EdTech Cache: A database of interactive learning content for dental education and beyond

Abstract

Introduction:

There is a growing interest in educational innovations across higher education. However, instructors’ lack of knowledge, motivation, and concerns about increased workload hinder the implementation of such new offerings. Open educational resources can promote educational innovations. Yet, their availability and use in dental and dental hygiene education are minimal.

Project description:

A large set of interactive digital learning artefacts was created for dental and dental hygiene students by faculty at a Canadian university. This learning content is curated and archived in a freely available database, EdTech Cache; 46% of the content is focused on biochemistry, 28% on oral biology, and 23% on biomedical foundations.

Discussion:

Students can filter the database based on subject area and keywords to find learning activities to supplement their studies. Educators can also use EdTech Cache to create an interactive and engaging classroom experience.

Conclusion:

EdTech Cache can benefit students and educators across health sciences education.

PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS OF THIS RESEARCH.

• The availability and application of open educational resources (OER) in dental and dental hygiene education are minimal.

• EdTech Cache, a freely available database of interactive learning content, can benefit students and educators across health sciences education.

INTRODUCTION

The student population in higher educational institutions is currently predominated by the post-millennial generation, born between 1996 and 2012. ¹ This fast-paced, technology-native generation is interested in flexible, self-directed, and technology-infused learning.^1-3 To meet the needs of the new generation of students and the rapidly changing environment in higher education, many higher educational institutions worldwide are welcoming educational innovations ⁴ ; dental and medical schools are no different.

The term “educational innovation” encompasses anything new that instructors can integrate into their teaching to improve students’ learning experiences. ⁵ Although technology plays a crucial role, educational innovations involve much more than simply integrating information and communication technology in teaching. ⁴ Wong ⁶ categorizes teaching innovations into 2 groups: those heavily relying on advanced technologies and those not necessarily involving advanced technologies. Online learning, flipped classrooms, and simulations are categorized as technology-dependent educational innovations. In contrast, active learning and interdisciplinary collaboration between students are identified as non-technology-dependent educational innovations. ⁶ According to Roger’s Diffusion of Innovation model, ⁷ an educator must take sequential steps to adopt a teaching innovation, which include knowledge acquisition, persuasion, decision making, implementation, and confirmation. Educators’ lack of required knowledge, motivation, and concerns about increased workload have been identified as critical challenges to the implementation of educational innovations. ⁶

Educators need pedagogical support and collaborative environments to develop and practise teaching innovations.^8,9 Open educational resources (OER) can potentially change teaching and learning practices and drive such innovations.^10,11 OER are teaching and learning materials residing in a public domain, allowing no-cost access, use, adaptation, and redistribution by users. ¹² Despite the widely known benefits of OER for educators and students, reports on the development and use of OER in dental education are scarce ¹³ and dated ¹⁴ .

Interactive digital content created through the H5P platform can meet the demands of the next generation of students. Using this platform, educators can make 54 different types of creative and innovative digital learning materials for their students and make them available through the learning management system (LMS). Instead of a traditional lesson, educators can create interactive course presentations, videos or branching scenarios to provide students with interactive, self-directed learning opportunities and gamify their experiences. Educators can also make teaching and learning materials in the form of crosswords, scavenger hunts, interactive books or dialogue cards. ¹⁵ The positive impact of H5P-generated content is well documented. Interactive H5P content can promote self-directed^16,17 and self-paced learning, ¹⁸ knowledge acquisition, and student satisfaction^17,18 while being time-consuming for instructors to make ¹⁸ . Although some Canadian universities have a resource hub for H5P content, ¹⁹ this hub is not entirely open for public use and collaboration with other higher educational institutions.

In this context, the authors developed EdTech Cache by curating interactive digital learning content for dental and dental hygiene education. EdTech Cache can be accessed at edtechcache.com and is available worldwide at no cost.

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

The development of the EdTech Cache database involved the following steps.

