NEW TECHNOLOGIES IN MEDICAL EDUCATION: THE POTENTIAL OF VIDEO RESOURCES – YOUTUBE CHANNELING

Abstract

The recent researches showed that the multimedia content is a useful tool for the educational process, because it is dynamic, attractive and stimulates the students' engagement. The animations facilitate the learning of dynamic information and help the learners to understand better the changes in time. Last year we introduced the video presentations as teaching method during the practical stages at Medical Informatics and Biostatistics, Faculty of Dental Medicine, "Grigore T. Popa" University of Medicine and Pharmacy from Iasi, and, because the students' feedback was highly positive, this year we extended this method for all the stages, not only to solve certain practical problems, but also to explain theoretical concepts, from the biostatistical field. The videos were developed using Sony Vegas Movie Studio Platinum 14.0 and contain live demonstration, registered using CamStudio 2.7, with oral explanations recorded separately, static images and animations made in Microsoft PowerPoint. We intend to upload all these videos on YouTube, on a personal channel, because this resource has nowadays a huge popularity between youngers. The current paper presents a review regarding the efficacy of YouTube and other similar products in the educational process and shows the opinion of our students about this initiative. This information was obtained through an opinion survey among the students of our University. We used an anonymously questionnaire with 20 items and answers recorded on a five-level Likert scale of agreement; we used 3 samples of study in order to make comparisons: a sample of 75 students in the 1st year, Faculty of Dental Medicine (they had video presentations during the practical stages, being able to evaluate objectively the drawbacks and benefits), a sample of 90 students in the 1st year, Faculty of Medicine (they did not watch video presentations during the practical stages, but they know the concept) and a sample of 85 students in the 5th year, Faculty of Dental Medicine (they also did not watch video presentations during the practical stages, they know the concept and can make more mature evaluations, having a higher age).