The Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose, California, has named Open Education Consortium member OPENPediatrics as a 2015 Tech Awards Laureate. The Tech Awards are given out annually to recognize projects that address globally significant problems through innovative uses of technology. OPENPediatrics joins a group of educational innovators that includes prior laureates Sal Khan of Khan Academy and OEC member MIT OpenCourseWare.
A free online community of pediatric clinicians sharing best practices, OPENPediatrics has drawn inspiration from the open educational resources movement, massive open online courses (MOOCs), social media and massive multiplayer online games to apply emerging technologies to the challenge of improving child health and reducing child mortality worldwide.
OPENPediatrics combines resources including videos, medical calculators, and advanced simulators; interactive groups supporting threaded discussion, document exchange and video chat; and structured learning opportunities. OPENPediatrics is currently used in 127 countries and 881 hospitals worldwide. Since exiting the beta testing phase in April 2014, OPENPediatrics has seen its community increase more than 300% to include over 6,100 clinicians worldwide.
Many of OPENPediatrics’ resources can be accessed on their public site, and clinicians may complete a free registration on their clinician community site to view all of OPENPediatrics’ resources, access collaboration tools, and to join the global community.
Highlights of OPENPediatrics’ content include:
- A virtual ventilator, an interactive mechanical ventilation training tool.
- A recently released Nursing Cardiac Intensive Care Unit guided learning pathway, including 36 videos and associated assessments, available on the clinician community site.
- The World Shared Practice Forum series, videos that feature world experts on the forefront of pediatric care, structured to foster global asynchronous discussion.
- A public multimedia library of animations and illustrations drawn from OPENPediatrics’ videos, openly licensed and available for free download.
The Tech Awards recognize projects and individuals in five categories—Environment, Education, Young Innovator, Health and Economic Development —with two laureates per category named. OPENPediatrics will receive the award at the 2015 Tech Awards Gala, Thursday, November 12, 2015, where annually over 1,200 innovators in the technology industry gather to celebrate the power of technology to address global challenges and benefit humanity.