Salford University Occupational Therapy Education Blog

How Much have we Changed?..........

2012-01-03T17:48:00.002Z

A Happy New Year to all our readers and followers. Here's to 2012 and to a year when occupational therapy continues to develop and progress and occupational therapists continue to link together across the world. There are a number of ways to link and promote what you do as an OT - see Karen Jacobs' Global Day of Service and of course OT4OT who will hopefully begin to plan what we are doing for

NHS campaigns on the “funny side” of incorrect usage of A&E

2011-11-17T10:04:00.001Z

Spreading the Choose Well message 7th November marks the beginning of National Ask Your Pharmacy Week. On that date, NHS North West will be launching a series of humourous viral videos featuring real-world examples of some of the most frivolous reasons why people visit A&E departments.Focussing on patients in the waiting rooms, the viewer is unsure until the end of the films whether they’re

"Who am I anyway? Am I my resume? " (A Chorus Line)

2011-09-29T12:52:00.000+01:00

I was reminded of this line in the title from A Chorus Line whilst reading a really useful article by Kimberley Ramirez (2011) on ePortfolios, and it got me thinking! Sarah and I are about to start a series of Masterclass sessions with a small group of our undergraduate students to facilitate their use of online social media for professional development. Our intention is to help them create and

24 hour Virtual Exchange for World OT Day 2011

2011-09-01T19:47:00.002+01:00

Just a very quick reminder that we will be hosting the 2nd 24hour Virtual Exchange for World OT Day from Salford. There will be much more detail to follow helping you to be involved and engage with any session you want - all for free. You can see these emerging by going to the OT4OT website You might be interested in a blog post we have written about last year by clicking the link here. More

Mixing Leadership and Politics

2011-06-29T16:38:00.003+01:00

Mixing Leadership and Politics.On June 20th three students (Gill, Anna and Jane) and I embarked on something of an adventure! The trip had been planned as part of the leadership development initiatives I have been running over the past couple of years. My intention has been to bring leadership information and leadership development opportunities to the students to make leadership accessible and

Of strange encounters, Media City and a great plan........................

2011-05-25T12:17:00.003+01:00

picture available at: http://www.salford.ac.uk/news/details/816 Last week saw Sarah and I in a virtual meeting with our colleagues in OT4OT discussing our plans for the Second 24hour Virtual Exchange to help celebrate World Occupational Therapy Day in October 2011. We have set a clear strategy for getting our plans and messages out to you about the Exchange - so I'll not spoil it here,

Our Next Webinar...................

2011-04-28T10:08:00.000+01:00

Health Care WebinarAdvanced Occupational Therapy Webinar Date: 9 May 2011 Venue: On the web! Time: 8.00pm – 9.30pm Cost: Free Aimed at:Qualified occupational therapists interested in studying MSc Advanced Occupational Therapy (Online) Focus:This free interactive webinar will give you the opportunity to find out more about the MSc Advanced Occupational

Rehabilitation in Palliative Care Conference experience

2011-04-12T19:31:00.004+01:00

Recently I had the pleasure of being invited by Cathy Payne to speak to Allied Health Professionals about the potential of social media at the 2nd International Rehabilitation in Palliative Care Conference in Belfast, UK. After a largely uneventful trip (thank goodness after my experiences in Chile), I arrived in Belfast City Centre at 7.50 in the morning. The sun was shining but the shops

Spring is here..

2011-03-29T12:05:00.001+01:00

Apologies for not posting anything for over a month!!! Can only put that down to Spring Fever - as the days have got lighter and the weather milder we have all had flurries of activity that have taken up most of our time. Our undergraduate students are completing final modules and are either currently on practice placement or preparing to start in a couple of weeks - we wish them challenges,

"Do not lament the past".

