Draper Elementary Podcast

I had such a delightful experience at Draper Elementary. I worked with Mrs. Valdez's student teacher, Miss Evans and her class in creating a podcast on sound. I brought in 30 headsets so that each student could have their own headset.


We talked about how students would record their script in GarageBand, add photos, jingles, zingers, and sound effects. Students practiced their part so that when they recorded their final version they could do their best.

We found that we needed more than one hour to do a podcast from start to finish because we wanted students to experience GarageBand, adding images, sound etc. We could have just recorded the podcast with an iPod and a microphone, but that would have just been getting the job done rather than have authentic learning going on.

Mrs. Valdez has a great group of students. They were fun, respectful, and very excited about learning something new.

Using Wikis with Radiology Residents

My sister, Susie Muir, MD, PhD, asked me to help her get a website up and running for UCLA radiology residents to share their cases online.

The residents don't have much time to spend on learning how to edit webpages, so we wanted a type of web page that was quick and easy to use. We decided to use a wiki--and over the last few weeks we developed The Pediatric Imaging Wiki.

We iChat quite often at night tossing ideas around, trying to refine the wiki and make the navigation easy to understand. During this process, we realized that a website is a living thing. It will change over time, and we must to listen to the ideas and concerns of the residents who are using the wiki so that we can improve and make it as accessible as possible. To this end, we created several video tutorials for the doctors to explain how they could start a case page, add the radiographic, MRI and/or CT images and how to add links to resources.

Things are coming along. Several very interesting cases have been uploaded. One med student was so excited about the wiki that she uploaded a case, learned to use a software program to create a movie of the MRI images she had taken, and listed some great resources.

Each Thursday my sister chooses a case of the week and presents an award to the doctor who has uploaded the most interesting or challenging case that week. The interest in the wiki is growing as more and more residents hear about it and want to participate.

It has been a really fun project on which to work. I am learning a lot about radiology in the process. My sister is a brainiac and funny as can be, so this project is not work, but fun.