The "Lifesaver" Case Study
This post is loosely related to the topic of Cognitive, Social, Affective Presence and Cultural Presence. Mostly, it is in regard to the "Cultural Presence" aspect.
This is a post that is a response to the "Lifesaver" instructional videos that were published in the UK to reach a wider audience of people and teach them tools to use lifesaving CPR and Abdominal Thrust maneuvers to help save lives.
These "Lifesaver" videos and tools can be viewed here.
This post is in response to the prompt:
"Some learning materials can really save lives. I think the Lifesaver interactive videos can save lives. Taking the perspective of the mainstream values of your home community, how acceptable –and hence useful- u think these videos (or just one of them) would be in informing this community on CPR? Why?"
Here is my response:
Personally, I found these videos to be really engaging and done in a very informative and learning-centered way, which is a new experience for me in relation to learning about CPR and abdominal thrust life saving maneuvers.
I think these videos pertain very well to the culture of people in the United States- mostly because there are enough similarities (i.e. language, presence of AED devices and the settings of the videos) that people in the US would be able to learn from and relate to the scenarios used in the videos.
I think the biggest cultural factor in the United States is that these situations either pan out one of two ways: the first way is that everyone in that scene or environment would want to be a hero. For example, in a subway station or in a parking garage, it is probably pretty rare that you will be the only one running to help the situation. In this instance, the result could be that there are too many people trying to help resulting in this help being counter-productive and people just getting in each other's way. A lot of people also just want to see what is happening, so this can be a suffocating situation in which the person needing assistance never really gets it or doesn't get proper assistance because people are too concerned about their own opportunity to be a hero for a day.
The way the situation could pan out- which is an increasing likelihood as the social situation worsens in some ways in the US- is this idea of "stranger danger" or the "by-stander effect" where people just don't think of others and don't take the time or effort to help someone out. I think that if a person who looked like someone in these videos were to collapse, people would probably try and help them, but if a person who was perceived to be homeless or who look or act in ways that are outside of the "societal norm", I highly doubt that anyone would stop to help them- even if they had the skills and knowledge to do so. Perhaps including in this videos scenarios which involved people of different socio-economic classes interacting then maybe that too would be helpful for people in the US. But considering all strangers to be dangerous and being frozen into inaction because you think someone else is most likely helping them, or literally not seeing someone in crisis because you can't see past their outward appearance are all reasons that someone in the US, even after having seen these videos, still might not stop and help.
However, I can and do see the usefulness of these videos- but I think that they need to be used in conjunction with something else- either an online teaching or, preferably, an in-person session where people can practice the skills these videos are intending to teach them. This brings in the Social, Cognitive and Teaching presence topics from the class this week I think. As I have already commented on another post- I think these videos are great with the cognitive presence but they are severely lacking in the social and teaching presence components- which are crucial to the learning of the student no matter what the subject matter.
If these videos were used as a preliminary introduction and then followed by a facilitated online learning session or a practical, skills-based in-person session, I think that the teaching and social presence components would be drawn in to complete the in-depth (and thereby more sustainable) learning process. When learning something as life-saving and important as CPR and abdominal thrusts, I think it is crucial that the students learn this absolutely and completely because if done wrong or done incorrectly, it could really impact/actually harm the person in the emergency.
But when it comes down to it, I do think these videos would be helpful, useful and applicable in the US and are absolutely better than having no knowledge or inaccurate knowledge on how to perform these functions.
Here is a screenshot of one of the videos presented in "Lifesaver"