2011-02-18T15:58:00.004Z

On Thursday 10th February The University of Salford School of Health Sport and Rehabilitation Science was delighted to welcome Karen Middleton, Chief Health Professions Officer at The Department of Health to present on Leadership. Karen follows previous the speaker Andy Burnham, then Secretary of State for Health in a Leadership Seminar series organised by Heather Davidson, Lecturer in

The Quest for Truth........chapters 5 and 6

2011-02-17T14:41:00.003Z

Some time ago now I wrote a blog post detailing my initial forays into social networking sites in order to develop an online presence in preparation for teaching in the virtual world. At that time I was decidedly ambivalent about revealing myself as a person in a professional context and I continued the experiment only because almost every piece of literature I was reading

How do YOU engage in activity?

2008-10-13T14:21:00.006+01:00

image: Pennington Flash at sunset Oct 2008Fiona recently posted about a leisure activity she engaged in that made her clearly reflect on the importance of engaging in an activity - but then following through and making links to our occupational philosophy and suggests"So if you have any free time ...I would recommend trying something completely different (it doesn't have to be a classical music

Wikiflash is here!

2008-10-04T17:00:00.003+01:00

OT Wikiflash is the rather curious name given to a time, this year during OT week (commencing November 3rd 2008), when we are trying to get a large number of members of the OT community to contribute to the online public encyclopaedia that is Wikipedia. Wikipedia is a fantastic resource that many are turning to however there are problems with the system largely due to inaccuracies of content.

A Public Display ....

2008-10-02T12:57:00.004+01:00

Week one of the new MSc Advanced Occupational Therapy online programme and things are going well. Our students have engaged in the virtual learning environment including the virtual classroom, skype, wikis and blogs and we even have a virtual cafe where we can all go to chill!!!Whilst this cohort are embarking on this new experience we realise that the cycle never stops and we are busy

From little acorns .................

2008-09-26T22:19:00.009+01:00

image:New cohorts 2008Having spent the last few weeks inducting our new students onto both the new MSc Advanced Occupational Therapy programme and our Part Time and Full Time undergraduate programmes we are now getting ready to deliver the first modules.It is strange how the academic cycle is repeated each year and yet it never fails to be different each time. As new cohorts are admitted and each

OT raps and virtual worlds.....

2008-09-13T12:31:00.003+01:00

We have recently found this video on Youtube called OT rap by OTKelekea. Having played it to most of the team over a lunchtime we were all impressed with the content, professional language used and of course the singing. The lyrics can be found here too (just go to the right hand box once at the link and click on more info).Have a listen and let us know what you think.In addition, as part of the

First Guest Blog Post.....Rights to Privacy

2008-09-09T14:45:00.003+01:00

Our first post from a guest blogger comes from healthskills. She has recently left a post on her blog re issues of rights to privacy and consent to disclose and has requested a wider debate across the world. I have cited a small part of her post (linked here) to catch your thoughts. Some comments on her post already offer how we may approach this in the UK with reference to Caldicott and Data

Calling for Guest Bloggers....

2008-08-29T08:03:00.002+01:00

image: attributed to: tracyhunter under creative commons liscencehttp://farm1.static.flickr.com/49/140042679_b8845e3990.jpg?v=0We recently conducted a survey on the blog as to what readers would like to see more of, the results suggest a selection of reflections, educational issues and mostly more about occupational therapy issues. We have come up with the idea of inviting guest bloggers to post

Is studying occupational therapy useful?

2008-08-25T20:14:00.004+01:00

We have just received a comment on one of our older posts and thought that I'd open it for wider debate rather than try answering on my own.Anonymous said... well ...i have a question....im herre to know that whether studying occupational therapy is useful!!...or can anyone suggest me any other course !!.. 22 August 2008 17:02 So what do you think? How might you respond to this query?

Launch of the MSc

2008-07-28T22:29:00.008+01:00

We had a very successful launch of the new MSc Advanced OT to be delivered entirely on line. After months of planning all went smoothly with Dr Bill Ashraf of Sussex University opening the presentation with an informative overview of the benefits of learning technologies and the future of education utilising such opportunities, followed by Jackie Taylor , Senior Lecturer at the University of

Blogging Confidentiality - a hot topic

2008-07-18T12:34:00.008+01:00

Just a short post - for anyone who blogs or is thinking about blogging I would urge you to take a look at these posts that very clearly raise the importance of ensuring that confidentiality and professionalism are rigorously maintained:Getting our knickers in a twistBlogging about birth - with clear guidelines to students on how to blog about learning experiences without breaching confidentiality

How far can you go in 15 months?

