ITGS News

"Microsoft's research arm is leading a new effort to study the use of computer games as tools to help middle-school students learn science and math. The Games for Learning Institute (G4LI) aims to identify which qualities of computer games engage students and help develop relevant, personalized teaching strategies that can be applied to the learning process, its organizers said. The G4LI is a joint research endeavor by Microsoft Research, New York University (NYU), and a consortium of universities. Partners include Columbia University, the City University of New York (CUNY), Dartmouth College, Parsons, Polytechnic Institute of NYU, the Rochester Institute of Technology, and Columbia Teachers College."

"This fall, New York City is rolling out Dimension M - M stands for math - in 109 middle schools across the five boroughs after trying the game out in two dozen schools, including I.S. 30, last year. Like a modern twist on "Jeopardy!," the fast-paced video game quizzes students on prealgebra and algebra topics ranging from prime numbers to fractions and complex equations. A correct answer brings 500 or more points, a wrong one as few as 25; the player with the most points wins. (No prizes, just glory.)"

"Although policy and processes were in place to facilitate the safe use of USB flash media, they were not being followed," Carey wrote. "Unfortunately, it was our bad IT hygiene that resulted in the ban of this all too flexible use of storage media." "

"The recent completion of the first of several planned undersea cables connecting East Africa to broadband Internet has raised hopes that high-speed Web access will increase here. "

Not relevant directly for medicine, but very good overview of growing mobile phone use in East Africa

"beginning of the academic year warning them of social networking issues. Source: Individual schools * Share * Yahoo! Buzz * Add to Mixx * Facebook * Twitter * More o Fark o Digg o Reddit o MySpace o StumbleUpon o Propeller o LinkedIn * Subscribe * myYahoo * iGoogle * More o Netvibes o myAOL * By Kyle Oppenhuizen, USA TODAY More college athletic departments are developing or publicizing online social networking policies for student athletes, experts say. USA TODAY researched social networking policies for 27 schools in six major conferences, including the University of Iowa, which will implement a new monitoring policy Friday. Last fall, pictures emerged on Facebook of two 19-year old Hawkeye football players holding cash and liquor bottles. Five of these schools already have specific monitoring policies in effect - Auburn, Iowa State, Ohio State, Miami and North Carolina. Others warn athletes of the potential dangers of sites such as Facebook and MySpace through student-athlete handbook policies, meetings, coach's discussions and even letters. Some schools don't have a specific policy but allow coaches to monitor at their discretion, or take action if inappropriate material online is reported. Iowa's policy puts senior leaders in charge of monitoring profiles of athletes' on their team and bring problems to administrators, who then work with the athlete, associate athletic director Fred Mims said. Administrators will not get involved, Mims said, unless issues are brought to their attention, in which case they will talk to the athlete about addressing the issue and check out the profile, public or private. Ohio State, on the other hand, requires athletes to have a public profile or add coaches and administrators as friends (which gives access to the private profile). Fred Stutzman, a Ph.D. cand

Benefits of telemedicine: ""What we found was pretty amazing," he said. "Out of 30 patients, only three had to be airlifted. If we didn't have telemedicine, all the 30 would have had to come to Sydney." "

"With speeds of 100Mbps (megabits per second) for both download and uploads, those behind the project hope it will also breed some innovative services. "It will allow home working, telemedicine, video calling and net-based services on TV," explained Chris Smedley, chief executive of Geo, the company appointed to build the network. Such services are often touted as great uses for fibre-to-the-home networks but most are at a very embryonic stage. But there are more mundane wins for consumers, thinks Mr Smedley. Because it has super-fast upload speeds, a fibre-to-the-home network will allow users to store data such as pictures and videos remotely. "

"We're talking about 100 megabits, which is a big step forward for this country. It means you can have interactive teaching over the Internet at home; you can have telemedicine; "

"nce a week at a pre-arranged time, Olive sets up the complicated looking equipment her end. She then phones Victor to make sure he is ready to receive her call and that his computer is switched on. She then calls him up, and they have a face-to-face consultation. While Victor sits on his bed in his semi-detached home in Middlesex, Olive can check his breathing, heart rate and temperature and watch out for any early signs that his body is rejecting his double lung transplant. "This allows us to be there for him," Olive said. "

Can these cases be relevant to our class case study?

