Monday, August 01, 2016
Started putting my courses online
I've been running and teaching the Clinical Biomechanics Boot Camps for a long time and done lots over the years. The feed back continues to be great and it has altered how a lot of podiatrists practice. That is most gratifying for me personally as a teacher. The content of the Boot Camps is always evolving and moving forward as new information is continually being added and old information deleted. The framework or context of clinical practice changes and the content changes. It has now reached the stage that I was becoming a little concerned about the amount I was getting rid of and I was looking at different ways to make that older, but nevertheless good, useful and helpful, material available. I was also beginning to find it more tricky to meet all the requests for Boot Camps in each city every year and finding it tougher to be away so much from the family. The answer was to offer it as an online course with significant amounts of extended content, allowing me to go into much greater depth with the material rather than be restrained by the two days that I typically had for each course.
Over time, as a result of my engagement in debates and discussion on places like on Podiatry Arena; writing my different websites on critical thinking about the research underpinnings (Running Research Junkie and Its a Foot Captain, But Not as You Know It) directed me to more issues with critical thinking, logical fallacies and the way to translate research into clinical practice being included in the Clinical Biomechanics Boot Camps. It also guided me on (mis)adventures in social media outside my comfort zone, combating the nutters, pseudoscience, woo, quackery, science deniers and nonsense wherever and whenever it came up(ie vaccines, GMO's, chemtrails, medical advice on Facebook, and a whole lot more) and also to further comprehend the role that science plays not only in our own clinical practice, but also in being a good person of this world. Rather than add more of this to the Clinical Biomechanics Boot Camp content, I have spun that of into the course concerning how to Become a Skeptical and Critical Thinking Podiatrist. The content is entertaining, wide ranging and will make you a more rewarding clinician, thinker, end user of research and a better person of the world. This program is not what you would cover in a research methods program at podiatry school; but this is the program that I think should be the research methods that you do at podiatry school.
With time, more of the new material in the Clinical Biomechanics Boot Camps was emphasizing issues surrounding 'running' as that is where so much was changing that was having an influence on changes in clinical practice, even in non-running associated subjects. It was increasing as a proportion of the Boot Camps material and I was starting to get a little uneasy with just how much when not everyone was interested in it. So I have spun off the running shoe material and considerably expanded it into a very in-depth course on Becoming a Running Shoe Guru. You will be a go-to expert and authority at the end of that program.
Watch out for more details as it gets added.