Teaching
in the 21st century is such an exciting time! Regardless of the age of the student, the
type of education they are receiving or where the student is learning,
technology has pointedly transformed the traditional classroom style learning that
we all remember so well. Today’s teacher
has the ability to come out from behind the desk, step away from the chalkboard
and interact with students in ways that have long surpassed pointing out where
a country might be on a pull-down map or demonstrating how to utilize the card
catalog; and nursing school is no exception to this rule, in fact, nursing
school is the one place technology is now embraced.
With
statistics rising with regard to the rise in number of patients, as well as the
high number of nursing school applications versus the low number of available
placement slots, current technologies have afforded nursing programs worldwide
the ability to open up classrooms on a whole new level. Utilization of online courses, virtual
classrooms, and laboratory simulation are all examples of high level technology
that has been used to overhaul nursing programs over the last five to ten years. These big picture innovations, such as the simulation lab used by the Duke University nursing program, allow students opportunities that were
never even thought imaginable 15, 30 or 60 years ago, as well as provide
nursing instructors with the ability to provide active, out of the box clinical
instruction. Other, less invasive, yet
innovative technologies that have assisted in advancing nursing curricula include
audio-video tutorials, clickers in the classroom, smart-board technology, and webquest.
These
types of large and small scale interactive teaching/learning tools and
strategies continue to drive my desire to teach the technologically savvy 21st
century student, as well as peek my curiosity regarding what type of radical,
groundbreaking techniques we will begin utilize over the next five to ten
years. Much like the nurses of the late
19th and early 20th century, we are now the new aged pioneers
of nursing. Via high level utilization of the internet and other technologies
within our classrooms, laboratories and acute and post-acute patient care
settings, we are swiftly blazing a trail of highly interactive, new wave,
informatic and high-tech advances in nursing curriculum for future nurses and
nursing students.
The
video below provides an excellent overview of the advances we are making in
education and details the rapid growth in the utilization of technology in
education. With all of the technological
advances, I look very forward to what the future brings me as a professor and
the abundance of information and ways I can deliver information, provide
resources and interact with my students!
Shelly, anyone reading your blog (any teacher) would become excited along with you! I can see how much you are learning.
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