Instructional Technology of Nursing - Essay Example

Instructional Technology of Nursing Introduction In modern days, technology has become a major factor in performance of organizations. In the education industry, technological strategies are rapidly evolving especially in the instructional delivery. In this study, we are going to confine ourselves to nursing/healthcare education. Most educational institutions have departments that carry out different tasks to achieve the greater goal of the institution. These departments often use different kinds of technology due to the different tasks carried out in each department. For example, we have admissions department dealing with registrations, finance department dealing with payments and so on. We will try to emphasize on the main departments of educational institutions like academics and examinations. The most widely used technology is the local intranet in universities and colleges followed by the web-based instruction system. These technologies have helped reduce learning costs to students as well as employment costs to the institution. It has also helped institutions to deliver more quality education to clients. Faculty use of technology in instructional delivery in nursing/healthcare programs Technology in education has been evolving radically. This ranges from small classrooms confined to face-to-face lectures, large classrooms with each student having headphones and a microphone to respond to the lecturer in front, lecture halls with each student having a computer (preferably a high speed internet laptop) installed with common software, headphones, web-cams and so on. These methods are highly preferred since they have a more personal appeal and interaction among the students and lecturers that necessitates effective learning. In the faculty of nursing/healthcare, programs are divided into three main parts i.e. management, theory and practice. The theoretical part can be tutored through online functions like online blackboard in the Monash University. Students take lecture notes and assignments from the online blackboard. They discuss the notes on a chat program. This creates a virtual classroom which necessitates more interaction between the students and the lecturers. Students normally attend classes while other s (distance learners) attends the online lessons. All the resources needed for each particular lecture is available in the black board. Since nursing and healthcare are living subjects, the learning resources keep on changing each and every day. Use of intranet-based instruction strategies help ease the art of syllabus revision. It also helps lecturers to serve a large number of students at a time without much effort. The theories used in treatment and prevention procedures are adapted to the learning systems in real time. Most educational institutions that offer nursing and healthcare courses are usually in conjunction with health institutions like hospitals and nursing homes. These institutions gradually undergo technological transformations as need and capacity increases. This in turn creates a need to include more updated studies to cover the changes. The changes are made simpler through the use of online libraries (databases) and lecture forums (web-conferencing). These resources are easy to update, share (1 copy for thousands of students), demonstrate and serve the students. Management in nursing is quite practical and needs more involvement than just web-conferencing. Nurses studying management normally combine lectures (theory) with practice. They train to use information management systems in their respective universities. They use the systems to record, manage data, generate reports, analyze statistics, plan projects, schedule activities, assess clinical practice among other uses. This helps them to understand the way nursing centers operate and face the real world challenges in their career (Krautscheid L. & Burton D. 2003). Practice in nursing usually applies the real technologies used in health institutions. Students visit nursing centers and observe the practice methods used by other qualified staff. They relate these practices to the theories learnt in class and challenge them. After doing internships in each department they write reports and take frequent exams to test their progress. The main technologies used in teaching these parts are information systems in the nursing centers, personal computers, web-conferencing and diagnostic machines. The students need to efficient in use of wireless communications, electronic clinical documentations, wireless patient monitoring systems, workflow management systems and electronic medication support machines. Most of the times, these software and machines are not available in learning institutions but are available in nursing homes and centers. Students normally learn these practices through constant usage in the institution and special introductory lessons to familiarize with the hospital situations (Rhoads J. & Turisco F. 2011). However, the most common practice and undisputed tool is the use of online libraries, online blackboard, chat features for consultations and web-conferencing. These are applicable for all theoretical work and graphical presentations. Educator technology skill requirements With the above mentioned technological applications in instructions delivery in nursing studies, the educators (lecturers and professors) should possess some basic skills in order to effectively provide their services efficiently. This covers two interactions areas (learner-content and learner-tutor). One of the basic skills they should have is the ability to make short, clear notes and post them on the institution website. They should also be able to address a virtual conference on a teleconferencing forum fluently and clearly. The clearer the lecturer is in his presentation, the more students will understand and the less the special consultations. The educators should also be able to program visual presentations 2D and 3D. This helps students to understand graphical presentations, machines and exterior designs of tools used in nursing and healthcare. This means that they have to be acquainted with skills in software like adobe, corel draw, Ms office, archiCAD, AutoCAD and so on. Professors have to learn how to program activities, to monitor, evaluate and assess the performance of their students. The lecturers and professors in nursing and healthcare studies cannot do the whole job by themselves. This means that they have to specialize in various subjects and outsource the others. It may be difficult for old and elderly professors to learn how to use newly invented machines so that they can teach their students. This means that they have to hire technicians to educate the students how to use medical machinery like automatic diagnostic machines and physiotherapy machines. Conclusion We can conclude that learning can be more efficient using modern technology since educational institutions can offer more services to more students with improved qualities and at lower costs. However, there are challenges facing modern technology instruction delivery technologies. These are loss of personal contacts with students, abuse of copyrights and so on. We can also recommend that educational institutions offering nursing and health studies to employ special staff to teach I.T and I.C.T in their institutions. This could help ease the burden on professors and doctors who teach theories in clinical practice and management. References Krautscheid L. & Burton D. (2003). Oregon Center for Nursing: technology in nursing education Oregon Education Based Technology Needs Assessment: expanding nursing education capacity retrieved from http://www.oregoncenterfornursing.org/documents/Tech_Assessment.pdf Rhoads J. & Turisco F. (2011). California Healthcare Foundation: equipped for efficiency: improving nursing care through technology retrieved from http://www.chcf.org/publications/2008/12/equipped-for-efficiency-improving-nursing- care-through-technology Read More