2008-07-17T22:06:00.006+01:00

(double click on the image for a larger version that you can read)Sarah and I were asked to present and discuss our experiences of using wikis to one of the other Faculties within the university who are considering introducing some of the web 2.0 applications into their own pedagogy - which of course we were happy to do. Our reflections and tips were well received by the group.What I think was

Occupational Therapy and Assisted Dying

2008-07-10T16:15:00.006+01:00

image by AHook As an occupational therapist who has worked in a palliative care environment for around 10 years I have always believed that individuals who have capacity should be able to choose when and how they die based on the view that can’t be easy to admit that life is so bad you want to die; but it must be even harder to know that you can’t kill yourself and have to ask for help but

Proving our worth

2008-06-22T21:25:00.007+01:00

image by AHookI do believe that the main driver in health care is financial rather than best practice and decisions are based on the 'available evidence' and that's where our problem as OTs starts.Where is the large body of evidence to show how effective OT practice is? Where are the facts and figures that help to support our argument for the need for OT?(since posting this, we have had a couple

Occupational Therapy Education and Social Networking

2008-06-18T18:23:00.011+01:00

image by AHookIt has been a while since I have posted, so I thought I should get back into the swing of things having just been to our Universities first good practice in e-learning event.It was an interesting day with much food for though, not least stimulated by the guy who asked "Is this all really good practice? How do we know?" And how do we know, because so much of it is new, innovative and

COT Conference 2008

2008-06-12T11:45:00.011+01:00

Image: Will, Sarah and AngelaI've just returned from my day at the COT conference at Harrogate, having left a number of the OT team there for the remainder of the week. Between us we had a number of posters, papers and seminar sessions accepted so we have all been busy both in the preparation and the delivery (especially slap bang in the middle of marking for the conferment board next week!). It

Do we Have time to Learn?

2008-06-04T20:37:00.011+01:00

image: Mary Seacole Building, University of SalfordWhilst catching up on a few of my favourite blogs for new posts, I came across a recent post by Sarah titled "Do we have time to learn" which considers how we often cite lack of time as a barrier to development and learning. Sarah goes on to examine the issues of whether learning should take place in work time or in our own time (interesting to

Day 23 of the Challenge

2008-06-04T20:11:00.007+01:00

image: yesterday in Lilford Park by AHookWhat makes a great comment? This task is to give advice to new commenters on what to do and what kind of things to add to make a useful and great comment. Like Sarah, I too think that Langwitches has already done a great post on this, so I sit back and let you have a look at this.Please feel free to add comments to this or any other post on our blog - let

Wikipedia

2008-05-27T21:09:00.005+01:00

image: salford museum and art gallery www.salford.gov.uk/salfordmuseumatpeelpark.jpgWhilst conducting the task for Day 20 of the challenge (what of Days 16-19? I hear you ask - more of these in later posts!) which was a task called 3 links out (following blog links from other's blogs and stopping at 3 clicks and seeing where you land!) I came across this blog which was talking about the use of

Day 15 of the Challenge

2008-05-22T21:50:00.009+01:00

This blog has had numerous commenters over the last few months - all of which deserve a huge thankyou for making our blog grow and develop. However my award for the best commenter goes to:.....Merrolee - thanks for your interest in our blog and your consistent, helpful and insightful comments. Your support has been invaluable.