Development of interactive digital learning content

The authors are faculty members of the Mike Petryk School of Dentistry at the University of Alberta, Canada. They developed a large number of H5P interactive learning materials for the students studying in the Doctor of Dental Surgery (DDS) and dental hygiene (DH) programs and posted the content in the LMS as supplementary learning materials. Lumi Education was used to develop the H5P content. ²⁰ For each item created, the .h5p file was downloaded and saved on a computer.

Content curation and chart development

For each H5P resource, a chart was developed, including information on the content type, subject area, key concept, learning outcomes, course, and program name where the content was or could be used. The citations for the information and images used to develop the content were also included in the chart.

Incorporation of the digital learning content into EdTech Cache

The sets of curated H5P content were incorporated into the EdTech Cache database. The user interface of the database was created on WordPress CMS (version 6.6.2), with PHP (version 8.2.16). CSS coding was used to create the template pages, and PHP was used to build the search and filter functions. Elementor and Elementor Pro plugins were installed to ensure the compatibility of the user interface across different devices. A secure sockets layer (SSL) certificate and other security plugins were installed to enhance the database security. A cloud service hosts the website content and ensures a seamless user experience. The database development steps are outlined in Figure 1A.

RESULTS

EdTech Cache is freely available worldwide at edtechcache.com. Currently, this database has the following key features.

Large collection of interactive learning content

EdTech Cache contains 90 interactive learning resources, including 40 drag-and-drop activities, 25 drag-the-word activities, 13 dialogue cards, 4 quizzes, 3 crosswords, 2 memory games, 2 fill-in-the-blanks, and 1 imagesequencing activity. The drag-and-drop activity enables students to drag and sort texts or items into their proper places in a given image. This activity was used to develop questions asking students to label images, sort items based on their structures and functions, or place events or steps in the correct order. Drag-the-word activities were used to develop matching-type questions where students can drag texts from a given set of words or phrases and place them in their proper position in a sentence. Dialogue cards are 2-sided flashcards, enabling students to hide and reveal questions and answers with a single click. Quizzes are made of sets of interactive questions. Traditional crosswords and memory games are designed to gamify students’ learning experiences. In the crosswords, the clues are related to educational material; in the memory games, the cards contain images from educational materials. Fill-in-theblank activities require students to write the missing word in a sentence. In image-sequencing activities, students must place a given set of images in the correct order in a short time.

In the EdTech Cache database, 46% of the content (n = 41) is focused on biochemistry, 28% on oral biology (n = 25), 23% on biomedical foundations (n = 21), and the rest on pediatric dentistry (3%, n = 3). The biochemistry content was designed for a second-year dental hygiene course concentrating on protein, DNA, cells, membrane, metabolic pathways, chemical structures, stereoisomerism, and thermodynamics. The oral biology content covers a wide range of topics, including anatomy, physiology, and development of tooth, bone, and face, mastication, oral microbiology, antibiotics, and antibiotic resistance. The interactive learning content on biomedical foundations aims to reinforce the students’ understanding of concepts such as cellular structure, membrane, DNA, protein, metabolic pathways, microbiology, bone physiology, and homeostasis. The concepts of genetics and epigenetics are covered under pediatric dentistry.

Figure 1.

(A) Steps in the development of EdTech Cache. (B) Screenshot of the EdTech Cache homepage. (C,D) The user interface is optimized to suit a variety of displays and devices.

An easy-to-navigate interface

EdTech Cache is designed as an interactive and easy-tonavigate platform for students and instructors (Figure 1B). The website is indexed in Google and Bing to enhance worldwide accessibility. The dynamic EdTech Cache is optimized to suit a variety of displays and devices (Figure 1C). By clicking on the “Browse the Database” tab on the header menu, the user can view the complete inventory of interactive content, with brief information on content type and subject area. Six resources are displayed per page distributed over 15 pages for comfortable viewing and navigation (Figure 2A). When a resource description is clicked, a detailed page opens where users can view more information on the item’s learning outcomes, key concepts, and source of information (Figure 2B).

