A case study in mainstreaming flexible learning in health - perspectives from the bush

Abstract

Our mission is to inculcate an ethos of online learning and communicating, moving it from the margins tomainstream. A skilled health workforce is crucial to better practices. Face-to-face teaching still dominates learningacross NSW Health, despite remarkable developments worldwide in using technology for learning. Health is slow toembrace this renaissance due partly to lack of exposure among educators and learners, and the fact of course thatlearning is not its core business. The three staff comprising New England Area Health Service (NEAHS) LearningServices extensively researched NEAHS staff attitudes to flexible learning (2001) and Information Technology skills(2003). Amalgamating these data, with that from the first ever across-NSW Health online course we ran (2002)determined the appropriateness of our decision to instigate an external web-based discussion facility, previously notavailable in health,for supporting learning and for communicating within NEAHS and indeed across Area HealthServices (AHS).