This week marks the end of the quarter and the culmination of the course. The purpose of this week’s blog is to tie the web 2.0 learning from the quarter to the Core Competencies of Nurse Educators I have been flagging each week. Looking back at all my posts, I see that all of the competencies were addressed at least once over the quarter. Three of the competencies were addressed in at least 8 of the 9 weeks: competencies 1, 2, and 5. Therefore, this meta-reflection will focus on these 3 competencies and how they have been integrated with the learning throughout the course EDTC 6535: Issues and Advances in Educational Technology.
Competency 1: Facilitate Learning: Nurse Educators are responsible for creating an environment in classroom, laboratory, and clinical settings that facilitates student learning and the achievement of desired cognitive, affective, and psychomotor outcomes. Some tasks included with this competency:
- Uses information technologies skillfully to support the teaching-learning process
- Models critical and reflective thinking
- Engages in self-reflection and continued learning to improve teaching practices that facilitate learning
- Implements a variety of teaching strategies appropriate to learner needs, desired learner outcomes, content, and context
Well, I’m not sure I can consider myself a “skillful” user of education technology, but I certainly have improved my skill set and been exposed to a whole new world of technology this quarter. To begin with, I had not even heard of web 2.0, and had a lot to learn. So many of the web 2.0 technologies we discussed this quarter can be beneficial to nursing education and create an environment that facilitates learning. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, nursing education tends to be mired in the traditional teacher driven, content centered 1.0 pedagogy. Effecting change in nursing education to encourage the utilization of web 2.0 technologies is requiring a paradigm shift. There are important things to keep in mind along the way. For example, a concept I will attempt to model in my practice is that we must use technology in pedagogically sound ways and not just use technology for technologies sake. Web 2.0 technologies have the capabilities to augment traditional educational practices and make them even better.
An example of this is the blog. The literature indicates that there is value in reflective journaling for undergraduate nursing students; however, there is evidence that educators struggle to incorporate reflective processes into education (Epp, 2008). Introducing the blog as a reflective journaling tool can be an excellent educational practice because the medium promotes self-directed versus teacher-directed learning, encourages self-reflection as a model of social experience and self-identity, and enriches the process of learning (Maag, 2005). I have personally utilized a blog this quarter to engage in self reflection and continued learning to improve teaching practices that will facilitate learning.
Web 2.0 technologies offer an opportunity for nurse educators to implement a variety of learner appropriate teaching strategies. Used appropriately, web 2.0 tools can be used to create personal learning environments and learning networks within a learner-centric paradigm (Cobb, 2008). Web 2.0 technologies lend themselves well to the 21st Century Education Skills required for success in an “increasingly diverse, globalized, and complex media-saturated society” (21st Century Schools, nd). See week four’s blog for lots of information on 21st Century skills and let it suffice here to note that these skills include critical thinking. Week five of the course was devoted to critical thinking and the blog for week 5 offers some good resources to enhance the critical thinking skills that are so important to facilitate effective communication in nursing education. Critical thinking affects all forms of communication: speaking, listening, reading, and writing, and web 2.0 technologies can enhance communication through blogs, podcasts, videos, wikis, and social networking. However, students need a “balanced media diet” in order to develop a variety of skills. Research indicates that learners have changed as a result of exposure to technology; reading for pleasure, which has declined among young people in recent decades, enhances thinking and engages the imagination in a way that visual media such as video games and television do not (Wolpert, 2009). Yes, it’s all about balance.
Competency 2: Facilitate Learner Development & Socialization to the Nursing Role. The nurse educator:
- Provides resources to diverse learners that help meet their individual learning needs
- Creates learning environments that are focused on socialization to the role of the nurse and facilitate learners’ self-reflection and personal goal setting.
The web 2.0 technologies discussed this quarter can be used to address the needs of diverse learners. Audio learners can be engaged through podcasting, visual learners through video-on-demand and other visual media, and kinesthetic through virtual worlds such as Second Life. Diploma Guide.com offers 30 of the best web based educational tools for auditory, visual, and kinesthetic learners.
Nursing is a practice discipline and profession, and as such, students must be socialized to the role. Social networking offers students the opportunity to build personal learning environments using an aggregation of social media applications. Virtual world technology, such as Second Life, allows students to practice working in the nursing environment, getting comfortable with their new identity. Nursing is a collaborative profession and technologies such as social networking sites and wikis offer students opportunities to collaborate with each other and with other nurses. This nursing wiki is a great example of collaborative learning that targets diverse learners and incorporates cultural components. The original wiki is in German and can be translated into several languages.
Competency 5: Function as a Change Agent and Leader. The nurse educator:
- Promotes innovative practices in educational environments
Innovation was so important to this course, that it was the focus of two different weeks; four and nine. Having the opportunity to take this class and be exposed to the current issues and advances in educational technology infers a responsibility to advocate for innovative practices in my future practice. Dr. Barrett’s focus on eportfolios inspired me to build a website devoted to resources for nursing portfolios as a project for this course. Portfolios are widely used throughout undergraduate and graduate nursing programs to document work and evaluate progress. My graduate program at SPU requires a portfolio that must be updated and kept current each quarter. Using this bPortfolio blog and building the nursing portfolios website convinced me that eportfolios are far superior to hard-copy versions. Eportfolios are easy to manage and update, environmentally friendly, and simple to share. I intend to expand my nursing portfolio website to be useful to all levels of nurses and nursing students for my capstone project. My mission is to convince the SPU nursing faculty to switch to an online portfolio format for all nursing students. This project will allow me to function as a change agent while sharing the technology knowledge I learned this quarter.
References
Cobb, Jeff. (2008). Learning 2.0 for associations. Retrieved October 1, 2009 from http://www.tagoras.com/docs/Learning_20_for_Associations_v1.pdf
Epp, S. (2008). The value of reflective journaling in undergraduate nursing education: A literature review. International Journal of Nursing Studies, 45(9), 1379-1388. Retrieved October 10, 2009, from http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0020748908000266
Maag, M. (2005). The potential use of blogs in nursing education . Medscape Nurses. Retrieved October 10, 2009, from http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/498947
National League for Nursing. (2005). Core competencies of nurse educators with task statements. Retrieved October 4, 2009, from http://www.nln.org/facultydevelopment/pdf/corecompetencies.pdf
21st Century Schools (nd). What is 21st Century Education? Possibilities for 21st century education. Retrieved October 25, 2009, from http://www.21stcenturyschools.com/What_is_21st_Century_Education.htm
Wolpert, S. (2009). Is technology producing a decline in critical thinking and analysis? UCLA Newsroom. Retrieved from http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/is-technology-producing-a-decline-79127.aspx