I wonder if you like me have spent the weekend reading the news waiting for uni to be cancelled. Just in case I took my boys with me to uni and packed 4 bags full of everything I thought I would need to teach online.

I’ve been reading Twitter, getting ideas and trying hard not to get overstimulated – since this is pretty much me most of the time anyway. What I have learned from some of my valued international colleagues – Jesse Stommel @jessifer, Bonni Stachowiak @bonni208 and Jessamyn Neuhaus @GeekyPedagogy – is that connecting with students and checking in to see how they are going at this time is the most valuable thing. I have only recently gained an appreciation for accessibility and making sure all students can access everything. Sadly this is something we probably wrongly overlook in dentistry because people with obvious physical disabilities are often excluded. But I have been learning about simple things we can do – like using styles in our documents and ensuring we have a linked table of contents.

What I have also learned is that not everyone has equal access to the internet and this may be worse in the coming weeks. I have a hit and miss relationship with my weefee but we seem to have it sorted now. I have unlimited wireless at home but we dont live in a great access area. I have a prepaid modem that I use on the train because my phone is with Vodafone and it doesn’t get coverage on the Frankston line and of course I have the luxury of work.

So I am going to send you all a poll to ask you what access you have – the reason for this is that if you have good wifi or you can get to someone who does, we can run Google hangouts and Zoom lectures like normal if we are shutdown (when??? we are shutdown). I am preparing for a situation where reliable internet is not the norm. This is what I am thinking

BOH 1 – perio preclinic – I will be taking a lot of photos and linking to documents and YouTube clips that demonstrate debridement. You can all practice this then with you models and instruments at home. The students who don’t have instruments need to let me know – I will arrange for you to borrow some.

Intro to clinical practice – I am planning to make short power point presentations that link to open access resources or library resources. I will highlight the most important information and then we will meet in Padlet an online favourite program of mine. This should keep us engaged together and learning at the same time. We will be able to learn about and practice charting, we will learn all the main branches of dentistry and we can consolidate our initial oral examination material. And of course we can really get our teeth into PERIO! This will involve revising and upskilling our dental anatomy… so it is win win!

I only have a plan for 2 more Flipgrids for this part of the course but we might extend these as we learn to cope with #remotelearning – should it be thrust upon us. We can start the enquiry-based learning (EBL) tutorials sooner than planned and our infection control online resource is also nearly ready too.

BOH 2 perio – I will liaise with Prof Darby and we will provide his lectures + similarly to BOH 1 some key resources. We wont limit ourselves to BOH 2 material – this is a good time to continue to revise BOH 1 content so we can remind ourselves about periodontal anatomy and treatment planning. Your enquiry-based learning (EBL) tutorials can continue in Padlet. I can bring the Gero component forward (once I revamp the online course).

BOH 3 perio – well you all know I want to teach you more. I think I can develop a combination of the material above to continue your development in periodontics practice. I know you struggled with hypothes.is last year but I have a desire to try to push you to read articles well and interpret the data and then write about them – so perhaps we can all work together on forcing your research projects into an evidence-based space and hypothes.is might be part of this for some of you.

I think BOH 2 and 3 will benefit from collaborating in some of these spaces. I have brought home the Dental management for the compromised patient and General and oral pathology for the dental hygienist – thinking that we wont just limit these resources to perio…

I am also thinking that I could re-publish the pairings for clinical practice document with the BOH 1 names and generate some peer teaching and learning activities where we have BOH 3 students run online learning for BOH 1 and 2 students.

I will use Quizlet and Flipgrid during this time and am experimenting with storing all links that I read or visit in a Wakelet – and you can all contribute too.

This blog site is another great way that we can continue to learn as  community. We can all look back over blogs and ask each other questions – like sandwich techniques for restorations and the rules around polishing or recontouring amalgams, to the detection and referral for cysts. I also have some good cases to share in this space.

So I think we will be ok in perio and provided the School – which it will – has a contingency that allows everyone to catch up on their clinical practice skills, I don’t think you have to worry about theory.

I am excited about this opportunity. I still have a lot of ordinary work to catch up on – like giving BOH 1 all of their assessment task briefs and marking criteria, fixing BOH 1 Sonia and getting all of my BOH 3 research project ethics submitted ASAP. But there will be time and we will cope – because we have to.

You will have to be committed and I will set times where I expect you to be online. There will be a lot of self-directed learning in the next few weeks and this is a great skill to master.

I would love to know what you think and what you would like to happen should Uni be shut down (given holidays aren’t an option). Please comment and let me know.