Proprietary Programs

I keep wanting to post and have a lot to comment on but have been sooo busy.  However, I feel that my post today must be on proprietary dental hygiene programs.  Why do I hate them with such vehemence?  I guess that it begins with the hegemonic hold that the ADA has over dental hygiene.  We do not regulate ourselves and so we must suffer with whatever the ADA cooks up.  This time they have decided that any Joe Blow dentist can open his/her own dental hygiene program anywhere at anytime.  This is disgusting, a hygienist can't open their own program, but a dentist, without any background in education can open a program and pack it with students (after all, it is all about making money).  These new business owners do not have any obligation to the dental hygiene profession.  My concerns of course are centered on quality clinicians, contributing professionals and the fact that graduating grossly huge numbers of dental hygienists does impact the workforce.

At a time when we are fighting for dental hygienists to gain more responsibility and increase the education level for entry into the profession, these strip front mall institutions serve to enforce a lower level of education and respect for the profession.  Our jobs and education are now analogous to nail technicians and beauticians who get their degree or certificate at a strip mall.  The existence of proprietary programs undermines and invalidates the degrees that we have worked so hard to get in the past and those that will be awarded in the future.

Batman took me down!

So, I showed up for class in the mask pictured above and the students laughed and thought that was my costume and then I took off my mask and was the Joker underneath. What a riot! I started to say threatening things and tell them that a hygienist created my scare when Carol Naylor (my team teacher) burst into the room as batman and saved the day. So funny! We had a great time.

Here are all the faculty with Stephanie pictured separate, we just couldn't get her to settle-down.  You know how those biker chicks are.

Below, I have a brief video of our new clinic manager, the new Gail (since Gail decided to retire).  He is just a tad different from Gail.  He is over 6 feet tall, has a very deep voice, is a Meso American (native indian from Mexico) and speaks 5 languages.  He is great!  You must listen to his message.

Last, but not least here is a picture or our fun loving students.  It is great to work with folks that enjoy having a good time and don't mind making a fool of themselves.

Oh My Word!

I have been sufficiently shamed about my quiescent blogging practices. I must admit that I am just not as interesting as my uberblogger peers (ie: Breanna, Michelle, the now defunct Planet Maria etc). However, if folks will read I will continue to post my inane commentaries.

There are a couple of things that I would like to comment on first:

1) NBC is back on iTunes!

This is an event of great significance for me. I usually watch all of my NBC shows at my leisure on my iPod, so I was greatly distressed that iTunes and NBC had a spat. I lost a year of 30Rock and The Office. Nowadays, however, I have been in heaven catching up on past episodes. So funny, last season was a good season for both shows. Life is good for those that participate in electronic escapism!

2) I no longer have any retirement and plan to die on the job!

So how scarry is the economy! I lost a lot of money in my investments during the dot com bust but now have lost the rest in this latest debacle. I feel like I should change my name to Joad and rent a handcart (maybe even start producing some breast milk, lol).

3) I am tired of Sarah Palin!

I don't need my politicians to dumb down their speech to connect with me, however, I do need the occasional wink, at least two times in a 1 hour speech.

4) I love the Applications Feature on my iPhone!

I was quite ambivalent on making the choice to buy an iPhone. I mean, I felt very traitorous to move away from the Blackberry, but once the decision was made the applications quickly won me over. Cool beans man!

5) I am still working on my dissertation and hope to graduate, hell or high water, next semester!

If I am still typing about my dissertation this time next year, just shoot me, because I will need to be put out of my misery. I tell you, this has been a tough process, really hard. I should have just gone to a diploma mill and paid out large sums for my degree. I am sooo over the shame of doing that and the disrespect that a PhD from Indiscriminant Obscure University.com would get me.

6) Breanna is pregnant and I just found out, plus Bryan is graduating!

I am happy for Breanna, but how did I become so disconnected that I missed her pregnancy post. She has posted about 5 times since her announcement post. Yikes! I have been remiss. Also, if Bryan is graduating (which is kudos to him) then my time to use them as a hotel in the big city is greatly diminishing! Yikes! This is about me, I have not time left and no money! Perhaps Bryan can do some post doc work, yea? What is that potential of that? Think of your western locked friends Bre and Bry, we are not ready for you to come how. However, if you do, we have a lot of posters to present in your living room, lol.