Search and filtering options

Users can search EdTech Cache in 2 ways to find content that interests them: 1) by filters and 2) by keywords. Four built-in filters are available on the “Browse the Database” page, enabling users to filter the artefacts by content type, subject area, dental school program, and course name (Figure 3A). EdTech Cache also offers freetext search options for simple, quick searches. On the “Search the Database” page, users can type keywords in the search box to extract content related to that search term (Figures 3B, 3C).

DISCUSSION

Interactive learning content created through the H5P platform can allow students to learn, review, and reinforce concepts in a fun and engaging manner. Although the benefits of H5P learning content are well known, its widespread use in dental and medical education is yet to be achieved. The time commitment required to develop such learning content can be demotivating for many instructors. EdTech Cache aims to bridge this gap by offering a comprehensive collection of interactive learning content that can benefit both instructors and students.

EdTech Cache is freely available worldwide and can be an excellent resource for students wishing to supplement their didactic learning of basic science concepts. Students studying in the DDS and DH programs at the University of Alberta can filter the database by their program and/or course name. Students outside the University of Alberta can also benefit from this resource hub by filtering the database by subject areas or searching the database using keywords. Each artefact provides references for textbooks or source materials, encouraging interested students to learn more about the subject area.

Educators outside dental and dental hygiene education can use EdTech Cache as a readily available teaching toolbox to create interactive and engaging student experiences in their classrooms. Each H5P resource opens in a unique link that can be shared with students in class, posted in the LMS as a supplementary activity or incorporated into online courses to gamify students’ learning experiences. The H5P content included in EdTech Cache largely covers foundational-level sciences, such as biochemistry, genetics, anatomy, physiology, and microbiology, making the platform relevant across a wide range of scientific disciplines. Each artefact includes clearly defined learning outcomes and source of information, allowing instructors to use the free-text search feature of the database to find content that aligns with their specific teaching objectives. In addition, sources of images and information used to create the content are included, enabling and inspiring instructors to create similar innovative teaching materials.

EdTech Cache offers a comprehensive set of interactive H5P learning content focusing on basic science concepts taught and learned in many health and bioscience disciplines, allowing the artefacts to be used in different courses. For example, the concepts of cells, membranes, proteins, enzymes, and DNA are taught in multiple courses of the DDS and DH programs at the University of Alberta. This large and diverse collection of learning content can benefit students and educators beyond dental and medical education.

The authors acknowledge some limitations of EdTech Cache that will be addressed in the future. The content in the database is not uniformly distributed across disciplines—a reflection of current faculty expertise. There are few resources on oral microbiology, pediatric dentistry, and genetics, for example. The availability of content types in the current database is also limited. In the future, the authors will expand the collection by incorporating diverse types of H5P learning content. The functionality of the database will be monitored regularly, and the content will be updated on a yearly basis.

CONCLUSION

EdTech Cache is a platform that supports engaging, selfpaced learning. Educators can use EdTech Cache as a first step in practising teaching innovation in the classroom. This OER can help students and educators across many disciplines in health sciences education.

Figure 2.

(A) “Browse the Database” feature, presenting the interactive content, 6 items at a time, distributed over 15 pages. (B) When the user clicks on a content panel, a detailed page about that content, including learning outcomes, key concepts, and source, opens with a unique URL that can be shared with students and posted in the LMS.

Figure 3.

(A) EdTech Cache contains 4 search filters. Multiple filters can be selected and applied to make the result more specific. For example, specifying the content type as “crossword” and subject area as “biochemistry” only returns one result. (B,C) Students can search the database using any keywords. Typing “amino acid” in the search bar returned 7 results.

CONFLICTS OF INTEREST

The authors of this study have declared no conflict of interest.