule days to study for that exam. What’s more, blocking out time for studying can help you schedule time for work  and family as well.

2. Log into your class daily

One way to stay on top of your online classes is to make sure you’re always updated on it. One way to do this is to log into your online class on a daily basis and see if there are any new messages from the teacher or if any assignments have been rescheduled. Knowing that you’re always checking in will make your online class less overwhelming.

3. Communicate with your teacher on a regular basis, especially if you are struggling

It can be intimidating to ask a teacher for help sometimes, but getting direct help from them is always better than getting stressed out from not knowing what to do. This being said, it’s always a good idea to check in regularly with a teacher to see if you’re on the right track.

how to learn in the healthcare classroom - online course offered by Avidity Medical Design Academy

For more information on the healthcare, follow the Avidity Medical Design Blog. To learn more about our online courses, visit Avidity Medical Design Academy. Enroll in the course entitled, “How to Learn in the Healthcare Classroom (and ANY Classroom) (in 10 EASY Steps!)” offered by Avidity Medical Design Academy. To purchase scented candles and soaps inspired by healthcare, visit Avidity Medical SCENTations.

How to Minimize Distractions During Your Study Time When Taking Courses Online

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Taking online courses sounds like a great idea at first glance. There’s no need to go to a physical location, you can study and complete your work when it’s convenient for you, and the courses are by and large less expensive than traditional courses are. The problem many students realize is that study time becomes even more important when there’s no class time.

That’s why it’s important to minimize all possible distractions so you can get the most out of your study time.how to minimize distractions during your study time

How to Minimize Distractions During Your Study Time

In order to avoid distractions you need to have answers to all of the basic questions before you sit down to work. Who, What, When, Where, How (we know why you’re studying, so you get that answer for free).

– Who: Are you studying alone, or with someone else? Some students work best in solitude, while others work well with someone to keep them on task.

– What: What are you studying? Pick a given thing to study in a session and study that. Maybe it’s a review of chapters 1-3, or just a discussion of the last lesson, but you need to know what you’re studying in order to stay focused.

– When: Different times of day come with different distractions. Late night studying is ideal for some students because it means there’s quiet and roommates or children are asleep. Early mornings might be better, particularly if there are fewer demands on your attention. Once you’ve selected a time make sure you stick to it as best as possible, and inform people who might need to get hold of you that you’re not to be interrupted during this time if it isn’t an emergency.

– Where: Your location is a prime consideration when it comes to distractions. Studying in a familiar place like your bedroom might sound like a good idea but are you surrounded by too many distractions? Your TV with recorded episodes of your favorite show, friends and family stopping by to chat, and worst of all your bed constantly tempting you with a nap. Often it’s a good idea to pick a location where you have nothing else to focus on, such as the library. If leaving home isn’t an option then picking a spot like the basement or the kitchen where there are fewer distractions is a smart idea.

– How: Different people learn in different ways, and it’s important to know how you learn best before you start studying. If you’re the kind of student who can just crack open a book and read that’s great, but if that approach is going to bore you then you’re going to fade quickly and your attention is going to wander. Do you need a video that shows you examples of what you’re studying to focus? Do you need silence or loud music to concentrate? Do you need to take breaks every 20 minutes or so, or are you the sort of student who if you lose your momentum will never get it back? You need to know what works best for you before you get set up.

Tips For Distraction Minimization

If you have answers to the above questions then you have the broad strokes of what you need to do to avoid distractions while you study. There are some specific things that can help if you find your attention wandering though.

– Turn Off Your Communicators: Studying is hard enough without people trying to get hold of you. As such you should close any chat or social media programs you have going that aren’t necessary, and you should turn off notifications on your phone. Leave text or the ringer on, but ignore the rest until you’re done.

– Shut Your Doors: An open door is an invitation to poke one’s head in and see what’s going on. Whether the doors are real (like your bedroom door) or metaphorical (your computer’s connection to the Internet) keep them closed until you’re done.