7) My son is growing up!

My son is so fun to be around and watch grow at this age. He is writing a novel that is quite creative and changes daily, he has gotten into movie making and has posted to YouTube and he just recently wrote a short story on why the super continent Pangea broke apart. Two words: toilets and groundhogs. The story is available upon request. It is fun to experience a stage with your child where they are actually fun to interact with on a more adult level, even though he is still 13.

8) AND, Crystal is pregnant!

Thanks for reading, I hope to post again soon.

Gloating

I read on the Weber website today that school was closed due to inclement weather.  Yikes!  I decided to take a picture from my hotel room window just to let you know what life if like for me right now.  Do you feel sorry for me?

Anyway, I am at the coolest conference in Long Beach, California.  I will blog about it next when I have a little more time.

Virtual Community of Dental Hygiene

Wow!  I checked my blog again today and am always stunned that there are graduates coming out of the woodwork.  Ashlee Reader Ward blogged me and I have now added her as a link.  She is living in Grenada now!  Holy smokes.  I wonder if she can do hygiene there.  Perhaps she will comment back.  I love that we have grads in many states.  Also, Natalie Lloyd let me know she has a blog and she is now on my links as well.

The funny thing is that a lot of you bloggers blow me away with your blogs, they are so technically sophisticated.  And...what about these amazing backgrounds and slide shows.  You have all eclipsed me with your talent.  I stand in awe.  Especially Natalie because she was sooooo resistant to the idea of blogging in the first place and now she is some uberblogger.  Ha ha.  We should have an uberblogger award for our dental hygiene community.  Of course, Breanna would have won the first award and then MaryAnn, then Crystal, the list goes on.

I keep trying to update and improve my website.  So please visit so that you can see the aggregated list of student bloggers.  They would be shocked and pleased to hear from you all!!  I LOVE that our community is growing and connected.  Yeah!  

Reading, Reading, Reading

It was fun over the Christmas break to have the time to follow-up on reading and topic paths that I wanted to further investigate.  I posted lately on the book "The World if Flat" which is a must read for the decade.  Well, after reading that I followed up with "The Shock Doctrine" which is pretty much the antithesis of the first book.  It was interested to read these books concomitantly because each text provided dramatically different viewpoints of the same world events and economic climates.  This left me with a million unanswered questions about right/wrong, capitalism/government intervention, globalization/isolationism, foreign policy/state of the union and who should be the next president of the United States.

I decided to read Alan Greenspan's "Age of Turbulence" to get some answers and another perspective.  While Greenspan's book is interesting, it did not provide the answers that I wanted.  I have even considered emailing Greenspan to have him clarify some issues.  I think that he tried to be too politically correct that it prevented him from getting to the meat of anything in the body of his book.  In any case, Greenspan kept mentioning Ayn Rand and her literary works and philosophies.  As a result, I turned to reading her most famous books starting with "The Fountainhead" and then her magnum opus "Atlas Shrugged."  Wow, never have a read a book that was so timely and relevant to the issues that our nation faces today.  I recommend reading both books if you have time.  In fact, I wonder what Ayn would say about John Edwards and Huckabee.  It is interesting to hear their platforms in light of the concern for socialization and government sponsored welfare that Ayn proports and for that matter Thomas Friedman in "The World is Flat."  So, while I still need to do some more historical research on clarifying some of the world economic events that I have concerns about, Ayn Rand has provided me with some much needed philosophical background to understand the issues presented in the most recent books I have read.  In addition, it as helped me to clarify what I am looking for in my next president.

I can't wait until I have another break from teaching and school, for now I am back to reading that which is necessary.  However, I am finishing up a fun book called "The Black Swan" which I am almost done with and will be my last read for awhile.

Blogging Getting a Favorable Response

I am excited to see that others are interested in my website and list of alumni bloggers.  I need to fix some links, (sorry Jamie).  I will do that soon.  My skills at website development and maintenance have gotten rusty.  I have to say that I am proud of Weber graduates because they are the smartest and most techno savvy ever!!!!  They are pretty much the coolest people that I know.

