on the OTher hand

I am fairly new at this Diigo thing; it is so exciting to be learning all these new ventures in the world of technology, although when we are learning so many new applications it can be a bit overwhelming.  I have figured out how to sticky note and highlight information, I am still not too sure if the sticky note is the same as annotating.  As far as I am concerned to annotate is to summarize a work that has been read.  As I put together a sticky note I am almost like annotating a document.  Diigo is almost like my reminder list of what I thought of an article the first time I read it.  Sometimes if you read something without taking notes, by the time you go back to write a paper or take a test, all the information drains from your brain like a sieve.  Diigo helps avoid this common occurrence.  Unfortunately, I have not yet figured out how to transfer this information to my blog.

The blog I decided to annotate is ABC Therapeutics Occupational Therapy Weblog.  As I spoke of in the past this blogger has a persona very similar to mine.  He is talking about a topic that is my specialty, “sensory integration”.  I have worked with the autistic population for over ten years and parents requesting for sensory integration therapy was a common occurrence.  Unfortunately, some people believe that more is better, more sensory integration, more therapy, more behavior therapy, more OT, etc.  This is not always the case; parents sometimes need to realize that getting the right type of therapy at the right time is far more beneficial than many therapies which end up overwhelming the child, furthermore having no positive results.

Occupational Therapy-Educational Issues is a blog I decided to add to my pageflakes through the RSS feed.  This is a great link because it describes exactly what I will be encountering throughout the following two years during my educational experience as I become an OT.  Being a fairly new career in comparison to some others, occupational therapy most likely continues to have niches in their educational programs.  By being aware of current educational issues, I could deal with the dilemmas in a much smoother fashion, in result helping my future as an occupational therapy student.

To me, RSS feeds seem very similar to del.icio.us, for the simple reason that they are giving the user the opportunity to attach important websites to an on-line system.  Therefore the system can be retrieved from any computer anywhere, and does not rely on the person’s personal computer for access.  As a student this is a must have, many times students access school computers or friend computer to do their work, this way all work used can be accessed from wherever the student chooses to study.

More than anything the site I choose to feed is going to give me a little heads up on this particular OT’s difficulties and accomplishments during her educational career.  On top of using her blog as a direct reference, I will be adding more RSS feeds to my Pageplakes in order to expand my network.  By adding these feeds more and more bloggers will become aware of my blog an possibly tag it as an occupational therapy resource, even more importantly people may start commenting on my very interesting topics.

What an extraordinary night I had last night. I was exposed to a fascinating form of occupational therapy I didn’t know even existed. During the OT club meeting, a future OT and her therapy dog came in to talk about how animals are being introduced into the realm of occupational therapist. I was fascinated, but curious; how could an animal possible help an occupational therapist? What do they do and how do they help?

Animals in general have proven to reduce stress during high stress situations. In past years therapy dogs have been used to help hospital patients recover faster from illnesses. Now these dogs are used almost like a reward for the patient needing therapy. For instance a child with high functioning autism has terrible fine motor skills. The child then uses a special brush with the handle similar to that of a pencil, therefore the child can brush the dog but at the same time is strengthening their hand muscle which in turn improves fine motor skills.

This dog in particular is also being trained to be extremely social for the purpose of helping high functioning autistic children lacking social skills. The dog has been trained to raise his hand for a shake when someone says, “Nice to meet you Cooper” or “Hi Cooper”. He also is trained to roll around on the ground and spin in circles when someone says, “lets play”. He is also being taught to bow, speak (bark), and roll over. I was amazed at the progress that the student demonstrated with the children she has used the dog with during her therapy.

Some may be wherry of the possible allergy complication, fortunately the dogs being used come from a poodle breed, which apparently has hypoallergenic fur which never sheds. The dog must be groomed and shaved when hot weather approaches, keeping the alergy problems down to a minimum. For some reason poodles do not have the typical pet daner that is in other cats and dogs.

I really enjoyed this introduction to a new realm of therapy, apparently not only are dogs being used for occupational therapy but also horses and dolphins, I will be visiting those centers soon and keep you updated on the differences between different therapies.