"New studies determine that telemedicine is the key to transforming healthcare by making medical care more accessible and convenient to patients while reducing cost. Solutions are needed in response to the following problems that plague patients and practitioners in today's inefficient U.S. healthcare system: * Doctors are hard to see. As many as one-in-three people have trouble seeing their primary care physician, and nearly one-in-four have problems taking time from work to see a doctor. * Patients have trouble contacting physicians by telephone or e-mail. Very few doctors will consult by telephone and less than one-in-four are set up to communicate with patients electronically. * There are too few doctors in rural areas. Compared to metropolitan areas, there are fewer physicians serving rural patients and patients must travel further for office visits. * Patients overuse emergency rooms. Because their primary care physicians are inaccessible by telephone or after hours, many patients turn to hospital emergency rooms. More than one-half of all ER visits are for non-emergency health problems. * Patients have difficulty getting information during office visits. More than one-third of physicians do not have the time to deliver enough information to their patients during office visits, and 60 percent of patients later say they forgot to ask questions during their visits. * Convenience. Telephone medical consults support healthcare consumerism with a proven solution that is easy to access. "

"When doctors eventually saw him they were at a loss to know how to save him. The bandage had been on for 25 days and his leg was hanging off. Everyone was resigned to him dying. Saved But his life was saved by the dedication of an English peer and his wife, their aid charity, telemedicine and a team of the best surgeons in the world. "

"At his wits' end, the doctor in Baghdad dispatched his plea for help - an email detailing a patient with a particularly difficult case of uterine cancer. More than two thousand miles away, in the study of her Kent home, Pat Swinfen swiftly forwarded the request on to a British specialist. The man who received that email, Dr Philip Savage, replied: "Don't give up on this woman. Her life can be saved." And that, with the help of continued advice from the eminent oncologist from Imperial College, is exactly what the Iraqi doctor did. "

"Swinfen, a retired nurse in her early 70s, sat at her computer and tapped out an e-mail, trying to connect doctors in Basra working on the woman, who had suffered a brain hemorrhage, with a renowned neurologist from Northern Ireland trekking in Nepal. She soon had an e-mail response from the neurologist, who told Swinfen to forward details of the case. "

"The charity facilitates a low cost telemedicine service linking doctors at hospitals in the developing world with leading medical and surgical consultants who generously give free advice. Local doctors can send clinical photos, a patient's history and any other relevant material (such as X-rays) to the Trust. A secure web-based messaging system is used, see below. This allows referring practitioners access to a panel of over 400 specialists in a wide range of disciplines. The median length of time between receipt of original message and first reply by a specialist consultant is currently 1.8 days."

phone apps for tracking health data (cached version of WSJ article)

"In the United States, more states are passing laws that require the recycling of goods, especially electronics. But because the United States places fewer restrictions on trash exports and monitors them far less than Europe, that increasing volume is flowing relatively freely overseas, mostly legally, experts say"

"Textecution, for example, is an app for the Android platform that uses GSP technology to disable a phone's text function when the device is traveling more than 10 miles per hour. Jonathan Young, developer of Textecution, told TechNewsWorld he originally thought up the app when his teenage son was getting ready to get his driver's license. "This is a huge problem, and parents are finally becoming aware of it," he said. "Sure, you can preach to your children, but what they do when they are not around you is another "

"An emerging set of tools is making it easier than ever to track and compile all sorts of "data" and display it in a way that's relatively easy to understand. You can now point your mobile phone at a street and instantly get ratings for restaurants. Or type in your address and find reports of crimes that may have occurred in your neighborhood. It's even possible to track emotions on a national and global scale."