Globalization!?*__

Do you remember when you were a kid and your parents would say, "eat your food, there kids starving in India and China."  Well, Thomas Friedman, the author of "The World is Flat" would say to tell your kids, "eat your food so you can grow to be strong and healthy because there are kids in India and China who are starving to take your job when you grow older."  Yikes!

When I read "The World is Flat" I was stunned at just how quickly our world has become integrated, mainly due to cable fiber optics and globalization.  However, I just don't think I realize how much this change was going to directly effect me or my children.  I tell you what, go out and read this book and then plan a career path for your child that will make him "untouchable" and thus employable in the next decades to come.

I like that Mr. Friedman points out all the issues, pros and cons, of this new globalization because in most cases, we (Americans) have greatly benefitted.  However, with a workforce that is growing larger and smarter in other parts of the world, we have to redefine what we view of "value added" skill.  As you know now, many jobs and skills are being outsourced to India and China, as well as everywhere else on the globe.  This trend will only get bigger with more and more skills being considered doable outside of the United States.  At least we can sigh with relief that dental hygiene can never be done through an Internet cable.  Ha ha, but what about our kids.  They better not want to do entry or even midlevel accounting, financing, research, etc. because those tasks will be taken care of in developing countries while we sleep.  We must be creative in the future and define new roles and occupations for tomorrow.

My Website and List of Bloggers

I have to say that recently I toured a few blogs and was stunned to count up just how many of us dental hygienist's are blogging.  Our numbers are bigger than they were two years ago.  I have developed a way for the dental hygiene students to gain access to each others blog addresses, but that resource is password protected and registered hygienist's can't post on the student blogs.  This is a sad outcome, because I really value and so do the students the communication that the students get from registered hygienists.  Also, I needed to aggregate a way that I can link to all those who have a blog.  So, I decided to fire up my website again, faculty.weber.edu/khanson4,  to list all of the bloggers, you know who you are, so that we can all have a place to go to find each other.  Yeah!  

Actually, I don't have everyone's address and Melissa (not Leger) has become elitist and will not let just anyone read her blog.  I can guess the impetus for this move but do not know for sure (mystery).  Anyway, let me know if you do not want to be list on this aggregated list.  Moreover, let me know of anyone that you know of who is blogging that I have not listed.  Also, as soon as I get permission from the students at the beginning of next semester, I will add their urls as well.

Also, on my site I have listed current research projects, presentations and a "what's new" section.  The students and I have had fun with mashups and podcasting and now you can too.  How exciting!  However, the last two podcasts are still being edited so are not linked to the site yet.  Please check back.

I would like to make my website a place that has interesting and pertinent information.  Please give me any ideas that I need to include.  Be patient, I meant to have it published tonight but then I ran into a hyperlink situation and so my developed pages aren't linked and the template pages (that are written in greek) still are.  So, don't be confused.  By tomorrow or the next day, I will be done.

In addition, I would like to revisit the dental hygiene community of practice research dealing with online blogs.  Let me know if your interested.  This would be the continuation of the research that Melissa and Ashley helped me with that they presented on at the ADHA meeting.

The Lowdown on Mashups!

My students and I are investigating the educational use of "mashups" in dental hygiene. The use of podcasting and vlogcasting has become mainstream practice for educators to present students with classroom information. Conversely, students have started to create their own pod and vlogcasts for both personal and/or academic gains. With the creation of YouTube, students are able to post their created media to the web and get a variety of responses. As such, a new phenomenon has developed where people are utilizing the existing media available on YouTube and redeveloping it into something new or better than the original. This reworking of existing media has been dubbed a “mashup.” Our investigation into “mashups” has been centered on the ease at which they can be created, the potential gain in esoteric knowledge of mashup content and the educational benefits of student created mashups.

We have discovered that it is not so easy to use other people's videos on YouTube as we had assumed. As such, we have had to go to other websites that have less restrictions on the use of content. We discovered jumpcut which allows users to copy and grab the video of other members to edit. We created a very simple rudimentary dental hygiene mashup there and would like you to see it. Follow the link: brushing mashup. Tell us what you think!