Wednesday, October 15, 2008

American Dental Association's New Online Community Makes Annual Session Learning Yearlong

ada365.org

The ADA's new online community: ADA365

The American Dental Association has announced a new online community to supplement dental learning throughout the year.

Attendees' continuing education doesn't have to end when they return home from San Antonio—they can make their ADA annual session learning experience a yearlong process by joining the new ADA365 online community.

Participants who registered for one or more of the community's 50 select continuing education courses can log on to ADA365.org Link opens in separate window. Pop-up Blocker may need to be disabled. after the annual session to create a personal online profile and upload a photo, network online with the colleagues they met in San Antonio, share additional papers and cases with peers, participate in online discussions about the course they attended, research ideas, procedures and products they experienced on-site and continue to augment their education throughout the year.

ADA365 will also serve as a resource for video lectures, additional readings and other supplemental course materials for selected courses, as made available by each individual speaker.

"We're very excited to introduce this new learning tool to the dental community," said Dr. Dennis Shinbori, 2008 chair of the Council on ADA Sessions. "Not only does ADA365 enable attendees of these courses to have a more valuable and thorough learning experience, it also functions as a powerful networking tool."

An interesting concept to supplement attendance and Flap cannot help but wonder when the ADA annual session will be a combination of live and virtual presentations. And, how will this affect the dental manufacturers and retailers who now fund the annual session by paying for exhibit space?

Flap sees more dental education on the internet and less non-virtual (the dentist actually attends) conventions in the very near future. Will the California Dental Association be the first to scale back their meetings?


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