Ex-Stanford Prof Starts a Totally Free Online School

Not specifically pharmacy-related, but this story has been getting a lot of play on the various tech blogs this week

Sebastian Thrun is leaving his post as a researcher and professor at Stanford to start Udacity, which will teach Computer Science college courses online and completely free of charge. The first two courses are CS 101: Building a Search Engine and CS 373: Programming a Robotic Car.

Lots of sites have picked up this story, but here's a link to the one at Gizmodo which has a video.

Kaiser Permanente Takes Millions Of Medical Records Mobile With New Android App

One of the industry heavy weights is embracing mobile technology for patient records

... Kaiser Permanente patients can get full access to the company’s health record system and all that comes with it, which they already could do through kp.org, from their mobile devices. In 2011, Kaiser more than 68 million lab test results available online to their patients, and through the Android app and mobile web app, patients can now get 24/7 access to lab results, diagnostic information, direct and secure email access to doctors, schedule appointments, and order prescription refills.

An app for iOS is planned in the next few months.   Full story at TechCrunch

Webinar Recording from January 25, 2012

The third TiPEL-SIG webinar of the year was a great success.   For those who missed it, the video is posted here.




Title:  Simulation Based Learning in Pharmacy Education

Presenters:
Amy L. Seybert, B.S., Pharm.D.
Interim Chair and Associate Professor, Pharmacy and Therapeutics,
University of Pittsburgh School of Pharmacy, Pittsburgh
Associate Director for Pharmacy Programs
Peter M. Winter Institute for Simulation Education and Research (WISER Institute)

Erica J. Ottis, Pharm.D., BCPS
Clinical Assistant Professor of Pharmacy Practice
University of Missouri-Kansas City at MU
Clinical Specialist- Inpatient Internal Medicine

 

Apple Unveils New iBooks Author Tool, Not Just For Textbooks

In addition to announcing iBooks 2, Apple is also introducing a free application to create books for the platform.

The process of creating an iBook is surprisingly straightforward. Creators can type their text directly into iBook Author, but Rosner noted that some people prefer doing their writing in a different environment like Microsoft Word. iBook Author plays nice with those Word documents, as it automatically picks out and creates sections and headers from the text itself when the document is dragged into a new iBook chapter. Adding images is just as simple, as users can drag them onto a page while the text reformats itself around whatever you add.

TechCrunch has the story and relevant links.

Postscript:  Gizmodo has a video entitled "How to Make an iPad Textbook in Under Five Minutes".

New iTunes U App Hits iTunes With Over 500,000 Free Lectures, Videos & Books

One of the announcements at today's Apple event was the launch of a dedicated "iTunes U" app for iOS.

The new application will allow teachers create and manage courses with components like lectures, assignments, books, quizzes and syllabuses, and offer them to iOS users via their mobile devices. Participating universities include Cambridge, Duke, Harvard, Oxford, MIT, Yale, Stanford and others. 

Full story is at TechCrunch.

Chegg Launches Mobile Reader For Online Textbooks

This may be overshadowed by whatever Apple is coming up with, but there's a story on TechCrunch about Chegg's textbook reader webapp for mobile devices.

On top of the basic functionality — letting you buy or rent textbooks to read via an internet-connected device — it includes a way to highlight and save text, write notes in the margins, write notes for any page, and view all of these annotations in an aggregated view. So you could read and mark up a chapter, and then go check out what you noted later on when you’re studying for a final.

Video and screenshots are on TechCrunch.

Is Apple going to create a "Garage Band for Textbooks"?

There are several reports that on Thursday, January 19, Apple will be announcing a new platform for creating and distributing digital textbooks.  From Gizmodo

Ahead of Thursday's NYC education event, Ars Technica reports via a leak source that Apple plans to announce a simpler way for authors to create and publish e-books as well as the iBook app's adoption of the ePub3 standard. The WSJ also names publisher McGraw-Hill as a project partner. All these developments suggest Apple's gearing up to bring textbooks to the iPad but we'll have to wait until Thursday to see

There are also stories on TUAW and Slashdot.