Education evolution: PTC Dental

Committed to training dental lab professionals, PTC Dental offers a wide range of not only e-learning opportunities, but also books and hands-on courses. The digital side of the business includes online training courses focused on anatomy. These can be between 20 minutes and an hour, vary in price, and can garner a lab technician anywhere from 3 to 8 CE credits. The site, ptcdental.com, also features multimedia training modules that labs can buy. These include multimedia course materials with matching digital video demonstrations on DVD.

What made you decide that entering the realm of digital education was an important step?

It is a way to reach people worldwide with our training content. In the past we have offered only complete training systems. Our online CE content has allowed us to reach out to anyone and everyone in the dental field, from dental technicians to dental assistants.

In creating your digital offering, what were some of the primary needs you hoped to achieve?

Through our 30 years of training dental laboratory technicians we discovered that the common denominator behind low quality and consistency is not having a common understanding of the technical fundamentals, and among those fundamentals the most prominent is the understanding of anatomy and terminology.

What do you feel sets your online CE apart from others in the field?

There’s really nothing like it in the field. In particular, the constant review and correction until the student can demonstrate their understanding of the subject is key.

In your opinion, what are some of the benefits of online education versus traditional live courses?

It’s immediate. You don’t have to wait to get the physical product in hand.

It’s affordable. By paying only for that exact piece of knowledge that you wish to acquire, it’s available to anyone.

The computer is a patient tutor. It never makes you feel inadequate, and it is never grumpy or cross with you. When you don’t understand something, the program shows you the error, shows you the information that you missed or forgot, and gives you another chance at it.

With a human teacher a student can sometimes be embarrassed to ask for more help. If the class moves on before you’ve mastered the topic you may be left behind. With the computer, you can click a button to review any section before moving on.

What do you see as the next step in advancing the popularity of online CE?

More content, as well as the always improving capabilities of the hardware, which will allow for larger and clearer demonstrations.

As vendors in the dental industry continue to roll out online products the notion of online CE will become more and more normal. Right now we find that the majority of people who contact us about our online CE do not know how it works.

Where can our readers go to find more information about the education archived or upcoming on your site?

www.ptcdental.com/online