I am trying to profile someone’s bookmarking and tagging skills on the www. On-line bookmarking seems to be a fairly new commodity, and occupational therapy is not one of the most popular topics around. After searching for several days I found that del.icio.us bookmarking network best fits the occupational therapy realm, for the fact that it is the site that contains the most amount of subscribers and taggers. It is also the site that contains the most amount of occupational therapy bookmarks, which is the most beneficial aspect for me. There are several sites that may offer more scientific publications but for the most part I am looking for informative sites that are not necessarily backed up by research, but more so by experienced OT’s. Del.icio.us on the other hand has many bookmarks, some casual others formal. Unfortunately, those regarding OT are many times, only tagged once by the average tagger. More so, they are tagged by a person as a topic of interest but not by a tagger strictly interested in occupational therapy.

I found UoSOT, this seems to be similar to what I am looking for. This person has tagged all occupational therapy topics. Some interesting tags are: assistive technology, brain injury, evidence-based-practice, and physiotherapy. Within the profession of occupational therapy these are all hot topics. Not only has this person found sites that interest occupational therapist, but they have also bookmarked hot sites for occupational therapist. As for OT, few sites have been bookmarked by more than a handful of people. UoSOT has found sites that are not only interesting but also quite popular within interested OT readers.

UoSOT has bookmarked approximately twenty-four different sites, all of which are occupational therapy based. Comments are not needed to define what the tag is in regards to, any occupational therapist would know what the topic is about simply by reading the title of the site or what she has tagged that site under. For instance the site www.ukabif.org.uk/ has no title but it is tagged under brain injury, therefore one assumes that this site talks about different occupational therapy aspects towards brain injury patients. Once again being that occupational therapy is not yet on the top list of popularity, there is no need to thoroughly categorize the tags. Maybe when one exceeds the one hundred tags, then it can be expected to organize tags into different groups. For now the setup of UoSOT is perfect of the typical occupational therapist looking for basic OT information and resources.

I came across UoSOT when searching for those who had tagged the American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA) website. I had already saved this site to my own del.icio.us account because of its excellent resources. AOTA contains information for students, consumers, educators and practitioners. It is a well rounded site with accessibility for membership, should one be interested. Previously I have found little information on occupational therapy blogging in the US, with the majority of blogs coming from England and New Zealand. By tagging this site to my blog I will be expanding my viewers by 100%. For instance, it has a page that allows for research in all the different specialties of OT. Another page is directed specifically toward student questions and comments.  By tagging AOTA to my blog not only will I be tagging onto a link that has most Occupational Therapist checking out at some point, but I will now have one of the most popular OT sites giving me ideas and additional words to tag onto my sight. 

Another great site that UoSOT has tagged is Jib-Connect Occupational Therapy. This is an excellent site I had not come across until seeing it on UoSOT. This is an online resource that provides information on effective and appropriate evidence based occupational therapy. I can greatly benefit from this site because it works like a question and answer type of page or one could directly research pending questions. This could also benefit the average reader of my blog, by answering simple questions that my blog may not address. More than for my readers, I find this site a benefit for my blogging practices.

I think that UoSOT in general has many tags that could interest any reader and even more so a reader interested in occupational therapy. This is going to be the perfect link to expand the visitors to my blog.  I hope that by tagging this sight to my new blog I will begin to receive comments and communication from OT’s around the world. The more people that comment on my blog, the more I can research occupational therapy topics. Let the true blogging begin!!!

Today I have discovered a new entity within the internet: social bookmarking! I have skewered through several different bookmarking networks and revealed the endless opportunities to del.icio.us. Here on this site I have found that the topic of Occupational Therapy is a lot more popular that previously presumed.

So what can del.icio.us do for me?  How will this site help my blog?  For those computer idiots like myself, tagging is a fascinating way of expanding my network and exposing my blog to the outer world.  By tagging different del.icio.us users to my blog, I am giving that person the opportunity to tag my blog to their site, and others that look at that person’s site will now be exposed to my site.  The possibilities are endless!