– Study in Small Doses: It’s a lot easier to study for half an hour or forty minutes a night for a week than it is to study for two hours a night for two days before a test. Your attention is less likely to wander if you just need to take a bite than if you try to eat the whole horse at once.

If you need more tips for making the most of your study time then contact us today!

how to learn in the healthcare classroom - online course offered by Avidity Medical Design Academy

For more information on the healthcare, follow the Avidity Medical Design Blog. To learn more about our online courses, visit Avidity Medical Design Academy. Enroll in the course entitled, “How to Learn in the Healthcare Classroom (and ANY Classroom) (in 10 EASY Steps!)” offered by Avidity Medical Design Academy. To purchase scented candles and soaps inspired by healthcare, visit Avidity Medical SCENTations.

woman speaking with doctor in doctor's office

Why Medical Terminology Is So Important To Learn

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Medical terminology is important if you work in the healthcare field. It is the basis for all that you will do. It is used to describe symptoms, diagnoses, tests that need to be ordered and ran, and special medical equipment. The terminology is spoken and written in charts so you must learn to say, spell, and read medical terms.

medical terminology

Medical terminology is important for many reasons:

  • It allows all healthcare workers to communicate in one language.
  • You will use it every day when you work in the healthcare field.
  • If you have to get your medical dictionary out every time you get asked to do something, you will be wasting valuable time. Nurses, doctors, and other health care professionals do not have time to waste, especially in an emergency situation.
  • One small mistake can make a big difference. You could give the wrong medication or just give the right medication the wrong way. It can be the difference between ordering the right test or the wrong one! You need to understand medical terms.
  • Common abbreviations are used in patient records. This helps doctors and nurses write quickly and efficiently in the records so that they can be onto the next patient. It also allows you to read and understand the records quickly.

If you want to do a great job in the health care field, you need to learn medical terminology and understand it! You do not want to have to reach for a medical dictionary every time you are told to do something. If you are unsure, it is better to check your dictionary than get something wrong. However, with a basic understanding of medical terminology, you will be able to communicate quickly and efficiently with other healthcare professionals.

how to learn basic medical terminology online course offered by Avidity Medical Design Academy

If you are interested in learning more about medical terminology, enroll in the course entitled, “How to Learn Basic Medical Terminology (in 5 EASY Steps!) (and USE IT in EVERYDAY Living!)” offered by Avidity Medical Design Academy.

Watch sample lectures from the Medical Terminology course below:

Lecture 6 from “How to Learn Basic Medical Terminology (in 5 EASY Steps!) (and USE IT in EVERYDAY Living!)”
Lecture 7 from “How to Learn Basic Medical Terminology (in 5 EASY Steps!) (and USE IT in EVERYDAY Living!)”
Lecture 8 from “How to Learn Basic Medical Terminology (in 5 EASY Steps!) (and USE IT in EVERYDAY Living!)”

Click Here to Take the Full Medical Terminology Course for Only $29.99!

Contact us whether you need a full course or a refresher course on medical terminology!

What is the Impact of ObamaCare on Physician Reimbursement?

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Healthcare in the United States is still being developed around private insurers and public providers. ObamaCare was signed into law to make affordable healthcare services accessible to patients all over the country. ObamaCare required insurance companies, hospitals, clinics, and private practices to make many changes to accommodate patients without prejudice. Some of these changes have affected how physicians and private practices are reimbursed by insurance companies covering a patient under ObamaCare. This article discusses the impact of ObamaCare on physician reimbursement.

impact of obamacare on physician reimbursement

ObamaCare

ObamaCare, or the Affordable Care Act, has made health insurance a requirement for all Americans. ObamaCare was signed into law on March 23, 2010. Under the terms of ObamaCare, insurance providers cannot deny coverage to patients with pre-existing conditions. ObamaCare also regulates the prices of healthcare plans in accordance with a market of free commerce, so that all patients are eligible for affordable healthcare coverage. Although the free market principle has resulted in low cost insurance, it has also resulted in lower coverage.

