Polling and texting

When I took the poll, my initial reaction and response to cellphones in teaching was "not likely at all".

Currently, I do give my cell phone # to students so they may contact me. In nursing we attend "clinicals" in hospitals, and since these sites are off campus students need to reach me if there is a problem. Normally they are quite surprised when I tell them to text me- they say "You text?"

I think part of my initial 'no' response was due to the amount of time I have spent trying to get students off of their smart phones in class. But the more I think about it, allowing their use in class in this manner may actually decrease their personal usage.

As far as this assignment, I have now changed my response to "very likely". I do see the value in polling with students whether it be via a smart phone or other method. I have used clickers in a f2f class and texting can equate to those.

Polls/texting lets you know what the students are thinking right now. They can bring interactivity into the classroom.They can also increase participation, encourage risk taking with anonymous responses, and grab students attention with thought provoking opening questions.

Nursing related blogs

Pediatric nursing news offered within nurse.com offers headlines from the world of pediatrics. It offers the latest techniques and tips associated with caring for younger patients. Within nurse.com students can create an account to view nurse.com boards giving them  access to view discussions and other features. By joining the community, the student can post topics, respond to poll,s and upload content.

http://forums.nurse.com/blog.php?CFID=90825106&CFTOKEN=30735364

Organizing Resources...

 

Diigo gives students the opportunity to learn in a safe collaborative environment. Saved sites can be tagged for easy searching, organized into lists, or presented as a slideshow. Another nice option is that Diigo bookmarks can be public, or private, and there are many options for sharing with individuals or groups. Also, Diigo can be used to work on project based  learning tasks. Teachers can share annotated bookmarks to research a given topic.

http://www.diigo.com/user/svalenti?type=all

Tweet tweet

http://twitter.com/ 

Twitter can be used in education as a tool that facilitates communication and collaboration. Twitter can also meet instructional needs, and I image no matter what your pedagogy, you could find a way for using Twitter. But personally, I would prefer to keep it as a "social site". Technology lets us communicate in the moment, but there are so many methods of communication. I am accounted out! Personal email, work email,student email,dept number, office number, home number, cell number, personal Twitter, work Twitter, student Twitter.... Also , on the flip side from a studnet's perspective, I don't think my students would like me following them. I think there needs to be a separation of communication because there are just too many methods.

Blogging in Nursing Education

Incorporating blogging into part of the educational experience I provide students can be beneficial in several ways.  The use of a blog would be a great discussion tool.  A blog as a discussion tool versus the discussion boards on learning sites such as Blackboard might be more technologically familiar to current students as well as easier to use.  It seems to me, in the short time I have been exploring the blog I created, that the discussion would also be easier to view and all content would be in one location without having to click several links. Also, with blogs, pictures and videos can be posted, making the discussion more interactive.  Blogging can incorporate a variety of learning styles because of the array of content that can be posted in one place.  Also, I think I would be able to use blogs in the clinical setting, allowing students to journal about their experiences as well as share their stories and frustrations. 

Wow.. my first blog

I created this blog for my Technology Tools online class.  This is something that is entirely new for me and should hopefully be a great learning experiences.