There are several different bookmarking sites, they all have a variety of interests.  I felt that del.icio.us met the needs for my Occupational Therapy blog.  Not only does it contain the most amount of OT bookmarks, a total of 761, but it also has the largest amount of current bookmarking users, again giving me the opportunity of and more users looking at my blog.  I see it as the more exposure, the better.     

I am beginning to like this internet frenzy. It is a bit scary to think of the power the internet has, but on the other hand it is amazing to realize the possibilities it has to offer. I am beginning to appreciate how this network is going to help me in many other ways.

At last an exhilarating blog with enthusiasm, invigorating articulation and a sharp tone of voice. Occupational Therapy Otago, http://occupationaltherapyotago.wordpress.com/ is a blog set up in Dunedin, New Zealand by an occupational therapist, Jackie, with over 20 years experience as a clinician and who has recently become an occupational therapy educator. This blogger has a great persona; her blogs keep the reader engaged one blog after the other. Each time more interested and curious to know what the next blog was going to talk about. Unfortunately, Jackie does not write in her blog often enough. Typically entries are inputted once a month, but the blogs posted are so exhilarating that once a month is enough to amuse the wide variety of interested viewers. From parents and patients themselves to occupational therapy students and clinicians, the blogger has intrigued many by her dedication to help others not only through therapy, but more so through her new focus education.  Jackie highly recommends the specialty seminars she has attended and of course encourages readers to continue reading her remarkable blogging practices. Not only is her information vital to all who are interested, but she is constantly requesting bloggers to comment on their point of view and opinions in regards to her blog posts.

For the most part, Jackie’s requests are aimed at students in OT programs who could benefit from her academic blog. The comments read are very positive and supportive of her writings. She tends to interest occupational therapy professionals more than other populations. In July 2007, Jackie titles her blog, “Asian Pacific Occupational Therapy Congress”, and defines the differences between typical educational settings for OT’s in China versus those of the UK and other parts of the world. Interestingly enough, China as a whole only has 40 yearly graduates of OT. This is absolutely incredible; a country with the population rising over one billion only having 40 graduates yearly is beyond imaginable. Jackie assumes this disproportion is due to the lack of educators within the field of OT in country of the China.

Every once and a while, parents or patients will comment asking for a professionals help, experience and ideas.  Her writing is dedicated towards those who at aware of her Occupational Therapy vocabulary.  Those who are not, will understand the blog but maybe question some of the words used in her writing structure.

The most attention-grabbing aspect of her blogs is the intriguing titles; without one, the blog would not attract the average reader. A few of her many interesting titles include: “Blogging for professional development – does it work?”, “Supervision as professional development”, “Therapeutic Use of Self”, “November …prospective occupational therapy students, marketing and reflecting”, “Why be an occupational therapist?” Each and every one of these blogs is dedicated to making the future occupational therapist a more career oriented, professional being, with new ideas and intellectual thoughts beyond the normal teachings of a text book. Sometimes as a professional, it is necessary to look outside the book in order to get a full spectrum of ideas and thoughts. Furthermore, activities like blogging or on-the-job experiences can be more beneficial than a typical text book reading.

Being that blogging is a fairly new entity in society, “Blogging for professional development-does it work?” is an appealing topic for someone looking to incorporate the web2.0 into their professional careers. Here, Jackie identifies four positive aspects she has encountered since the beginning of her blog. Not only has blogging made her more aware of other occupational therapy bloggers, but she has found blogging to be an ongoing learning process. I, along with 12 others who commented on her blog, identify with Jackie’s point of view. Blogging has recently opened up a new type of educational learning system for society. It has increased my confidence using the web and I am now more aware of other bloggers and their entries. Most interesting is looking for the blogger’s validity and updated news that is posted to their blog. This aspect of blogging is getting me to look up information posted on blogs and in turn educate myself through other forms of instruction that is not a typical OT class or text book.  The web2.0 is the newest form of self educating society for the benefit of everyone.