Physician Reimbursement

Many physicians and private practices have noticed a decrease in reimbursement from ObamaCare plans. As these plans are provided by private insurers, many doctors felt that their businesses would still receive the same kind of operating revenue as they had been.

According to an article from the New American, one doctor has noticed a substantial decrease in reimbursement.

‘I cannot accept a plan [in which] potentially commercial-type reimbursement rates were now going to be reimbursed at Medicare rates,’ Dr. [Doug] Gerard told NPR. ‘You have to maintain a certain mix in private practice between the low reimbursers and the high reimbursers to be able to keep the lights on.’

Dr. Gerard is describing how his practice is his business, and that his operating expenses are becoming prohibitive due to reduced payments from ObamaCare health plans.

ObamaCare has resulted in:

  • Reduced reimbursement rates from private insurers of $100 down to $80.
  • Reduced health care availability to consumers because physicians are changing their businesses to a cash only model.
  • Reduced quality of care for consumers as insurers adjust their health plans to match the costs of ObamaCare plans.

Many primary care physicians have felt that ObamaCare is stifling their business, so they are choosing early retirement. The problem is compounded by fewer medical students pursuing careers as a physician.

ObamaCare was provided as a means for Americans to receive healthcare at affordable rates. This required insurance companies to adjust their plans in order to accept lower rates. Many physicians have found that ObamaCare plans reimburse their practices at levels similar to Medicare and lower than private insurance. This has resulted in several unintended side effects within the American healthcare system, that manifest themselves as a reduction in healthcare quality.

Avidity Medical Design provides services for healthcare course development. Please contact us with any questions.

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Why e-Learning Is So Important In The Healthcare Field

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student learning onlineEveryone is really busy these days, especially people who work in the healthcare field. However, as a professional, you may need to take classes for many reasons. You might want to advance in your career or simply keep up with continuing education so your knowledge stays up to date. Finding time to fit it all in can be extremely difficult. Because of this healthcare e-learning is becoming more popular and necessary for the following reasons.

one man and three women wearing blue scrubs standing in a line with arms crossed and smiling

Healthcare e-learning allows extremely busy individuals to fit classes into their busy schedule, whether they work late every night or not. You won’t have to miss any work or lose some of your family weekend time. One of the best parts of online learning is that you can fit the classes in wherever you have a computer and the internet. You can even do it while you are on call. For more information on learning online, visit Avidity Medical Design Academy.

What’s On The Horizon: 3 Important Trends In E-Learning

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The Internet has ushered in an era of prosperity that is unmatched in modern human history. There has never been a time when the common man has been endowed with so much power to change the world through hard work and imagination.

The Internet has fundamentally changed the way we do things. This is especially true in the field of education. The traditional brick and mortar classrooms are slowing becoming extinct as digital structures take its place.

This transformation is still in its embryonic stage but is rapidly becoming the norm. More and more people are ready for changes in the way they learn and acquire knowledge.

There are lasting trends that are emerging as fundamental truths in the e-learning arena for the foreseeable future.

e-learning developments on the horizon

Online Learning Is Becoming More Social

We all learned as grade school students that humans are social creatures that thrive on social interaction.

We want to learn from each other’s experiences and gain perspective through other people’s points of view. This is the essence of learning in its most basic form. The fact that this natural function of human behavior has migrated to the digital world isn’t surprising.

What is surprising is that educators are finally catching on to this fact. E-learning courses that allow students to discover knowledge and insights and share it with their contemporaries have more successful students.

Fostering enhanced collaboration between educator and student is a trend that will continue to evolve.

Learning Isn’t Linear and Never Has Been

Conventional wisdom tells us the A+B=C and is so just because this is the way that it has always been taught. Rote learning techniques for thousands of years has been used as an efficient tool to educate millions of people around the world with great success.

While this is a testament to the enduring spirit of man to streamline the transmission of knowledge, the truth is learning has never been linear. Throughout human history knowledge has been gained and re-discovered in a non-linear fashion. This pattern holds true today in our hyper-connected world.