Days 13 and 14 of the challenge

2008-05-22T21:27:00.005+01:00

For this I return to a previous post made by a colleague of mine that has been receiving a number of comments recently (which as an aside seems to be an indication of how engaging in this challenge is encouraging more people to visit and comment on our blog - thanks). This post was about the use of web 2.0 in education and the opportunities that it brings. Commentors have considered the post on a

Days 11 & 12 of the Challenge

2008-05-13T22:16:00.006+01:00

Hello againThese were tasks that were quite concrete in nature - I had to write comments policy for the blog and to check that the site was "comment friendly". Throughout the challenge, as I have been visiting more blogs, I have been inspired by other's layouts and/or language and/or widgets that all go to make the visitor feel more at home and welcome. I have tried to bring some of those ideas

Days 8, 9 & 10 of the Challenge

2008-05-13T16:28:00.006+01:00

Image: a spring evening in LancashireThese days were all about comments. Should we allow comments etc and asked us to read a really interesting article about why some people may disable the comment facility. It seems that some people prefer to use a blog very much as a published diary type site, where they open up their thoughts and creativity to be viewed by all - and yet do not want to engage

Day 5,6 & 7 of the Challenge

2008-05-08T08:46:00.006+01:00

image: Salford Floods 1946asiantaeth-amgylchedd.cymru.gov.uk/.../639796/I decided to combine the activities of these days as they seemed to fit together well. Day 5 was to disagree with a blog post and day 6 was to engage a blog commenter in a conversation. Day 7 is then to reflect on what I have learned so far.I found it hard in the beginning to find something I disagreed with, so I went to

Day 4 of the Challenge

2008-05-04T21:20:00.001+01:00

image: University of Salford and Peel ParkToday I had to ask a question on a blog comment. I found it difficult to think of what I wanted to do at first and read a number of blog posts before returning to a post I had previously commented on and had a response from the blog author Sarah who is also taking the challenge. The post was a reflection on Day 2's task and I had written that I was

About this blog

2008-05-04T21:09:00.013+01:00

This blog aims to share and discuss issues surrounding education and development for occupational therapists.Leaving comments on our blogWe have been "blogging" for almost a year now. As you enter the blog the most recent post will be on the page. On the right hand side of the page you will see a section titled "blog archive". In here you will find all our posts. Feel free to click on these - we

Day 3 of the challenge

2008-05-03T14:34:00.004+01:00

image:the imperial war museum - salfordWell, today's task is to sign up to a tracker that will help me keep a handle on where I have left comments and the posts where I may be involved in discussion. The recommended sign up is to coComment - which I found straight forward to install and sign up to. This means that as long as I put comment08 in the "tag" box at the end of where I write my comment

Day 2 of the challenge

2008-05-02T21:11:00.005+01:00

image:healthcare building at frederick road campusOK, those eagle eyed amongst you will realise that this took place on the same day as Day 1 of the challenge - but I only signed up today so had to catch up!The task for "today" was to post a comment on a blog I had not visited before. After searching through numerous blogs, getting frequently sidetracked, occasionally lost and slightly

Day 1-31 Day Challenge

2008-05-02T13:38:00.009+01:00

image: Salford QuaysI have decided to take the 31 Day Challenge to become a better blog citizen given my recent post. This challenge has been designed to encourage people to think about how they comment on blogs and how they create a space for people to comment on their own blogs and

Launch of MSc in Advanced Occupational Therapy

2008-04-07T22:04:00.002+01:00

Hi,This is not a blog as such, but we hope that some of our UK readers will come and join us for drinks and canapes prior to finding out all about our brand new international online programme. You will hear from eminent speakers and have the opportunity to try out some of the online learning materials as well as to chat to the tutors who will be working with you.The event takes place at the

Is there anybody out there?

2008-03-25T09:14:00.005Z

Those of you who are regular readers of our blogs will know that we have been busy developing an MSc Advanced Occupational Therapy to be delivered totally online. In order for this to happen many of us have been engaging in web 2.0 applications to facilitate our programme development but also to engage in learning experiences that we will be asking our students to undertake. To this end I have

Do Clinicians make good researchers?

2008-03-03T21:10:00.002Z

I attended an interesting session today in the University about Qualitative research. Within this we looked at the skills and techniques that can be used by the researcher to help them to gain a better understanderstanding of the phenomenon or an individual's experience of this phenomenon. It struck me that many, if not all, of these skills are skills that a clinician uses routinely with