Creative Interactive Use of Technology in the Classroom

Nursing educators are challenged to provide high quality education for their students. They must reflect on their teaching methods and continue to improve the educational environment in order to achieve the best teaching outcome. One approach is to incorporate creative teaching strategies such as using technology to engage students and encourage them to participate to improve their learning experience. Technology has transformed nursing education and that required nursing educators to consider incorporating technology into traditional nursing classrooms as a mechanism to enhance students’ learning. When technology is used in teaching-learning strategies that would stimulate students’ critical thinking, facilitate students’ interaction, and promote student participation in the classroom, which allow students to be active learners. Technology enables nursing educators to create an environment of active, authentic, applied, experiential learning.

To be an effective nurse educator in the age of technology, I have to take advantage of the available technological resources to transform traditional teaching-learning strategies to be technological enhanced teaching-learning strategies. This will create the appropriate environment that encourage nursing students to actively participate in authentic assignments and be fully engaged in deep learning. In addition, most of technology-enhanced learning strategies and activities make nursing students use all their senses as well as their critical thinking skills. Also technology help nursing educators to connect the knowledge learned in classroom with the practicum and clinical, which I believe is essential to bridge the theory-practice gap and stimulate the students’ applied learning.

One of the method that could change the students’ learning experience in the classroom is serious games. This tool help the nursing educator to use simulation in classroom with no need to move to the a simulation lab. The technology of serious games promotes students’ learning using all their senses and stimulates students’ critical thinking. Also, since students can play these serious games using any web browser anywhere, that will motivate students to spend more time on tasks in order to mastering the skills. This tool will let nursing students practice in fear-free, harm-free environment to be prepared to work as professional nurses. The Serious Games Association website includes online resources that make using serious games in teaching more accessible for educators.   

Technology has changed many things in education. For sure things changed to be better. Technology facilitates teaching and learning which improved educators' and students' experiences. Technology enable educators to provide feedback to their students easier and faster. In the age of technology, the educator does not need to wait until her/his class time to meet with the students to provide them feedback on a submitted assignment. The educator can use different tools such as e-mail, Skype, or Voki to share their written and audio- visual comments.

An example of the successful use of technology in higher education is The University of Toledo which applied the technology of Echo360 Active Learning to improve the learning experience and lead students to success. Echo360 Active Learning is a technology that aims to change the education through blended learning solutions which designed to strengthen teaching-learning methods, promote student-teacher interaction, and improve student learning outcomes.

The Role of Nursing Educator in the 21st Century Age of Technology

In recent years, technology has merged with education to enhance the health care system. The role of nursing educator in the age of technology has changed. Nursing educators’ role is to facilitate, mentor, guide, and advice students during their learning experience. In the age of technology, nursing educators must encourage the students to be active learners who think critically and participate in deep learning. The focus of learning is shifted from teacher-centered to student-centered. The class time must be used efficiently by engaging students in learning activities to stimulate their active learning. I believe that some of the content required lecturing, yet that does not mean following traditional teaching style. For instance, the idea of flipped classroom can be used when the educator want to introduce new information to the students and when the educator sees that a lecture is required. Here is a link to an interested webpage about flipped classroom.

Flipped Classroom

The nursing classroom in the age of technology includes an educator who is using technology properly to enhance the students’ learning experience and prepare students to be ready to challenge themselves and use technology in order to maximize their benefit of attending that class. Each technology method must be used in a reasonable way to let the students focus on their main goal and objectives. The nursing educators who are able to teach in a technology friendly environment are inspiring their students to be competent in using technology in their professional role as nurses. There are many resources that the educator and the nursing students can use to get the benefit of technology. One of these resources is this webpage which is about the Gorge Washington University School of Nursing’s Teaching and Transforming through Technology (T3) Program. This program is designed to improve the quality of nursing education through the integration of technology-based and online teaching strategies.   

Teaching & Transforming through Technology Program

I envision a technological enhanced nursing classroom to be an educational setting where the educator is utilizing technology to engage students. This picture illustrates how do I envision nursing classroom in the age of technology.