E-learners today spend time jumping from website to website looking for keywords, scanning articles and not even finishing a paragraph. In fact the average attention span of the average Internet user in 2014 was around 8 seconds!

E-learning courses that are data rich and easy digestible are becoming the norm in today e-learning environments. Incorporating content that is short and interesting is imperative to keeping students actively engaged in the course material.

Visuals Are On The Rise

Infographics, charts, photos and videos are quickly replacing text-based instructions. Visual presentation of information is easy to understand and is more appealing to students. Science lends credence to our predisposition towards visual information. Here are a few interesting facts about visual learning:

  • 90% of information transmitted to the brain is visual
  • Visuals are processed 60,000X faster in the brain than text
  • Our eyes can register 36,000 visual messages per hour

Click here for more information on visual learning.

The Internet, learning and how we mesh the two together will continue to shift as student learning styles and preferences change. The one constant is that the people will never stop wanting to learn.

If you have any questions about these trends or need help with incorporating some of these trends into your courses, contact Avidity Medical Design Consultants, LLC today. We look forward to hearing from you.

Keeping Learners Engaged is the Secret to Successful e-Learning

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When it comes to e-Learning, the key to success is student engagement. It doesn’t matter how comprehensive a course is. If students aren’t paying attention, they won’t learn and retain the information.

attention to e-learningThe science of “attention” is a hot topic in neuroscience and psychology. Attention refers to the brain’s ability to filter input and focus on what’s most important. Even with strong students, attention is never a steady state. According to a Harvard study, 46.9 percent of the time people are thinking about something other than what they’re doing.

The implications of this for e-Learning are enormous. Knowing that students’ minds wander much of the time, it’s essential to design courses that are highly engaging and reinforce material over and over again. Research indicates that certain factors increase engagement substantially. Here are just a few of the elements that trigger attention:

  • Personalized, relevant content
  • Simple, concise presentation
  • Emotionally evocative information
  • Use of high contrast in graphics
  • Element of surprise, so the presentation doesn’t become predictable

This is exactly the approach Avidity Medical Design takes in designing our healthcare courses. We combine subject matter expertise with a deep understanding of instructional design, so that every course excels in both content and presentation.

Avidity Medical Design ensures that students will be motivated to do the coursework and have a high level of understanding and retention. We design curriculum for all areas of healthcare, including health information management, billing, coding, transcription, electronic medical records, healthcare statistics, healthcare administration, and dentistry.

To find out how Avidity Medical Design can help you engage your students with e-Learning, please contact us.

How to Increase Enrollment for e-Learning

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e-learningDuring the e-Learning enrollment time of year, which happens to be starting around now, you’re probably wondering what the best plan is for making students want to enroll. How do you give them what they want? How to you get what you want? Here are some helpful tips that can effectively increase your enrollments.

Draw attention to your school by recommending it to all the students you know. Encourage them to tell others about your school too. Show what you offer, and explain how great of a deal it is, all without seeming too proud or forceful.

Many students are looking for the school that’s going to benefit them immensely, but aren’t entirely sure where exactly to look. Help out by giving yours as a suggestion. Try putting a link on your social media sites, personal as well as staff supported. Encourage anyone who likes what they see to share the link with all their friends and followers.

When you have students start flowing in, try leaving an option on the enrollment page for the student to post to Facebook or Twitter that the just enrolled in the school. This also will help get them going with showing off your school to their friends.

Try using social media to your advantage and the students advantage. For instance, try offering contests on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Whoever reposts, retweets, or shares your new class list is automatically entered into a drawing to win two free movie tickets. Something as simple as that can help you to gain students. It gives them the option of seeing how in tune your school is with their daily desires.

Another great way to use social media is to award a random prize of $100 when your school reaches so many Facebook likes or shares.

All of this is important, but remember to never give up on cultivating your school. It doesn’t have to ever be perfect, but it would be nice to get close.

For more valuable information, please feel free to contact us. Thank you!!