"Interactive Multimedia courseware and the Dental curriculum of the year 2000"

Arto Demirjian D.D.S., M.Sc.D., Professor of Anatomy
Faculty of Dentistry, Université de Montréal Montréal, Canada

Benoit David B.D.I., Multimedia Designer

ABSTRACT

In the first part of the presentation, the benefits of using the new technologies in teaching dentistry are discussed. The emphasis will be put on training students and teachers in order to prepare them for this new approach. The advantages of the incorporation of multimedia documents in clinical training will be shown. In the second part of the presentation, several multimedia- multiplatform documents in teaching basic sciences will be shown and their mode of development will be discussed at length. Different authoring systems will be compared as to their advantages and disadvantages.


PAPER

The technological revolution of the last ten years in the field of computers makes one think about the role that professors and students will play as of the year 2000. As a result of substantial developments in technology one must also look at the dental curriculum to be used in the future, comparing different formats for presenting courses and lectures versus the conventional format which exists today. Should one think of replacing conventional laboratories with electronic presentations? From now on, should one think of numerically stockpiling documents (slides, texts, x-rays, etc.)? Should we already be thinking of computerizing our university clinics? Let us not forget about dentists in private practice (many of whom already have micro-computers for managing their offices). Should we prepare ourselves to use this equipment for continuing education and use the computer courses which are presently available in this regard?

We firmly believe that the continuing education process of the future must keep in line with this technological revolution and that we ought to be prepared beforehand.

The personal computer, in reality, allows one to create and use documents with a multitude of diverse media -multimedia- such as pictures, illustrations, photographs, animation, video, texts, sound, voice, music, etc. These are grouped together and controlled by an interactive structure that gives the user the ability to use and consult this information on a need to know basis.

It is with this purpose in mind that we at the Faculty of Dentistry at the University of Montreal decided to prepare interactive-multimedia courseware for Dentistry students. We also decided to go digital in 1986 and produced the first CD-ROM in dentistry in 1990.

Today, the majority of new courses at all educational levels are being pressed on CD-ROMs. CD-ROMs have several advantages over analog video. They produce sharper (digital) images like x-rays (this is what we call the digital revolution), they are cheaper to produce and to update.

Many corporations are turning to new interactive media. In the past year the number of CD-ROM titles for training and education increased by 160 percent, the largest growth in any CD-ROM category. They now account for 12 percent of the multimedia market (see slide). If we are going to train our future students for the new world, where do we stand as responsible educators for the future generation? Are we ready for this challenge?
Creating one half day's worth of instruction can take three to four months and an average of $250,000. This seems to be a high cost, but in a continuing education context, if we take into consideration classroom space, travel, teachers' salaries, accommodation etc., multimedia proves cheaper over the long run. Besides, the students or practicing health professionals can study at their own pace, not the teacher's, they can interact with the courseware and take the course where and when they want it. Interactive multimedia training also makes it easy to include tests and quick feedback (as you are going to see in our documents) and its nonlinear aspect saves time for the learner. Students seem to remember more when they are actively involved in the learning process. It appears that a combination of text, sound, still and animated images makes a strong impression. If nothing else, people seem to enjoy multimedia presentations and pay more attention to the subject. We noticed this fact with our graduate class, on whom multimedia teaching has been used for the last two years. The word edutainment education-entertainment) has been coined to describe this new learning process. The students also seem to retain the information for a longer period of time because they are not passive in the learning process, as they are in the traditional classroom, but rather active and contributing to the process.

Up to now everybody in the field of education believed that we had to teach before starting, for example, a clinical procedure. The aim of performance support systems is to teach someone to do something as they are actually doing it. In a way this is similar to the new trend in the teaching in some Canadian medical schools, not the traditional way, but using what we call problem oriented teaching.

One also can see the role of multimedia training in continuing education in dentistry and medicine. In the future, with the development of networking facilities, this will prove to be true in teaching health professionals in remote areas of the country. Distance learning can slash travel costs, avoid duplication of resources and reduce the demand on specialized teachers. Whereas most distance learning consists of targeted TV broadcasts and videotapes, increasingly inexpensive teleconferencing systems including audio, still images, and videoconferencing- are providing new interactive tools to bring students and teachers together. Developments in the area of fiber optics are going to help make these changes faster.

We ought also to provide more computer training courses for freshmen classes in dental and medical schools, in order to make them computer literate. If we want to keep up with this technological revolution in dental and medical education of the next century, we have to establish the necessary infrastructure now and be ready for future developments.

During this presentation, several multimedia courseware developed at the Faculty of Dentistry of the University of Montreal will be shown. The documents are multiplatform (IBM and Macintosh), trilingual (English, French & Spanish), and all versions are on the same CD-ROM.

The different approaches, authoring systems and CD-ROM making tools used in the development of these multimedia titles will be shown. The advantages and disadvantages of each approach will be discussed. Different types of self assessments tests incorporated into the courseware will be analyzed and students' reactions will be discussed.

The titles to be shown are:
1/ An electronic encyclopedia of skeletal and dento-facial development. (A 500 Meg document on CD-ROM for the PC platform)

2/ The Masticatory Muscles (on CD-ROM for multiple platforms)

3/ Anatomy and Anesthesia of the Mandibular Nerve (on CD-ROM for multiple platforms)

4/ The Temporo-Mandibular Joint (Anatomy, Physiology, Pathology,
Imaging) (on CD-ROM for multiple platforms)

5/ Cancers of the Skin (on CD-ROM for multiple platforms)

The presentation will be made using both platforms.

Description of presentation

In the first part of the presentation, the benefits of using the new technologies in teaching dentistry are discussed. The emphasis will be put on training students and teachers in order to prepare them for this new approach. The advantages of the incorporation of multimedia documents in clinical training will be shown.

In the second part of the presentation, several multimedia-multiplatform documents in teaching basic sciences will be shown and their mode of development will be discussed at length. Different authoring systems will be compared as to their advantages and disadvantages.

Benefit in attending session

This session will be beneficial for teachers in Dentistry and/or Medicine, as well as for Faculty administrators, because we are going to discuss the need to build a curriculum for the next century. Based on our experience in our own school, the advantages of these new approaches vs. the traditional teaching methods will be discussed. People interested in the development of multimedia courseware will also learn from our past experiences. Some useful hints and advice will be given.
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