BREAKOUT SESSION
Leading the Horse to Water: IT in Teaching Programmes at the Faculty of Medical Sciences, University of the West Indies
Andrew G. M. Pearson, Kushan S. Amarakoon, and Owen Morgan M.D., Dean, Faculty of Medical Sciences, University of the West Indies, Mona Campus, Jamaica, West Indies
ABSTRACT:
Information technology has been used in undergraduate teaching programmes at the Mona (Jamaica) Campus of the University of the West Indies since 1989. At that time the first teaching cluster of PCs established at the Mona Campus was used to run Case Notes in Biochemistry, an interactive programme involving the performance of examinations and tests in search of the diagnosis of some diseases, for groups of four first year medical students per machine.
New impetus to the use of IT in the Faculty's programmes came with the commissioning of a new cluster of workstations, which started operations in 1997. A number of interactive CD programmes were made available, and of course surfing the web was encouraged for information retrieval. It is the policy of the Mona Campus of the University of the West Indies to encourage the use of IT in its teaching and learning programmes wherever it may be beneficial, and expansion of the Campus LAN to include those sections of the Faculty not currently connected is underway. Having provided the water and led the horse to it, how can one now persuade it to drink?
This paper will discuss some of the problems already noted and others foreseen in the implementation of the IT policy, and options available to encourage the use of IT in the Faculty's programmes.
BENEFIT TO PARTICIPANTS ATTENDING SESSION:
Andrew G. M. Pearson
Biochemistry Section,
Department of Basic Medical Sciences,
University of the West Indies,
Mona, Kingston 7, Jamaica.
Phone: (876) 927 2290
Email: apearson@uwimona.edu.jm
CO-AUTHORS:
Owen Morgan, Dean, of Facutly of Medical Sciences
Kushan S. Amarakoon
Mona Information Technology Services,
University of the West Indies,
Mona, Kingston 7, Jamaica.
Phone: (876) 927 2290
Email: ksamarak@uwimona.edu.jm