AMEE Guide 32: e-Learning in medical education Part 1: Learning, teaching and assessment

Abstract

In just a few years, e-learning has become part of the mainstream in medical education. While e-learning means many things to many people, at its heart it is concerned with the educational uses of technology. For the purposes of this guide, we consider the many ways that the information revolution has affected and remediated the practice of healthcare teaching and learning.

Deploying new technologies usually introduces tensions, and e-learning is no exception. Some wish to use it merely to perform pre–existing activities more efficiently or faster. Others pursue new ways of thinking and working that the use of such technology affords them. Simultaneously, while education, not technology, is the prime goal (and for healthcare, better patient outcomes), we are also aware that we cannot always predict outcomes. Sometimes, we have to take risks, and ‘see what happens.’ Serendipity often adds to the excitement of teaching. It certainly adds to the excitement of learning. The use of technology in support of education is not, therefore, a causal or engineered set of practices; rather, it requires creativity and adaptability in response to the specific and changing contexts in which it is used. Medical Education, as with most fields, is grappling with these tensions; the AMEE Guide to e-Learning in Medical Education hopes to help the reader, whether novice or expert, navigate them.

This Guide is presented both as an introduction to the novice, and as a resource to more experienced practitioners. It covers a wide range of topics, some in broad outline, and others in more detail. Each section is concluded with a brief ‘Take Home Message’ which serves as a short summary of the section. The Guide is divided into two parts. The first part introduces the basic concepts of e-learning, e-teaching, and e-assessment, and then focuses on the day–to–day issues of e-learning, looking both at theoretical concepts and practical implementation issues. The second part examines technical, management, social, design and other broader issues in e-learning, and it ends with a review of emerging forms and directions in e-learning in medical education.

‘It is through education that the daughter of a peasant can become a doctor, that the son of a mineworker can become the head of the mine, that the child of farm workers can become the president of a great nation’ (Nelson Mandela, 1994)

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Rachel Ellaway

Dr RACHEL H. ELLAWAY BSc PhD is the Assistant Dean and Associate Professor for Education Informatics at the Northern Ontario School of Medicine and Visiting Professor of Education Informatics at St Georges Medical School, University of London. She was formerly the e-learning manager for the College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine at the University of Edinburgh. She has been an e-learning developer, practitioner and researcher for more than a decade. She is the co–chair of the MedBiquitous Virtual patient Working Group, the chair of the Association of Faculties of Medicine of Canada Resource Working Group on Medical Informatics and is a board member for Medical Teacher. The work she led in developing and implementing profession–focused VLEs was recognized in the award of a Queen's Anniversary Prizes for Higher and Further Education, the first such award given to work involving learning technologies.

Ken Masters

Mr KEN MASTERS MA HDE, FDE is an independent IT Education specialist, and was formerly Senior Lecturer, IT Education, in the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. He has been involved in IT Education for 15 years. His previous and current work has focused on IT Education strategies and development in Health Sciences. He currently lives in Köstendorf, Austria.