Learn Something New



Pre- Outlook or Google Calendars!

I was talking to someone at work the other day about changes with technology and he made the comment that you get to a point in your life where you stop learning anything new because a) you can’t and b) you don’t want to. I understand what he meant. My predecessor in this job never moved beyond VHS and transparencies. He kept everything in paper format, including his work calendar, which was hand-drawn on an artist’s sketch book in one hour increments.

I have worked with men and women of various generations and I do agree that learning happens much differently as you age. We all tend to find the things that work for us at a certain point in time, and then just stick with what works. This even happens to people working in IT fields, especially if you’re in a reactionary mode. You go with what you know has worked in the past especially when you don't have time to research future directions. But regardless of age or circumstance, isn’t it always our responsibility to keep pushing ourselves to learn more?

One thing I’ve enjoyed about moving to a new position is I’ve had more time to expand my skills. Here are some of the new things I’ve been working on:

• Learned how to use an internet fax program, GotFreeFax.com. This is one of those things that is so easy I’m ashamed to admit I never tried it sooner. Here is an article about 5 Free Resources for Internet Faxing.
• Bought a used Dell GX 620 and flat-screen monitor and installed Windows 7. In the process, I learned the difference between 64-bit and 32-bit processors (which you should know in order to buy the correct operating system for your computer).
• Researched Windows 7 and related topics through the wonderful guides available at www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads
• Created Adobe Acrobat PDF forms and web-based forms to transition paper-based department processes to a digital format.
• Learned that if you use PowerPoint 98 or earlier on a Mac, your graphics will not show up on a later version of PowerPoint and here is the fix:
  http://aricsblog.blogspot.com/2008/12/quicktime-and-decompressor-are-needed.html
  I made a faculty member very happy when I figured this out just in time for his lecture to begin!
• How to draw customized curved arrows in PowerPoint for a large poster and how to make large format posters in PowerPoint for faculty research.

I hope that I continue to evolve and fight that complacency that creeps up on us a times, telling us we either can’t or won’t learn something new. For now, I’m going to try and learn something new every day.

Patent Foramen Ovale & Fetal Circulation

When my mom was in the hospital for four months, after having a stroke, I kept hearing doctors say things about the reasons for my mom’s stroke—things like, “she has a PFO.” I had no idea what this term meant, but I later found out that PFO stands for “patent foramen ovale.” It’s a hole between the right and left atrium in the heart, which allows blood to bypass the lungs during fetal development. The foramen ovale is supposed to close on its own at birth, when the baby begins to breathe on her own, but in 20% of the population, the hole never closes, resulting in a patent foramen ovale. Tests show that, like my mother, I also have a PFO. There is no treatment and usually no symptoms, although doctors suspect that a PFO can allow blood to pool and form clots, and therefore increase the risk of stroke.

Our method of studying this in A&P involved text and a couple heart models in lab (our class is pretty much devoid of technology), but as I suspected, a search of “fetal circulation” on YouTube reveals many creative approaches to understanding fetal circulation and the changes that occur at birth. The following YouTube clips show fetal circulation in a creative and interesting way. I think it also says a lot for how audio and images can be paired with text to demonstrate complex concepts in ways that are easy to understand. These are relatively simple projects that involve still images and audio. It’s exciting to see that some educators are taking advantage of technology-based assignments that students will enjoy much more than sitting idly in a lab and identifying numbers on plastic models. These projects would also help students learn about processes and how different parts of anatomy are related, rather than just focusing on identification and rote memorization.