Faculty Showcase: Abe Solomon

The Potential Power of Audio PowerPoint Presentations

Medical Terminology and Medicine go together like a horse and carriage. You can’t have one without the other. Understanding the lingo of medicine is really a right of passage. When you understand the talk, you know that you can walk the walk. But the natural question is ‘What exactly is Medical Terminology’?

Medical Terminology in reality is a separate language. Unlike most other languages recognized by the United Nations, or evident in the polyglot  streets of New York. It is a language not learnt in childhood!. It would be a rare and unusual child that would be exposed to bed night stories using terms like  Alopecia ,  Prosthesis, or Facelift. I personally think stories of the Little Mermaid are more age appropriate!

Medical Terminology is a scientific language that uses essentially both Greek, and Latin roots to create an ever increasing array of new words,  that describe accurately the ever changing landscape of our biotechnical world. “Cloning and Stem Cell Research” are simply the latest fad terms that have technical implications to those who can go beyond the superficial to grasp the Microbiology. And what is Microbiology? In reality it is the Mini Me of Biology!

Medical Terminology often confuses patients, and gives the medical healthcare worker a way of communicating, with a level of precision, simply not possible in any other format. Medical Terminology  makes the viewing of “HOUSE” and “GREY’S ANATOMY” more medical, with most television viewers are simply awe struck by the mind numbing jargon. Inevitably the naïve uninitiated  ask: ‘What d’he say? ‘

The real challenge in teaching this online ‘language’ is to convey the ‘pronunciation’ of the terms, in a way that is both visually exciting and accurate! Meaningful learning also comes with repetition. My own personal motto is ‘he who does something 101 times knows it better than he who does it simply 100 times”!

Providing a Audio Power Point Presentation permits the student to ‘really’ grasp and learn the lingo. Proper preparation prevents poor performance, permitting our students to repeat the Audio Power Point Presentation, as often as they like, or need.

In reality everyone of FGCU courses have their  separate ‘lingo’. The proper pronunciation of technical terms works equally well in Engineering, Finance, and the study of Shakespeare.  So to paraphrase my old friend Shakespeare, the Audio Power Point lends our student an ear to their online learning experience! Anthony would have been proud to grab our ears to describe the dude from his hood,  Caesar.

This entire article has been produced as an online Audio Power Point, to clearly illustrate the potential Power of Audio Power Points.  Click here to view the demonstration.